The bus pulled into Branson and Randi sighed. She couldn’t see the looks on peoples faces but she could imagine what they were thinking, a couple weeks ago she would have thought the circus had arrived. Now though she knew that the circus had arrived. Aunt Mary looked at her and smiled, Randi instantly felt guilty, her aunt and uncle had done so much for her she didn’t know why she couldn’t just be grateful.

“What are we doing in Branson mom?” Andrew the oldest of Randi’s cousins asked.

“Well we are going to check out the landing and then there is an indoor water park.”

“Are we going to get to go to Silver Dollar City?”

“We’ll see.”

Shasta was curled up on the floor in the back of the station wagon, hidden between book bags, the rhythmic thumping of her tail was really the only clue the family had that she was still in the car.

“Does the place we are going know we have Shasta?” Marci asked.

Technically Shasta was Randi’s dog, or so Aunt Mary and Uncle David said when they agreed to keep her. Shasta caused her share of trouble before joining the family, so did Randi for that matter. Maybe that is why they fit so well together.

They found Shasta after Randi told her young cousins that there was a scary creature loose in Bennet Springs. First Marci ran off and hid from Randi because she scared her with tales of creatures like Coyotes or Mountain Lions that would get her. Then feeling bad that she scared her cousin Randi ran off and hid, it took some of the fishermen and Randi’s Aunt and Uncle arranging a search party to finally find her. Then they had to go to court. The social worker wasn’t convinced that Randi should stay with her family, they wanted to commit Randi and it took some work by the family and a lot of money to convince the judge that Randi was right where she needed to be. Her aunt and uncle were able to finally adopt her and so now Randi was legally their daughter though she still thought of them as her aunt and uncle rather than her Mom and Dad. Randi’s parents were killed in a car accident, when a semi hit their car. Randi was with them but because she wasn’t wearing her seatbelt she was on the floor board of the car when the semi went over them.

It was right after the accident when Randi was released from the hospital that she went to live with her aunt and uncle on their school bus. The family had converted an old school bus into a RV and they traveled around living in the bus and doing a cross between home school and unschooling. Randi for her part was to help the younger kids with their work and do a little bit of high school, including keeping a journal of her work and catching up on any of the classics that she had yet to read. She also was trying to learn algebra and working out of a college text book on biology. Randi was technically a sophomore in high school. Her aunt and uncle thought with her grades and what she already knew that she could take the GED the next year and start looking into colleges if she wanted, or she could continue to homeschool until she was 18.

Randi wasn’t sure what she wanted to do yet. At first when she came to live with her aunt and uncle she knew that anything had to be better. She wanted to go live with her aunts in Claifornai. One was a writer on a soap opera and the other worked as a seemstress making costumes for some primetime show. However after the incident at Bennet Springs and when she saw how scared Marci was she knew that she didn’t want to go anywhere else. What is more she wanted to stick around her cousin and make sure that nothing bad ever happened to her or her brothers again.

“Have you ever been to Silver Dollar City Randi?”

She had, with her parents last year. The memory brought up a pain in her chest. Things had gotten a little bit better. She no longer threw up just by getting into the car, the nightmares had gotten a little bit better too. Still she wasn’t ready to talk about the things that she did with her parents like going to silver dollar city.

“No, I’ve never been.” It was a boldfaced lie and Randi could tell by the look on hr aunts face that she didn’t believe her not for a second.

“We definitely have to go if Randi has never been to Silver Dollar City,” Philip said, his face shown with excitement.

“That’s okay, I am sure I am not missing much.”

Andrew gave his cousin a strange look and then changed the subject. “Are you planning on staying in contact with Jonas?”

Jonas was a boy they met at Bennet Springs before Randi pulled her disappearing act. Randi’s cheeks felt warm and she looked down at her hands. They exchanged information and Randi was hoping to be able to stay in contact with him. They also exchanged a kiss, Randi’s fist kiss even though she was already fifteen years old.

“He gave me his address and e-mail address, so probably we will stay in touch.”

“He seems nice enough I guess” Andrew said, and then he broke out into a huge grin at his cousin and started humming the kissing song.

“Grow up Andrew.” Randi said in a huff.