Young Ralph Phillips is scolded for breaking a window and sent to his room, where he lets his imagination run riot and fantasizes he is in prison, next that he is in Africa, and then that he is a space ace pilot who single-handedly thwarts a Martian invasion.

One day, a boy named Jacob Two-Two (aptly named because every phrase that he utters is repeated) decides to set out to prove himself to his parents that he can do things, so his father, who is tired of hearing his wife order him to do the shopping, sets Jacob out to buy two tomatoes. As Jacob makes his way to buy them,…