Drusie Valentini feels she is trapped on a merry-go-round, going nowhere. She doesn't fit in with the rest of her arty family: her extravagant puppeteer father, his gypsylike assistant Fey who moved in when her mother left; even her pesky brother Punch. A party a boyfriend talked her into giving ends in disaster-and in getting sent to a strict boarding school. In a year where it seems that everyone is pulling her strings, Drusie is forcd to come to terms with her life with the people she loves best-and with the person she is, and hopes to be.