The girls find a homesick parrot who repeats the same street names over and over. But when Madeline takes "Monsieur Parrot" to those streets, she has no success in locating his home. Finally she figures out that the streets in question all have Metro stops, and M. Parrot is returned to his owner and best friend - a conductor on the Pont de Neuilly line.
Lord Cucuface takes the girls and Pepito on a yacht trip, and excludes the girls when he teaches Pepito sailing techniques. But it is Madeline's skill that saves the day when she and Pepito capsize on an island populated by "pirates" (who turn out to be harmless actors, but terrifying nonetheles...
The girls and Pepito visit Pepito's relatives' hacienda in Spain and encounter Pepito's cousins who are naughty and mischievous "bad hats", the way Pepito used to be (only worse!) The cousins terrorize everything in sight: various animals, the guests at their parents' fiesta, and even the girls....
The circus has been cancelled because Monsieur Funnybones, the world's shortest clown, has lost his ability to laugh. When the forlorn performer shows up at the Old House disguised as a chimney sweep, Madeline teaches him that being tall is just a state of mind.
