Of all the things ten-year-old Cory Wilson expects to do when he moves to Midway Space Station, saving aliens from humans isn’t one.

An important conference is about to start at the station, not usually the sort of thing kids care about, not even when the conference is between humans and aliens, and half your family is alien. However, when bullies tease Cory, he ends up in a prohibited area where he overhears some men planning to plant a bomb at the conference.

Because the terrorists hide their messages in computer games, no one believes Cory, not even his father, the station director. Kids at school think he’s crazy, some even think aliens should be bombed.

The conference starts, the aliens have brought a very important person, and Cory’s teacher, one of the terrorists, locks Cory in the classroom.

Can he get out in time? If he does, will anyone listen?

One day when bullied Florian comes home from school, he finds a visitor in the caravan where he lives with his father.

The woman, who looks older than time, tells him that his father is king of Celestia and has seven days to renew the spell of protection over the land.

But his father has no interest in going back.

So Florian finds himself with a crown on his head, having to complete a task he has no idea how to do, on the way across the sea-bridge to Celestia.

He has some companions: his father three motorcycle-riding friends who insist they’re elves, and his father’s horse, which is a unicorn in disguise.

The problem is that the elves haven’t been to Celestia for a long time either, and the horse has always hated Florian.

An extra problem is that the unofficial queen of Celestia, Florian’s mother, doesn’t want him back. She is under the control of powerful magical spirits.

Did I say Florian knows nothing about Celestia or about magic? And he has only seven days?