Shawn stared as his bed. It was neatly made, as always. As Mom would have wanted it to be. But in the center there was something strange that seemed out of place: a deck of cards.

Some of the cards were spilled out onto the bed. The seemed old, worn. The edges were frayed on a few and there were a few creases like they had been bent before.

Shawn leaned over and gathered the loose cards into a deck before picking them up. He shuffled through them, looking at the card faces as he tried to figure out why these were here all of a sudden.

"Tee-hee-hee!" a light-hearted voice shouted. Shawn looked up to see a dwarf-like creature sitting. Sitting on the ceiling to be precise.

He had curly hair and was chewing on the butt-end of what looked like a corn-cob pipe.

"You like the cards?"

Shawn jumped, but quickly regained his composure. He mustered his best polite tone; it seemed to work on at least some Circus creatures. "They're very nice, Mr...?"