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+ | {{Tabber/Story|More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps|next=Tune in Tomorrow}}"'''The Haunted Guitar'''" was the first out of ten short stories featured in the book ''[[More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps]]''. |
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==Plot== |
==Plot== |
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| + | The notoriously lazy Jeffrey is walking home with his friend, Beth, after his mother asks him to pick up a package. Along the way, he spots the remnants of a music store, which seems to have just suffered a severe fire. The two enter and discover nearly every instrument has been destroyed by the flames. Beth urges him to leave, as the building is creepy and hard to breathe in. Jeffrey ignores her pleas, and spots in the corner of his eye a guitar, which appears to be the only instrument left intact. Jeffrey decides to take the instrument home, despite Beth's protests that he's stealing. |
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| − | The story stars a very lazy boy, Jeffrey. Very lazy to the point he once tried to weed the lawn using a vaccum cleaner instead of proper tools. One day, he and his friend, Beth, come across a music store that recently caught fire about ten minutes prior to them walking near it. They walk in through the ashes to steal one of the guitars that was left in suitable condition. |
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| + | Later that night, Jeffrey wakes up to the soft sound of guitar music. Searching for the source, he is horrified to see the figure of a man playing it in his room. The man tells Jeffrey that he took his guitar, and introduces himself as Memphis Willy, a [[wikipedia:Blues|Blues]] musician, or rather, his ghost. He offers to teach Jeffrey how to play the Blues, and, as one known to always take shortcuts, Jeffrey accepts the ghost's mentorship. |
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| − | The reason being that Jeffrey's father is also very lazy and he has yet to fulfill the promise to buy Jeffrey a guitar. So, he thinks its perfectly fine to just come by and steal an old one anyway. Though the fact it wasn't damaged in the wild fire does not seem to don on him... |
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| + | Jeffrey begins practicing, but soon finds he's unable to stop playing. He urges Willy to stop, but the ghost tells Jeffrey that he loves the music too much to stop. With Jeffrey as his partner, he can keep playing the Blues forever. As Jeffrey tries to stop the music, his father walks in. He tells Jeffrey that his music sounds great, and pleads him to keep playing. |
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| − | He takes it home and wakes that night to the sight of an old black man inside his room! The man is playing the guitar and explains that he's the ghost of an old blues musician named Memphis Willy. Willy explains that he can't ever stop playing the guitar and wonders if Jeffrey would like to learn how to play the blues. |
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| + | ==Trivia== |
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| − | Jeffrey agrees and Memphis Willy starts to teach him how to play. Guiding the young boys fingers across each guitar string until he agrees to be Memphis Willy's terrestrial partner. But when Jeffrey tries to stop playing, he learns that no one leaves the stage of the living without playing the blues... for life. |
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| + | *Jeffrey finding the guitar in a burned down music store is similar to a scene in ''[[The Blob That Ate Everyone]]'', where protagonist, [[Zackie Beauchamp|Zackie]], finds an old typewriter inside an antique shop that had also recently burned down. |
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| + | *This story was possibly inspired by the legend of [[Wikipedia:Robert Johnson|Robert Johnson]], a blues musician who supposedly sold his soul to the devil in order to master the blues. |
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| + | {{TTGYGoosebumps}} |
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| − | Jeffrey can't stop his fingers from playing the blues and his fingers start to blister and bleed. His dad rushes into the room and tells his son that it's really super that he learned how to play on his own.... Because now he doesn't have to pay for lessons. |
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[[Category:Short Stories]] |
[[Category:Short Stories]] |
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Latest revision as of 03:36, 15 May 2020
"The Haunted Guitar" was the first out of ten short stories featured in the book More & More Tales to Give You Goosebumps.
Plot
The notoriously lazy Jeffrey is walking home with his friend, Beth, after his mother asks him to pick up a package. Along the way, he spots the remnants of a music store, which seems to have just suffered a severe fire. The two enter and discover nearly every instrument has been destroyed by the flames. Beth urges him to leave, as the building is creepy and hard to breathe in. Jeffrey ignores her pleas, and spots in the corner of his eye a guitar, which appears to be the only instrument left intact. Jeffrey decides to take the instrument home, despite Beth's protests that he's stealing.
Later that night, Jeffrey wakes up to the soft sound of guitar music. Searching for the source, he is horrified to see the figure of a man playing it in his room. The man tells Jeffrey that he took his guitar, and introduces himself as Memphis Willy, a Blues musician, or rather, his ghost. He offers to teach Jeffrey how to play the Blues, and, as one known to always take shortcuts, Jeffrey accepts the ghost's mentorship.
Jeffrey begins practicing, but soon finds he's unable to stop playing. He urges Willy to stop, but the ghost tells Jeffrey that he loves the music too much to stop. With Jeffrey as his partner, he can keep playing the Blues forever. As Jeffrey tries to stop the music, his father walks in. He tells Jeffrey that his music sounds great, and pleads him to keep playing.
Trivia
- Jeffrey finding the guitar in a burned down music store is similar to a scene in The Blob That Ate Everyone, where protagonist, Zackie, finds an old typewriter inside an antique shop that had also recently burned down.
- This story was possibly inspired by the legend of Robert Johnson, a blues musician who supposedly sold his soul to the devil in order to master the blues.