Cary Fagan is an award-winning author whose work includes the Kaspar Snit novels. He lives with his family in Toronto. Visit him at .

If you always feel fully and completely happy, my friends, then you do not need my drops and I will not sell them to you for any amount of money. Master MelvilleEleven-year-old juggling enthusiast Sullivan Mintz helps his family run the Stardust Home for Old People. Its not ideal: his best friend, Manny, is eighty-one years old. But life as usual turns upside down when Master Melvilles Medicine Show comes to town. Sullivans excitement at finding performers his own age dissolves into dread when he steps onstage for a magic act only to wake up imprisoned in the traveling shows caravan. As his fears subside, his questions multiply. Is his family better off without him? Would life as a juggler performing with other kids be worse than living in an old folks home? Being kidnapped could be the best thing that ever happened to him . . . or decidedly not.