You won't find Grubtown on any maps. The last time any map-makers were sent anywhere near the place they were found a week later wearing nothing but pages from a telephone directory, and calling for their mothers.

It's certainly a town and certainly grubby -- except for the squeaky clean parts -- but everything else we know about the place comes from Beardy Ardagh, town resident and author of these tales. Grubtown is full of oddballs -- from the singing Grumbly girls to a family of duck-haters, and an out-sized mayor who's knitting a new house -- but Manual Org is too repulsive even for them.

Getting him to leave town is top priority, until the discovery of a humongous diamond changes everything...