A city, isolated at the centre of a great desert, is an ideal place for a dictator to arise and control its unfortunate inhabitants. We join the Water Works story many years after this has happened and, since the dictator's ascension to power, things have gone from bad to worse. The city water supply is now rationed and multitudes of strange laws have been created including a general ban on washing. Through these laws and his Free Flowing Foamy Flusher machine, (with which he performs his public medieval styled executions), Mr Erepsin Ville holds the people in an iron grip; rewarding those who are loyal to him and hunting down any who would offer resistance. Life is a mess for anyone who wants to have a normal existence. The people of Clear Wash City would do better if they created a single united front against their enemy but with eighty two official and unofficial rebel committees and sub-committees they hardly pose a unified threat. There is one rebel council however, which has recently emerged from amongst the crowd and this group seems to now speak for the majority of the rebellion. Rising through the ranks of this council is a young lady from the nobility who has caught everyone's attention. This story follows the many ridiculous attempts by the population of Clear Wash City to wash, without using water and without being discovered. It finally trails the covert operation of a gang of four who enter the old Water Works in an attempt to get it working again, but with disastrous results for everyone. Everything is stacked against them, secret police, informers, electronic sniffer devices, execution flusher machines, ancient old buildings falling down around them and floods that can sweep them away. Above all of this, however, is the tyrannical rule of Mr Erepsin Ville (Mr E as he is called) who would love nothing more than to catch them red handed in their soapsud rebellion and put them on public trial for his general amusement and entertainment. Our unlikely heroes find their friendship key to everything. They learn that salvation often lies in the most unexpected deed and that never giving up is always the route to freedom, even when you're powerlessly staring failure in the face