While moving in, Ivy befriends her neighbor, Franny Muggs, and meets two other girls, Pru Gumm and Cat Lemonjello, who harbor ongoing animosity towards each other.

When Ivy goes to his house for her first lesson, she sees the glamorous ruby slippers from the film The Wizard of Oz, which Mr. Staccato claims to have worked on.

ChaCha traps the girls and the dogs in a champagne-colored Cadillac filled with jellybeans, sending them off in a “backwards tidal wave.” They wake up to find themselves in an underground world called Spoz.

The girls escape and flee to the land of Spudz, where they have various surreal adventures, finally ending up at a gingerbread cottage, where they find the missing shoe and a portal to Mr. Staccato's museum room.

Kirkus Reviews called the book "a mixed bag, but entertaining," but also "Great fun in parts, ambitious and good-natured."