Otto is our endearingly bewildered young hero whose world suddenly becomes very odd. Going with his father, Albert, to the FireBox Launderette, Albert is called to help with 'failing machinery' and is seen by Otto calming a purple dragon in the back room. When his baby sisters start to fly, his grandmother becomes a unicorn, and street waifs fly along the street at night on magic carpets pursued by the new Normal Police force, life becomes odder and scarier. Otto learns - often riotously - that his city and his family are very special indeed.
Here the last remaining magical people - the Karmidee - are living as an underclass of pedlars and tinkers, known as the 'magicos'. But legend tells of a King, birthmarked with a butterfly, who will save the Karmidee from extinction. Particularly from the new Minister for Modernisation, Councillor Elfina Crink. With her Impossible List and Normal Police, she is determined to stamp out the Karmidee spirit. As repression intensifies, the Karmidee and their powers go underground, but their magic bursts out in the most unexpected places as a bid for freedom, with surprising, hilarious and extraordinary results.
- ISBN10 0340854766
- ISBN13 9780340854761
- Publish Date 15 May 2003 (first published 12 September 2002)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 16 December 2014
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Hachette Children's Group
- Imprint Hodder Children's Books
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 320
- Language English