Freddy and the Bean animals match their magic and wits onstage and offstage against the crooked magician.
When a storm damages Centerboro, the Bean farm animals volunteer to help Mr. Boomschmidt clean his circus grounds.
The show opens, and without warning the rabbit Presto introduces an offer to pay five dollars to anyone if they can explain a trick.
In the process of being quizzed, the rabbit mistakenly gives Freddy the information needed to deduce that Zingo stole Boomschmidt’s money and was fired for it.
When Freddy visits the sheriff, he learns that Zingo is staying at the hotel, refusing to pay bills on account of bugs in his food (that he has obviously placed there, himself).
Freddy determines to check into the hotel in disguise as owner Ollie Groper's nephew, carrying with him a suitcase of mice, spiders and Jinx to spy on Zingo.
Zingo frames Freddy in a department store by stuffing the pig's pockets with unpaid items.
Zingo's insistence that he will forgive Freddy only if he gets his hat back rouses suspicion; on examination Boomschmidt's money is found in it.
To settle their dispute on stage, Freddy challenges Zingo to an ESP contest, guessing what objects assistants in the audience are holding.
Since the jail is too nice a place for him, to force Zingo out of the hotel and out of town, they turn his dining room tricks against him.
Defeated, Zingo goes to the bus station, where the citizens and animals force him to return the rest of the stolen money.
Freddy lives on the Bean farm with animal friends: a cat, dogs, cows, chickens and rabbits, as well as a great variety of birds and insects: many of them play a role in this story.
A returning character is hotel owner Mr. Groper, whose vocabulary is so advanced, adult readers may need a dictionary.
There are 38 black and white, pen and ink drawings by Kurt Wiese and endpapers showing a theater with Freddy performing.
Brooks, a capital plot-maker has the skill and humor of Dr. Dolittle’s creator without Hugh Lofting's sometimes disconcerting biases.