Excerpt from Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

It worked. Tilly got mad instantly ("zero to sixty" is what my mom calls it), and made a move like she was going to hit me as hard as she could. I shrank myself down and pressed into my mom's side, and my dad grabbed Tilly's hand.

"Guys," said my mom. "Come on. Tilly, you don't hit your sister, ever, no matter how mad you are. Iris, this is important to Tilly. Stop putting it down."

"Fucking fuck," Tilly said, enough under her breath that my parents let it go.

I just walked away like I was super-?calm and totally above that kind of behavior, even though the whole time, I was continuing the conversation in my head. This is the most boring tourist thing ever: let's go look at some air! You know those "Falling Rock" signs you see on the highway? That's the same exact thing—get your cameras out! But after I stopped being angry, I felt kind of bad for making fun of this thing she likes so much, so when I went into the visitor's center to use the bathroom, I bought her a postcard in the gift shop.

Now it's like a half hour later, and we're driving right through a forest, or at least that's what it seems like. I didn't even know there were roads that went through forests; I thought it was all like hiking trails and people camping. I can't decide if it feels cozy or spooky; everywhere you look, every window, nothing but pine trees. It feels like a fairy tale, but the beginning part that's a little bit scary, because you don't know what the characters are going to find. It feels like we're the only people on earth.

Tilly's all bored and fidgety. She starts humming something, a tune she made up. I know where this is going, and I turn and look out my window, so I can be outside it, kind of. Even though she's thirteen, and I'm only eleven, a lot of the time it seems like I'm the big sister.

"Daddy," sings Tilly, softly. "Gonna suck your cock." She draws the word "cock" out so that it's two syllables.

"Cut it out, Tilly," says Dad. He sounds a little annoyed, but not as angry or shocked as you might think if you were someone who wasn't in our family. Tilly says this kind of stuff all the time. We're all used to it. "No more, or you're jinxed."

Jinxed means she's not allowed to talk for five minutes, just like when you say something at the same time as someone else, except that she can't get out of it by someone saying her name. My mom and dad only do it when we're in the car; it's because they can't send her to her room or take away her computer or whatever. Taking away her computer has always been Tilly's biggest consequence. I wonder what they'll do at this camp, when there's no computer to take away.

"Hey," I say to her. Sometimes she just needs some other place for her mind to go. "Wanna play That Didn't Hurt?"

She grins, then leans over and pinches my arm.

"That didn't hurt," I say. I wriggle so my seatbelt is a little looser, then whack Tilly on the back of her head.

"That didn't hurt," she says. We're both laughing.

"Guys," my mom calls from the front seat. She hates it when we do this. "This always ends with one of you crying."

"We don't care," I call back. Tilly punches me in the side, and I grab a handful of her hair and tug. Before I even pull my hand back, Tilly says, "That didn't hurt," and then scratches my arm hard enough that her fingernails leave white lines.

"That didn't hurt," I say, even though it did. I rub my arm. It is kind of a stupid game, when you think about it. "I don't feel like playing anymore."

"Hey, Mom," Tilly says. "Nobody's crying."

My mom doesn't answer.

For a little while, we're all quiet. Now that we're almost there, I'm starting to feel a little scared. This place we're going, Camp Harmony, doesn't sound like it's going to be much fun. The guy in charge is this friend of my parents' named Scott Bean. He's kind of famous for running parenting conferences (if that's something you can be famous for), which is how my mom met him. Eventually, she started helping him out, redoing his website for him, and sending out flyers and stuff.

Excerpted from Harmony by Carolyn Parkhurst. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.