Title: Author: Main Characters: Settings:

Say Cheese or Die R.L. Stine Greg Banks, Shari Walker Michael, Bird Most of the story takes place at the Coffman House.

Summary of the story

One summer day, Greg Banks and his friends Shari Walker, Michael and Bird who are bored and have nothing to do, decide to investigate the Coffman House, an abandoned house. The group of friends heard that a mad scientist named Spidey lives in this house. The friends break into house and start exploring all rooms and while e exploring the basement, Greg finds a secret camera hidden in a secret compartment that was secretly kept secret. He takes the camera and asks Michael to pose for a picture. Shortly after the picture is snapped, Michael falls off the basement's staircase and hurts his ankle. Footsteps from upstairs alert the group of children and they escape, with Greg taking the camera with him. Once outside, Michael asks to see the picture Greg took, only to discover the camera captured what occurred immediately after the picture was snapped: Michael falling. The kids believe that this camera tells could capture the future. Later on, Greg and his friends split up and return to their home. Greg sees a brand new car parked in the driveway. He's thrilled and takes a snapshot a car. Running upstairs to hide the camera, he is shocked to discover the photo he snapped of the car shows the car broken. . The kids think that Spidey must have been searching for the camera and Greg decided to send

the camera back to the Coffman House. While taking the camera to the house, they are harassed by a couple of bullies, who try to steal their camera and accidentally take a picture of Greg in the struggle. The boys escape from the bullies with their camera, but it's getting late, so they postpone returning the camera. Greg looks at the picture the bullies had just taken and sees himself and Shari at the covering them with a lot of shadows over them.

When they meet the next day, Spidey appears (his shadow casts the scene from the snapshot) and chases after Shari and Greg. The two agree to meet the next afternoon at the Coffman House to return the camera for good. The next day there is a storm outside and the two enter the Coffman House They make it down to the basement and Greg returns the camera to its secret hiding spot. As they walk up the stairs, Spidey appears and forces them back down into the basement. What follows in the novel is a pretty great example of how not to write. Spidey announces himself to be "a scientist!" Dr. Fritz Fredericks. He tells the kids that his lab partner invented the camera and that since he, Fritz, was evil, he stole the camera and the plans from his partner. Fritz tells the two that the camera had killed a lot of people, and since they now know his secret, they aren't allowed leave the basement alive. He kids start a fight and Shari grabs the camera from Fritz and snaps his picture. The picture locks Fritz in the camera and kids go to call the police. Climax of the story is when the kids meet Fritz and tells them they are not going to leave the house alive.

Opinion: I think that the author should have made the bullies be trapped inside the camera with the Fritz. It would have been an interesting ending where all bad people stay in one place.

Pashtrik Gjokaj