Elodea has developed a strange fear of the scarecrow that stands in the Wheatley's field. Is there really something sinister about it or is she suffering from an excess of imagination? Barnabus launches himself and Walls into a new mystery investigation and discovers that the villagers of sleepy Little Wychwell have more exciting village societies than he had expected. This is the Fifth Little Wychwell Mystery in the series and follows Did Anyone Die?, A Very Quiet Guest, All that Glisters is not Silver and Speak of the Wolf. The characters and events portrayed in these books are all entirely fictional although many of the places exist. However the villages of Little Wychwell and Upper Storkmorton do not exist and the University of Oxford has neither a Kings nor a Coromandel College.