Small Spaces

Brian is one of Ollie’s classmates and a star hockey player for the middle school team. He is also Jamaican by birth and comes from the only black family living in rural East Evansburg. His racial heritage has no real bearing on the story, and Ollie only mentions it in passing. Brian is well-built and athletic. He also has a generous temperament and refuses to get Ollie in trouble, even after she throws a rock at him.

Although Ollie writes him off as a prankster and an empty-headed jock, Brian surprises her by mentioning many books they’ve both read. He harbors a secret crush on Ollie but doesn’t believe her when she first declares that all their classmates are in danger from the smiling man. Despite his skepticism, Brian follows Ollie and Coco as they flee the army of scarecrows that captures the rest of the students. He helps the two girls to free their classmates and is especially concerned about his best friend, Phil. By the novel's end, Brian has forged a solid friendship with Ollie and Coco and continues to excel at hockey.

Coco is a transfer student who recently joined Ollie’s class. She is petite, and her strawberry-blond hair and ice-blue eyes remind Ollie of a flower fairy. Initially, she seems clumsy and helpless, and her squeaky voice annoys everybody. However, she never holds grudges and is happy to help Ollie and Brian even though both have treated her unkindly in the past. Coco’s expertise as a rock climber comes in handy at several points in the story when she can reach places the other two can’t. By the novel's end, Coco even beats Ollie at a game of chess and is accepted and appreciated by her classmates. 

Seth is a handsome young worker at the Webster farm. His easygoing manner and charming smile put everyone at ease. At the novel's end, the reader learns that Seth is the smiling man who has turned generations of lost souls into scarecrows. He has made a bargain with Linda Webster to take all the members of the sixth-grade class in exchange for granting her deepest wish. His only fear is Small Spaces, the book that describes his activities, and he orders Linda to destroy it.

When Ollie intercepts the book, the smiling man faces a worthy opponent who finally bests him. Ollie refuses to take the deal he offers and tricks him into revealing the way to turn scarecrows back into human beings. By the novel's end, the smiling man implies that he will set up another place to trap humans. He reappears as the villain in subsequent books in the series. 

Jones is the substitute school bus driver on the day of the sixth graders’ disastrous trip. He is also an employee at the Webster farm. Ollie describes him as having mushroom-colored skin and eyes that look like egg whites. He seems greedy for food, so Ollie bribes him with snacks from her lunch box until Jones reveals hints about the smiling man’s plans.

The end of the book reveals Jones as a large doglike creature who is a servant of the smiling man. Ollie wins his allegiance by feeding him, while the smiling man gives him nothing good to eat. Ollie christens him Cerberus in his dog form, and he functions as her faithful companion. Cerberus helps Ollie lead the children through the corn maze to freedom before disappearing.

Mr. Easton is Ollie’s long-suffering teacher. He is a kind man who takes a particular interest in trying to help her move forward in life. Unfortunately, Ollie rejects all of Easton’s attempts to get her involved again in softball or the chess club. His purpose in the story is primarily to offer background information on the Webster farm and the ghost stories associated with it. Like the students, Easton is transformed into a scarecrow but is released from the spell along with all his students. After the experience, Easton has no memory of the event. 

Linda is the current owner of the farm formerly known as Smoke Hollow. She is a descendant of the woman who wrote Small Spaces. When she first encounters Ollie, Linda is distraught and tries to throw the book into Lethe Creek on the smiling man’s orders. She gives Ollie one key piece of advice by telling her to keep to small spaces.

The reader doesn’t learn about Linda’s motivation until the very end of the story. The smiling man reveals that she is facing bankruptcy and would have gone to prison for fraud if she hadn’t made a deal with him. Linda is selfish enough to sacrifice the lives of an entire class of children to keep herself out of jail. In the novel’s last chapter, it is obvious that she learned nothing from the experience because she disappears after having presumably made a new deal with the smiling man.

Beth once owned Smoke Hollow farm and lived a century earlier than Ollie. She writes Small Spaces for her daughter after her husband and brother-in-law go missing because of the smiling man. Although Beth’s body is buried in the family cemetery, she remains a ghost in the alternate dimension ruled by the smiling man. She grieves her tragic losses, knowing that Jonathan and Caleb have been transformed into scarecrows. Like Ollie, Beth seems unable to move forward from past tragedies. Thanks to Ollie’s intervention, Beth and her family are finally freed from the smiling man and advance into the afterlife together. 

Mr. Adler is Ollie’s nurturing father. He enjoys cooking, baking, crafting, and knitting. As a result, he fulfills the roles of Ollie’s mother and father after his wife dies. Mr. Adler is patient with Ollie as she processes her loss, but he fears that his daughter has isolated herself from the world of the living. Mr. Adler’s nurturing instincts compel him to overstuff Ollie’s lunch box with enough food to feed an army. This comes in handy when she and her friends are stuck in the smiling man’s world, and these provisions sustain them. Mr. Adler’s food is also used to bribe Jones into giving Ollie valuable information on how to defeat the smiling man. By the end of the book, Mr. Adler gets his daughter back, both physically and psychologically. 

While her husband is a nurturing homebody, Mrs. Adler is a fierce adventuress. She teaches Ollie to fear nothing. Her accidental death while flying a plane leaves her daughter bereft of maternal love and guidance. Although she is already deceased by the time the story begins, Mrs. Adler makes her presence felt through her watch, which Ollie has worn since her death. Through the device, she gives her daughter messages that help Ollie defeat the smiling man. As the novel ends, she is still sending messages to her daughter via the watch, which allows Ollie to move past her grief and realize that her mother is still with her and always will be.