Small Spaces

More about the book

After a tragic loss, eleven-year-old Ollie finds solace in books. When she encounters a frantic woman at the river threatening to throw a book away, Ollie instinctively steals it. As she reads, she becomes engrossed in a chilling tale about a girl named Beth, who is caught in a love triangle involving two brothers and a sinister figure known as "the smiling man," who grants wishes at a steep price. Ollie's intrigue deepens during a school trip to Smoke Hollow, a local farm with a dark past, where she discovers the graves of the characters from the story. This raises the unsettling question: is the tale of the smiling man real? As the school bus breaks down on the way home, the teacher goes back for help, leaving the children with a strange bus driver who warns them, "Best get moving. At nightfall they'll come for the rest of you." With night approaching, Ollie's broken wristwatch begins a countdown with a chilling message: RUN. Only Ollie and two classmates take the warning seriously. As they venture into the woods, bordered by a field of watchful scarecrows, the bus driver offers one last piece of advice: "Avoid large places. Keep to small." Thus begins a thrilling and eerie adventure filled with suspense.