We open with a number of extremely eerie children who are sitting in a school room. The children are discussing science and political events in a casual and indifferent manner. They appear to have a great deal of knowledge, but don’t seem to care enough to use it for anything–they are quite happy with feeling bored and superior. They are nihilistic sinister hipster children with too-wide staring eyes. Then we go to the opening credits.
After credits, we see Huey and Dalian in a bookstore. They are doing a little book browsing when they run across Huey’s childhood friend Camilla. Camilla is dressed in the latest fashion, which Dalian predictably does not approve of. (Dalian is never going to approve of any female character it seems.) Camilla runs a school, and during a casual conversation reveals that she is looking for textbooks for a school she runs. She invites Huey and Dalian to her home for tea. (She also offers Dalian candy in hopes of cheering Little Miss Sourpuss up. Dalian is not cheered up, but is easily swayed by the promise of scones and other treats.)
Dalian and Huey join Camilla for tea, and Dalian continues to be extremely snippy. Camilla however seems more amused than annoyed by Dalian’s snippiness, and is equally critical of Dalian’s clothes. Huey attempts to play peacemaker, with limited success. (Dalian and Camilla have the situation well in hand, Huey. You don’t need to help.)
Huey indicates that Camilla had an additional reason besides catching up on old times for her invitation to tea. Camilla admits this is true and tells Huey and interesting story about an acquaintance of hers who apparently opened a school in order to compete with Camilla. (That has to be the most stupid reason to open a school ever.) This acquaintance, a woman named Mildred had claimed that she had found a Phantom Book that increased the intelligence of whoever read it. She had given the book to her students and had been very smug about it, but then shortly after that, Mildred had a nervous breakdown. (From the opening with the Creepy Kids, you can certainly see why.)
This is a very dangerous book, according to Dalian. Huey states that they should go retrieve the book as quickly as possible, but Dalian is more interested in the promised scones. (She is not interested in the book because the first edition is already in the Archive.) Huey however insists on heading to the school to investigate. Camilla is rather confused by Huey’s apparent sense of urgency but agrees to take Huey and Dalian to Mildred’s home.
Huey speaks to Mildred, who is extremely remote on the topic. She seems extremely depressed and tells Huey to ask the children about the Phantom Book. She also refers to her students as monsters. Camilla is horrified, but Mildred defends herself, describing how the children have become something extremely alien and inhuman as a result of reading the Phantom Book.
After hearing Mildred’s story, he heads out to the school house where he finds the children waiting for him. They identify him and Dalian, and don’t seem very surprised by his presence. They are also perfectly happy to turn over the Phantom Book because they don’t need it anymore. They happily tell him they have no interest in using their vast knowledge for anything, and the encounter is in general, extremely anticlimactic. Huey takes the book, and since Dalian doesn’t want a second copy of the book, he burns it.
Later, Dalian is in the greenhouse, watering an immense cactus. Huey turns up and questions her about the cactus and her apparent interest in horticulture, to which Dalian responds by kicking him. We learn that the cactus only blooms every thirteen years, and Dalian is looking forward to it blooming. It turns out that Huey had been looking for her in order to deliver a present from Camilla, a box of chocolates. Dalian is extremely enthused and wants to have tea, though it’s now late in the evening. Huey decides to go along with it.
Plans for tea are interrupted by some unexpected strangers who have arrived at the mansion. These people are thieves attempting to steal a book called “Queen of the Night.” They attack Huey, and while he’s able to clobber one of them, the other manages to take Dalian hostage. The thieves tear the place apart looking, but are unable to find the book in question. (This book apparently does not actually exist, even as a Phantom Book.) Dalian is possibly the worst hostage ever and launches into a tirade where she compares one of the thieves to a monkey and the other a pig, and the makes a reference to Journey to the West (which is an ancient Chinese folk novel that features the adventures of the King of the Monkeys, a Pig-man and a water demon who are attempting to escort a Chinese Buddhist monk to India in order to obtain sacred scrolls).
The thieves are not amused, and become increasingly violent toward Huey. After roughing him up some, one of the thieves directs the other to head outside to search the grounds. Then there’s a scream and the second thief leaves to investigate. What the second thief finds is the green house, but no sign of his partner. After looking around he sees the cactus, which has bloomed. The flower seems to have a book in the center of it, and the thief is very excited, thinking he’s found the book he’d been looking for. Then we get a shot of the top of the cactus, which is moving.
The scene goes dark, and we see Dalian and Huey who are rushing down the hallway. Dalian says that they have to hurry before something happens. She mentions “the Queen of the Night,” but before Huey can really question her about it there’s a scream and gunshots coming from the greenhouse.
It turns out that the “Queen of the Night” is a man eating cactus that lures is prey with a flower that mimics a book.
The final scene is Huey and Dalian relating and edited version of the adventure to Camilla. (Dalian does not approve of Camilla’s cute cowgirl outfit.) When Camilla questions what happened to the thieves, Huey simply states that the thieves were gone once he and Dalian reached the backyard.