A young scientist accidentally invokes a talking potato and unveils buried family secrets as a result. Emily's break from academic research sees her investigating her dead grandmother's belongings. She finds her well-hidden journal and starts reading it, including a few strange incantations. That is the catalyst for the appearance of Apotato, a talking vegetable that will torment Emily by teasing her, threatening to fill her house with mashed potato in twenty-four hours in case she doesn't teach it to speak Swahili. Emily does not have the willpower needed to teach the critter, but she needs to do it - it is the only way of unwrapping the shocking truth about her grandmother's past - and her own.