Nicky (Nickelodeon Ha Ha Grant) is not feeling too ha ha. Maybe because he's on the road again with Mr. Fudge's Fantastic Flyers, trundling through the prairies in a camper covered with glued-on trinkets and beside a little brother who keeps crying. Maybe because he's sick of being carsick, and of eating rollmops for breakfast every day. Maybe because he'd rather go to real school than correspondence school. Maybe because, more than anything, he wants a real friend. Then the tiny circus troupe arrives in Halo, Saskatchewan, and things start to change... Caroline Adderson has written a tender, funny and wise children's novel, reminiscent of Polly Horvath, Jerry Spinelli and Roald Dahl -- with perhaps a drop of Corner Gas.