This is the story of Mateo, a funny, cheeky, clumsy little boy, with a reputation for being a little bit strange. He even has a list of his obsessions and phobias: he loves action films, superhero comics, adventure stories, viedogames and pizza; and he hates swimming, pigeons, cockroaches, snakes and clowns.
He lives in Zaragoza in a little lodge next to the History Museum, because that's where his parents work. And so the day he finds out his whole class is going on a school trip to the museum, he wishes the ground would swallow him up. He's worried his mum will see him and start acting all soppy. To stop this from happening, he decides to hide in the museum's stores. But this place is full of magical things and Mateo ends up travelling through time to the ancient city of Thebes during the reign of the Pharaoh Rameses II, around 2,000 BC.