#ReadWithMC (opens in new tab)-Welcome to Marie Claire's virtual book club. It's a pleasure to meet you, and for the month of February we will be reading "What Fireflies Knew" (opens in a new tab) by Kai Harris (February 1). This is a touching coming-of-age story told from the perspective of a black girl named KB. Read an excerpt from the novel below and learn how to join our virtual book club here (opens in new tab). (No need to get off the couch.)

"We there yet." My sister Nia unbuckles her seatbelt and lies in the back seat beside me. Her skin glistens in the sunlight through the half-cracked window, and a small breeze carries her cottony hair back and forth, up and down. People say Nia looks like her mama. We have the same oval eyes and mahogany skin. My eyes are round and my skin is pale yellow, like an undercooked French fry. [Mama ignores Nia's question. Mama ignored Nia's question. My nose found the smell of rotten bananas and I remembered that night about six months ago. The smell filled the car, like the stench of an old basement that had lingered after Dad had been buried. I reached into the seat cushion and touched something sticky, but it was more peppermint sticky than banana sticky. A few days ago, I was lying in the back seat reading a book when, as usual, Mom and Nia yelled outside the car door. Mom and Nia were yelling right outside the car door, as usual. I decided to come back and get it when the fight was over. But in the end that didn't happen, and now I can't remember where I hid it. I rub my eyes and look around. I want to sleep, but I wake up and I smell bad. [Nia doesn't look at me, she just stares out the window, so I stare out the window too. There is nothing but flat green space. Cars come and go on both sides. Mom likes to drive slower than the other cars. I count in the car window as a sign larger than I am crosses vaguely beside me. The Toys "R" Us sign has a big picture of the new Easy Bake Oven and Snack Center in the middle. An open sign for a new restaurant called Ponderosa. And a picture of children playing in the dirt with this written underneath: new name, same fun. Impression 5: 28 miles to the Science Center. I'd ask my mom to stop by the restaurant or the science center. But a toy will do. Count, count, count, we're up to 22 miles.

I find a book among the cushions of the seat and open it to the first page. This is the third time I've read "Anne of Green Gables. I wonder what a gable is, and why it is green. But it's the best book for me because Anne is, in a way, just like me. And I love the sound of her words, even if I don't always understand the way she speaks. Ever since I picked this book out of my school forget-me-nots, I've been reading Anne's books and learning how to speak like her. She didn't have many books of her own, so when no one at school came to get them, I went and got them. [The orchard on the slope below the house was full of pinkish-white flowers and countless bees humming. I rolled the new words slowly over my tongue like dripping honey. Countless, countless, countless. Orchard, what is an orchard? Sometimes Nia teases me when I try to use words like the ones in the book. But even if Anne and I don't look the same, we speak the same, and in other ways we are similar.

I read six more pages of Anne showing up in Avonlea and trying to blend in where she didn't belong. Mom muttered bad words beginning with D under her breath. It felt good. I repeated it about a dozen times since we bought the car a year ago, once for each time it stopped working, but I stopped counting at some point. Our old Dodge Caravan, nicknamed Carol Ann, seems to break more often than it moves, like the little girl in that scary movie Poltergeist.

"Nia, KB. get off, push." Mom knows what I'm going to say before I say it, so my seatbelt is already undone and Nia is half out of the car by the time I finish saying the words. We pull out into the sun, onto a small hill where the smoking car is parked. When Dad was pushing the car, his muscles got bigger the more he pushed, sometimes even up the hill. I was glad to at least be able to go down the hill.

"This is stupid," Nia murmurs, but I pretend not to hear her. Mama keeps steering and smiling. [Mama always smiles. Her smile is like a giant dripping ice cream cone after a full dinner. Even when my stomach hurts, I want that smile. I need that smile more than anything in the world. Mom smiles many different smiles for many different things. This smile tightens the sides of her face like a plastic doll's drawn-out smile when the car comes to a whirring stop.

"Ugh." Nia groans from the other side of the car. I pretend I still can't hear her, wipe the sweat from my forehead, squint in the hot sun, take off my favorite rainbow jacket with a hole where the pocket should be, and wrap it around my waist. It doesn't take much muscle to push Carol Ann. Maybe it's because it's down a hill. We drove straight from the Knights Inn, where we have been staying ever since we lost our real home. I had never stayed in a motel before. It smelled like cigarette smoke mixed with fried chicken grease, and sometimes there were bugs on the mattress, but there were some nice things about it. On the first day, Nia showed me how to trick the vending machines.

"Do you have money? I asked. Behind the glass, there were all sorts of nice things: chocolate bars, potato chips, toothbrushes.

"I don't need anything," Nia replied matter-of-factly.

"You're giving it to me for free," Nia replied blithely."

"No," Nia put her hands on her glass. Unless you know a secret trick." She pressed her hands against the windowpane and tapped on it until a bag of chips and two pieces of gum fell out. 'Ta-da. Nia shoved her hands into the bottom, pulled out her stolen treasures, and stuffed them all into her pockets before her mom could see them.

"How did you know?" You've been to the motel. I tried to put my hand in Nia's pocket, but she shook my hand away.

"No, KB, motels aren't the only places with vending machines." Nia pulled two sticks of gum out of her pocket, handed one to me, and put the other in her mouth. 'You've never seen anyone do that before.' I shook my head, but Nia had already walked away.

As it turned out, cheating the vending machine wasn't the only new thing I learned at the motel. There was also a hair dryer that remained attached to the wall and uniformed people who cleaned the room every day. After letting them into the room for the first time, Mom came home from the Chrysler plant and exclaimed. Mama prefers to call it that rather than calling it a motel.

"We're almost there, ladies," Mom yells from the front seat. Pushing the car along, I bury my worn shoes in the dirt. It hasn't rained today, but it looks like mud. I look back and see my own small footprints next to Nia's large footprints. The ground appears to be decorated with large and small polka dots. It feels good to help my mom, but every time I look at Nia I frown.

"That's it, ladies." Mama sings as we finally reach the bottom of the hill. The car makes a loud noise. Then it starts moving again. Mama pulls on her braids and waits for us to get back in the car. Nia is first, quickly. I take my time to catch Mom's eye in the side mirror. And there she is, just as I knew she would be. First, a wink. Then two kisses. I catch the first kiss, catch the second kiss, and blow it back into the wind. Our special one, just me and Mom. I buckle my seatbelt next to Nia and turn Mom's smile to her, but all I get back is another frown. [Mom looked at us through the rearview mirror before pulling over. I wonder how Mom sees us. Either way, she smiled at both of us the same way, then slowly drove away again.

From "What the Fireflies Knew" by Kai Harris, published by Tiny Reparations Books, a publisher of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.Copyright (c) 2022 by Kai Harris.