topics: |  fiction | children

A rippling story of the eight-year old Luka, who lives in the familiar town
of Alifbay with his father Rashid Khalifa, mother Soraya and older
brother Haroun, who had figured earlier in Haroun and the sea of Stories.
In fact, there is a reference to that story, in the context of "Luka's
secret jealousy" of his elder brother:

   [Haroun] smiled, because he knew perfectly well about Luka's Secret
   Jealousy, which was actually Not So Secret At All.
When Haroun had been Luka's age he had travelled to the earth's second
moon, befriended fishes who spoke in rhyme and a gardener made of lotus
roots, and helped to overthrow the evil Cultmaster Khattam-Shud who was
   trying to destroy the Sea of Stories itself.

The story turns on a curse that Luka shouts at a passing circus parade,
full of sad animals in cages, and how the circus-master Captain Aag, causes
the hex to poleaxe back to his father.