After a while of dangerous investigating (for instance, sneaking into Mrs. Pearce's attic), Charlie and Jimbo are approached by a man in a suit at a restaurant who tells them to leave their teachers alone and then promptly burns a hole through the table they are sitting at with his finger.

They disobey his order, however, and Charlie is kidnapped and taken to the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, where he has to fake happiness or else face certain death.

He convinces Becky to come with him, and after eventually arriving they find a mysterious portal which opens inside an abandoned shack.

After a couple of days, the man releases them only to enslave them into bringing back escaped teachers or face death.

Mark Haddon admitted that 'no one could pronounce the title and know what the story was about until they read it', and also mentioned that the book was 'full of references to floppy disks, cassette players and Walkmans'.

Alison Williams, the teacher of Lilac 4 from SS Philip and James Primary School in Oxford, said she had been reading the book to her children and how much they loved it.