Eager comes out of hiding regularly to visit his old friends, the Bell family, and with him comes his 'nephew' Jonquil, Professor Ogden's newest, and formidably intelligent invention. Jonquil is a tinselly structure that can infinitely change shape. He is impatient, curious, always wants to be in the middle of things - and quickly out of control.

Fleur Bell is now grown up, with a daughter, Ju; her old friend, Marcia has a son, Finbar. Fleur's husband works in a space station, and things take a very worrying turn when he appears not to be his usual self during his regular conversations with the family on the go-between. Before long Eager and Jonquil, with the help of Ju and Finbar, are locked into another quirky mystery adventure in search of the truth ...

To complicate matters further, for Eager the human world is even more bewildering than ever ...