Jim Button and the Wild 13

"Jim Button and the Wild 13" (original German title: "Jim Knopf und die Wilde 13") is the sequel to "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver" written by the German author Michael Ende.

Plot summary

After the events in Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, life in Morrowland continues as usual until the postman rams New-Morrowland with his mail boat. It is decided that the island needs a lighthouse, but it is too small to support one. Jim remembers Mr. Tur Tur and his ability to appear as a giant when seen from afar, and Jim and Luke decide to invite him to Morrowland.

While sailing the oceans with Emma and Molly (Jim's locomotive) to get to the desert where Mr. Tur Tur lives, Jim and Luke stop to help out a mermaid named Sursulapitschi and her father Lormoral, the king of the seas, leading to a precarious encounter with the Magnetic Cliffs, which serve as a point of activating a phenomenon called the Sea Glow (which illuminates the bottom of the sea) - but considering their dangerous nature, someone has to be found to watch that no ships are endangered while the Glow is switched on. Also, Sursulapitschi is in distress because her fiancee Ushaurishuum, a 'Schildnöck' (turtle man), has been assigned by her father to refashion the Crystal of Eternity, an unbreakable glass-like substance - a task which is only possible with the aid of a creature of fire, with whom the merpeople are at war.

Using the special properties of the cliffs' material, Jim and Luke convert Emma into a flying vehicle which they dub Perpetumobile (due to its unlimited means of locomotion) and with it cross the Crown of the World to get Mr. Tur Tur. To their surprise they also encounter their half-dragon friend Nepomuk (who had to run from Dragon City following the events in the first book for his helping in the capture of Mrs. Grindtooth) in the desert. Jim and Luke persuade the dragon to accompany them and take up the post at the Magnetic Cliffs. Unexpectedly, the four meet Sursulapitschi and Ushaurishuum at the cliffs, and the Schildnöck and Nepomuk quickly become friends, enabling the recreation of the Crystal of Eternity.

But meanwhile, Jim's locomotive Molly (which Jim and Luke had left at the cliffs when getting Mr. Tur Tur and Nepomuk) has been abducted by a pirate band called the Wild 13. Luckily for Jim and Luke, the former Mrs. Grindtooth awakes as a Golden Dragon of Wisdom in China and can help them out with information. She tells Jim Button what to do to get to know about his origin, and with the help of the Chinese emperor Jim and his friend Luke - with Princess Li Si as a stowaway - start their journey to meet the Wild 13 and rescue Molly. However, the pirates prove to be too much for them in open battle; Molly is lost to the sea, and all but Jim are captured and brought to the pirates' base, Castle Stormeye, a pinnacle of rock contained in the eye of a perpetual hurricane.

Overlooked by the pirates, Jim manages to sneak into the pirate fortress, overpower the Wild 13 with a trick and some luck, and become their leader. As it turns out, Jim is the last descendant of the third of the Three Kings, Caspar, whose descendants were doomed to be without a home since Mrs. Grindtooth had sunk it beneath the ocean millennia ago; and only the sinking of Castle Stormeye will raise it again. In the end the Wild 13 sacrifice their base, and Jim's old kingdom reappears. To everyone's surprise, Morrowland is located on the top of the realm's highest mountain!

All the families whose children Jim and Luke had rescued from Dragon City come to live in the new country. Jim marries Li Si and receives Molly from the merpeople, her iron body converted into the Crystal of Eternity. The Wild 13, finally reformed, stay in Jim's realm as its protectors and royal guards.