Small Spaces: Chapters 6–11

“I don’t remember,” he said. The town decided that he must have hit his head and wandered for days insensible.

“The farm has had tremendous success cultivating corn and wheat, along with apple, plum, and pear orchards,” Ollie continued.

“They also run an extensive dairy operation and side businesses in local florals and sugaring. During harvest time, they are one of the biggest employers in the county.”

“Do you have something to add, Miss Zintner?”
Coco evidently did. She was half out of her seat, waving her hand.

“My mom told me about them,” Coco added smugly.

She had come to talk to their class once, casual in her jeans, with a thick, ash-colored ponytail.

“Soon after that,” Mr. Easton went on, “the younger brother disappeared. No one ever found traces of either of them. Eventually the sheriff decided that the younger brother had killed the elder and then been overcome with remorse and thrown himself into the creek. That was when the rumors of hauntings started. Rustling in the corn. Voices. Footsteps without feet. They said the two brothers didn’t lie quiet."

I think there’s a plaque somewhere on the farm with all the names of the kids that died.

Now we’re going there today, not to dwell on the past, but to learn more about the future of farming in this state.

Even though Brian wasn’t that big, he took up most of the seat, sprawling and joking with his two friends in front of him.

“Not my problem,” Ollie retorted. “It’s not my fault you’re wider than you are tall.”

He turned studiously to look out the window.

“Well, I only learned reeling and writhing,” Brian said conversationally to the top of her
 head.

"And then the different branches of arithmetic—ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision.”

"With seaography, then drawling—but, whoops, they forgot reading. Sorry to bug you.”

Her face looked pleasant now, wholesomely weathered.

Someone had set up scarecrows between buildings, in the vegetable garden, on stakes in the cornfield. Their hands were trowels or garden rakes.

He sauntered away with Phil and Mike.

Ollie loved mushrooms. On weekends, she and her mom used to go foraging for wild ones.

Linda Webster’s cows were led in on halters and milked into buckets.

Mr. Easton didn’t see her. He was preoccupied with Coco, who had a bloody chin.

The crow flew up, unhurt, cawing indignantly, as the scarecrow’s head burst open.

Green gravestones stood in messy rows with their inscriptions blurred by time.

“Four graves, three stones,” said a raspy voice. “But only two sets of bones.”

The three gravestones loomed in her imagination big as barns at her back.

"Just telling this little inquisitive one some history. Nothing wrong with history.”

Ollie gave up all pretense of coolness and ran toward the horse barn.

Ollie looked up, stomach churning.

A murmur of appalled delight ran through the sixth grade.

She wanted to slink away.

As the sun hid behind clouds, the cheery expression seemed to leach out of her face, leaving it gray and old, exhausted.

The black cat (“His name’s Behemoth,” Seth had told her when Ollie asked, making her laugh) sat behind Ms. Webster.

Once she finished, she would tell her dad about the farm mystery. He would be intrigued.

The shouting had dropped, and even the monotonous urging from Mr. Easton to sit down, please, and be quiet seemed different—distracted, puzzled.

Ollie’s hands tightened involuntarily on her book.