Ted Hammond loves a good mystery, and in the spring of his fifth-grade year, he's working on a big one. How can his school in the little town of Plattsford stay open next year if there are going to be only five students? Out here on the Great Plains in western Nebraska, everyone understands that if you lose the school, you lose the town.

But the mystery that has Ted's full attention at the moment is about that face, the face he sees in the upper window of the Andersons' house as he rides past on his paper route. The Andersons moved away two years ago, and their old farmhouse is empty, boarded up tight. At least it's supposed to be. A shrinking school in a dying town. A face in the window of an empty house. At first these facts don't seem to be related. But Ted Hammond learns that in a very small town, there's no such thing as an isolated event. And the solution of one mystery is often the beginning of another.


Ted愛上了一件神祕的事務，在5年級的春天，他身處於一個極大的謎。他的學校在Plattsford的小鎮上，如果學校將只剩５個學生，明年將如何生存呢？在這個偏遠小鎮上的每個人都知道，如果你失去了學校，亦即失去了這個小鎮…這個讓Ted全神灌注的密祕來自於高掛窗上的那張臉…