Young Joey Thomas lives in the Lancashire town of Burnley. Joey loves to play marbles; the trouble is, he is terrible. The story opens with Joey playing marbles with his friends in a street nearby to his home. Joey flicks his marble, it misses its target completely, and after being helped on its way by a ricochet or two, it plops down a grid. The marble then wends its way through the Lancashure sewer system, and finally out into the open sea, where it cadges a lift off a piece of driftwood and commences a crazy world-wide adventure all of its own.