The Mind Reader Essay, Research Paper

The Mind Reader

The main character of The Mind Reader is Ellie Anderson. Ellie see visions, of the

future and of the past. She doesn t like her gift at first, but, realizes it s wonderful in the

end. Brian Tanner is a new, mysterious boy, about Ellie s age that she meets at the local

diner. Sarah Wilkins is Ellie s best friend that is hiding her past. Lieutenant Wilkins is

Sarah s father that is also hiding a terrible past. Melinda Wilkins is Sarah s sister and the

Lieutenant s daughter who disappeared and was never seen again. Chaz is Ellie s dog

who uncovers the human skeleton.

The story begins when Ellie Anderson goes to the local diner after school as always to

get a Diet Coke and to chat with her best friend Sarah Wilkins. This day as Ellie and

Sarah are talking this very hot guy walks in a sits down in a booth. Sarah tells Ellie

she should go talk to him but, Ellie is very shy and at the moment is swore off guys.

When Sarah goes to take his order she asks his name and he tells her Brian Tanner.

When Sarah comes back to where Ellie is sitting, Ellie is overcome with a feeling of fear.

Ellie tells Sarah she is going home and leaves the diner. When Ellie gets home her dog

Chaz is jumping all over her wanting to go walking, so Ellie decides to take Chaz to the

park next to the Fear Street Woods. Ellie sits down on the ground when they get to the

park and Chaz goes straight for the woods. About 15 minutes passes and its starting to

get late so Ellie starts to call Chaz but sees him far off digging at something in a bush.

When Ellie gets there she suddenly has a vision of a human bones. When she looks

down she sees a human bone. She runs out to road and flags down the next car

and tells them to take her and her dog to the police station and she tells them what she

found. When she gets to the police station she tell them what she has found and they all

go back to the place she had seen the bones. Lieutenant Wilkins found the bones around

the bush where Ellie had seen them earlier. The police started digging and found a piece

of a red sweater, by that time Ellie friend Sarah had came to see what was going on and

when the police held up the piece of the sweater she collasped. Sarah s father picked her

up and said he was going to take her home. When Sarah and her father was leaving Ellie

saw Brian Tanner standing back away from the crowd that had gathered as if he was

trying to hide.

The police dug up a complete body during the night of a young female. Meanwhile,

Sarah was not showing up for school and Ellie was getting worried about her. She tried

to call but either no one answered or Sarah s dad said that she was visiting an aunt in the

city for a few weeks. Ellie started asking around why Sarah had gotten so upset when the

piece of the red sweater had been shown, the answer she got was shocking.. A local girl

told Ellie that Sarah had, had a sister named Melinda who disappeared one night with

her boyfriend and was never seen again. This shocked and hurt Ellie because Sarah had

never mentioned it. As Ellie was walking home from school that evening a white jeep

pulled up behind and started to slow down. When she turned around she saw that it was

Brian Tanner the boy she had seen at the diner and of the night the police had found the

body. He asked her if she wanted a ride and she accepted even though her feelings were

telling her not to. He began talking to her and eventually asked her to the go to Fear

Island. She agreed and decided not to let her feelings or evil get into the way of this real-

ationship like she had the last. That evening when taking a shower she kept having a

vision of a white handled knife. But figured she was just upset over the body. That night

the cops called Emily down to the station to see if she had a vision of who could have

done this or if she could help find the murder weapon. She told them that she couldn t,

that the visions just came to her and were not controlled. While there Lieutenant Wilkins

showed Emily a picture of Melinda and her boyfriend Mark. When saw the picture she

couldn t believe of how much the picture looked like Brian Tanner but she said nothing

to the police.

The morning Emily was going with Brian to Fear Island she had a bad feeling but

just ignored it. When Emily and Brian got to island they were the only ones there

because it was late in the summer and most people went during the earlier part of the

summer. Brian was really nice to her and had even packed a picnic basket filled with

lots of food. Brian asked her if first she would like to eat an apple and Ellie said yes.

Then Brian pulled the knife out that Ellie had seen in her vision to peel it. Ellie gasped

and ran into the forest on the island. Brian got up and chased after her and Ellie was so

scared but, finally stopped running when she became out of breathe. Brian caught up

with her and asked what was wrong and she told him she was just getting some fresh

air. It was getting late by this time so they packed up there things and headed home.

When Ellie got home she went to Sarah s house but still no one there.

After about a week Ellie went back to Sarah s house she found the door unlocked so

she helped herself in. Ellie went into Sarah s room and seen her laying on the bed wear-

ing the same clothes on the last time Ellie had seen her. She started to ask Sarah what

was going on and why hadn t she told her about her sister disappearance. Sarah told her

it was just too hard to talk about and it wasn t something she talked of often. She told

Ellie that Melinda was planning on running away with her boyfriend and wanted her to

help her. So she did one night their father went out to get some ice cream and Sarah

was to cover for Melinda saying she was out with her boyfriend Mark. She did just

that but while her father was still gone, Mark called thinking Melinda had backed out,

because she wasn t at their meeting place. Sarah said her father took it very hard about

Melinda disappearing because she was his favorite. But then Ellie began to get a vision

to where the murder weapon was and told Sarah to come with her. Ellie and Sarah went

back to the place where they had found they body, and it Ellie vision she had seen it

in a hole in a tree nicely placed in a plastic bag. Ellie started searching for the murder

weapon but just then someone said, Looking for this ? Ellie turned around and it was

Brian, Ellie and Sarah both started to scream. Sarah s father showed up behind them

because he had seen the flashlights from the road. He then seen Brian and grabbed his

gun and told him he knew that he was Mark, Melinda s old boyfriend and that he had

killed her. To keep Ellie from letting Lieutenant Wilkins shot him he told her why he

was there. That he too had visions, and he had visions that she was in trouble and he

was there to save her. Emily then ran over to the tree in her visions and pulled the

murder weapon (which was a knife) out of the hole in the tree. Brian explained that

the identical knife he had belonged to his grandfather who was a police chief. And

that only police chiefs were given these knives and that the knife Ellie was holding

had to belong to Melinda s father Lieutenant Wilkins. At that time Wilkins broke down

into tears and said it was true but it was an accident that he didn t mean to kill her. He

said he had seen her walking to meet Mark and they started arguing. She said she was

leaving anyway and when he grabbed her she fell and hit her head, which killed her

instantly. He said he had put the knife in the hole of the tree because he knew it would

make it look as if Mark did it. Lieutenant Wilkins turned himself and went to jail for

murder. Mark and Ellie became very close and a very cute couple.

I really liked this book because it was a mystery that kept you on the edge of your seat

till the end. I enjoy stories like this with a very different ending than you would have

ever dreamed.

About The Author

Robert Lawrence Stine receives a frightening amount of fan mail. He is

flooded with almost 500 letters a week from fans of his Goosebumps series.

These children, aged 7-18, (and their teachers and parents) have been gobbling

up his books at an eye-popping rate of 1.25 million copies a month. His books are

known to cast spells upon children by transforming even the most reluctant

students into avid readers. Despite the fact that almost every book has a different

collection of characters, the series has one common element that kids can’t get

enough of: THE AUTHOR!

However believable his plots seem to his readers, Stine insists he has never lived

one of his stories. “I’ve never turned into a bee – I’ve never been chased by a

mummy or met a ghost. But many of the ideas in my books are suggested by real

life. For example, one Halloween my son, Matt, put a mask on and then had

trouble pulling it off. That gave me the idea for The Haunted Mask.”

Although he never experienced terror first hand, he did enjoy reading about it.

“When I was a kid, there were these great comic books called Tales From The

Crypt and The Vault of Horror. They were gruesome. I discovered them in the

barbershop and thought they were fabulous. I used to get a haircut every Saturday

so I wouldn’t miss any of these comic books. I had no hair at all when I was a

kid!”

His ideas came from two sources: his memory and his imagination. “When I

write, I try to think back to what I was afraid of or what was scary to me, and try

to put those feelings into books.” He also keeps a tribal mask and a skeleton

hanging in his writing studio to provide eerie surroundings. Although he handles

the writing by himself, Stine says he gets “lots of help from my editors, my

readers, and my friends.”

Kids reading Goosebumps may be looking for a scare, but the laughs they get are

no accident. Before he was R.L., he was Jovial Bob, author of such works as 101

Silly Monster Jokes, and Bozos on Patrol and editor of Bananas magazine. His

ability to know what kids will laugh at , as well as what will frighten them, makes

the Goosebumps series all the more enjoyable for his readers.

Stine started writing when he was 9 years old! He would write stories and jokes

on an old typewriter and hand them out at school. “The teacher would grab them

and take them away,” Stine says, “but I kept doing it.” He wrote for his high

school newspaper in Columbus Ohio. After graduating from Ohio State

University, he moved to New York City, where he worked on a variety of writing

These days he writes two books a month, one Goosebumps and one series for

older readers. Although the books are fun and exciting, writing them is serious

stuff. “I write six days a week.” Stine says. “I treat it like a job. I sit down around

9 a.m. and set a goal for myself. When I have finished my goal for the day, I am

finished.” To unwind after work he enjoys playing the pinball machine

conveniently located in his own apartment.

For aspiring authors, Stine feels reading is as important as writing. He offer this

advice: “If you want to be a writer, don’t worry so much about writing. Read as

much as you can. Read as many different writers as you can. Soak up the styles.

You can learn all kinds of ways to say things.” As a boy he read “Norse legends,

Greek myths, Edgar Allan Poe and baseball stories. “And Mad Magazine changed

my life” His favorite thriller? Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray

Bradbury.