Retro saturdays and goosebumps: the haunted mask 1 book

I figure since it's almost halloween I'd post about a goosebumps halloween book, one such "classic"(at least by 90's kids) is the haunted mask. Just look at the cover, it's pretty scary and ugly. Anywho the book is about a girl who is scared of everything aka a wuss but since this is the 90's she is bullied and made fun of. It culminates in her "friends" (probably guys that like her) giving her a sandwhich with a worm in the middle of it, yes it was still alive and yes she takes a bite out of it. This causes her to run away also ditching school in the process(this was during lunch) she runs and runs until she comes across a mask/halloween/kreepy store that is probably used to kidnap kids

Because it's the 90's and apparently pedos don't exist, carly beth cautiously(at least she does that) walks into the kreepy store, I should point out she is about 10-12 years old and short and thin and blonde to give you an idea of her. This "store" is more of a house with no signs or cars parked close by, it's rundown and looks abandoned so carly beth is not smart for trying to sneak into this sketchy house. She finds out it's a halloween store of some sort with various masks, trying to find something to scare steve and chuck with, she tosses aside the generic obviously fake gorilla maskes and stumbles upon a wall of realistic extremely ugly looking masks. She gets confronted by the shop keep who is an old man and bells should be ringing but instead she steals a goblin type mask and runs away(the only smart thing she's done so far) to her house. Once home she trys on the mask and notices the tight fit. I don't remember much of the little details as it's been years (this decade) that I read the book so I'll go from what I remember. She puts it on twice, once to scare her little brother who seems to pee his pants at the sight of carly and the other time to scare steve(which also succeeds and he almost cries) although she never did try it on as her mom called her to try on the duck costume she got her

Somewhere between all this, carly's mom made her a bust of her head from plastir of paris for plot reasons oh and she got carly a duck costume that carly is now forced to wear. Obviously this won't help her shed her scared girl image or scare kids so she sneaks the haunted mask in her jacket/sweater/shirt and puts it on. Things go well at first and kids cry and get scared and drop their candy but this is a horror book so there is a twist. The shop keep didn't want carly to buy the mask and so she ended up stealing it, well there is a reason for that. See the wall of kreepy masks is actually a wall of the unloved, they are some sort of weird experiment done by the shop keep(he's now a scientist too) done on people that apparently made them lose their face and become rubber like masks. They are looking for a host and will become permanently attached to a person on the 3rd time putting on the "mask" as carly beth has done. It can not be undone hence why he warned her and prevented her however this is a goosebumps book so there is more twists. It could be undone with a symbol of love. To make a long story short, carly uses the bust her mom made for her as the symbol of love not before we have some creepy effects for a book. The gang(I should mention carly has a best friend named sabrina and she's with chuck and steve at this point) find themselves in a cemetery where the other unloved masks fly out towards slowly also her bust talks to her and blinks and moves it's mouth and says help me. Things go back to normal and at the end we see carly's brother wearing the mask and complain that it's hard to take off

This book was read everywhere by kids in the 90's and every library had multiple copies of it, I might say it's THE goosebumps book. Just looking at the cover takes me back to going to the school library and seeing all the goosebumps books and having a hard time picking one. This book is also the 1st episode of the tv show and that included the kreepy effects of the flying masks and talking bust which scared kids across the nation. Even though it's aimed at kids/young adults, you should read it to get in the halloween mood and for a piece of 90's nostalgia