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

"None of them, actually," Scott says. "These are the visitor cabins. Come with me, and I'll show you the staff campground."

We follow him down a little dirt path that curves behind the dollhouse cabins and goes back into the woods. Tilly's still tapping her cheeks, but she comes along without saying anything. We walk a ways, and then a second group of buildings comes into view. They're the same size as the others, but less cute and more run-down. They're all painted the same color, a kind of dull green that makes them blend into the trees.

"You folks are in Number Five," Scott says, pointing to the one on the end. It's got a tiny front porch with two canvas chairs on it, and a white door right in the middle. I swear the whole thing is smaller than the jungle gym at my old school.

"Perfect," my mom says. "Do we need a key?"

"Nope," says Scott. "No keys here. We're an open-?door community."

"Oh, of course," my mom says. "I'm still in city detox."

"I'll go get some of the bags," my dad says to my mom and turns back the way we came. My mom walks up onto the cabin porch and opens the door. Tilly stops in the doorway, and I stand behind her, waiting to get inside.

"You just get yourselves settled," Scott calls from outside. "I'm in Number One, if you need anything."

I nudge Tilly. "He's in Number One," I say quietly, nudging her into the cabin. "He lives in pee."

Tilly still looks upset, but her face twists almost into a smile. "I'm glad we're not in Number Two," she says.

Right inside the front door is a big room that's half kitchen and half living room. On one side, there's a white plastic table and chairs, and running along the wall, there's a refrigerator, a sink, and a counter with some stove burners built in. There are cupboards, but they don't have any doors, and neither does the space underneath the sink; they're just covered with dirty yellow-and-white-checked curtains.

On the other half of the room, there's a couch and two armchairs arranged around a coffee table. The furniture is old and ugly, and none of it matches. There are three doors, leading to a bathroom and two bedrooms. The whole place feels grungy, like it couldn't get clean no matter how hard we try.

"This sucks," I say. I'm getting really nervous all of a sudden, which is silly because nothing's happened, but maybe it's been building up. Like we were all so focused on getting here, and now we actually are. Here. So…now what?

"It really sucks," I say, louder. I feel like I'm filling up with some kind of thick, horrible substance. I picture it like the disgusting yellow goo my dad used one time to fill the spaces between the bathtub and the wall in our old house: it's called caulk, which Tilly would probably think is funny because it sounds like "cock," but right now, I'm not even thinking about that, I'm just picturing this gross, gluey stuff, ugly and poisonous, expanding to fit the inside-?shape of my body, spreading through me and hardening as it seeps into every little crevice.

There's a thump as Tilly finally lets the screen door swing shut. She walks in, and I can tell by the look on her face that she's about to go over the edge. For some reason that makes me furious. I make a deep growling noise and punch the dirty, shiny sofa, to keep from punching her.

"I'm not living here," she says, her voice rising to a wail. She lunges at my mother, maybe to hit her, maybe to bite her, and my mom grabs her upper arms to keep her away. "I want my Xbox. I want my computer." She's screaming now. "I'll kill you if you don't give me my computer." I go into the bathroom and slam the door.

We're here for Tilly, she's the whole reason we gave up everything and moved here, even though nobody's saying it. But I can make a scene, too. "Fuck," I yell. Then louder, in case they didn't hear me: "Fuck!"

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.