Excerpt from Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"They say the last storm blew dust all the way to New York, Beth," Jack was saying to Mama as she stood looking down at a newspaper on the edge of the counter. He looked drawn, worried, like everyone does all the time now. "They say some places in Texas, it's piled up in drifts that can cover cars."

"God will bring the rain," Mama replied. She has the slightest bit of an English accent. It always stands out. She moved here from England when she was young, and she's always said the grass there is so green and wet it looks like a carpet, that the trees that fill the woods are as covered in green as limes.

Mama is full of faith, but recently mine has been running through my fingers, dribbling out. I can't seem to catch it.

Jack's daughter Lyla darted out of the back of the store and gave us a happy wave, because like everyone else, she's in love with Ellis. The only difference is, I think he loves her back. They're both seventeen, a year older than me. Ellis likes to annoy me by calling me "the kid," but Lyla shoots him looks when he does it, standing up for me.

Ellis stepped forward, leaned on the counter, and tapped his fingers as Lyla loaded a shelf. "Any way you all can do better than three cents on this apple?" he asked, pulling it from where I'd replaced it. I was mortified, but Lyla smiled and slid it into a bag with the flour for free. That's the effect Ellis has on people. I know I'll end up giving most of it to Beezie anyway, but it still gives me a warmth inside.

Ellis was just stepping up to whisper to me when something else grabbed our attention—both at the same time.

It hung behind the cash register, tucked sheepishly below eye level: a poster, dominated by a beautiful dancing girl in a long gold skirt and big hoop earrings. Behind her were lions, a cobra twirling out of a basket, a man holding barbells, a Ferris wheel. The words Ragbag Fair—Coming Soon! were written across the top in red.

"Whoa," I said, gaping.

"Whoa," Ellis echoed. "Would you look at her."

I slapped his arm and shook my head. It wasn't the dancing girl I was drawn to but the picture tucked away at the upper-right corner like an afterthought: a bolt of lightning threading through a pair of gnarled old hands, and these words beside it: Would you pay $10 for Eternal Life? You Can at the Electric! Midnight Shows Only!

"What's the Electric?" I asked Jack.

"One of the exhibits, I guess. They'll be here for weeks, sounds like. Paid me two dollars just to hang it here, but ..." He looked sheepishly at Mama. "I might just take it down and give the money back."

"That'd probably be best," Mama said, eyeing the poster doubtfully. Mama's a timid sort. She's never broken a rule in her life, and these kinds of carnivals are frowned on by just about everyone.

But all the way home, I was thinking about the poster—the old, wrinkled hands, the lightning bolt.

Ellis once told me that if they had a way of weighing people's souls along with their bodies I'd be 2 percent fat, 10 percent water, and 90 percent unattainable desires. (Ellis has made a lifelong career out of telling me about myself, but he can't do math.) He says I talk about rain and daydream about rain and think about rain so much that the only way I'll ever be happy is if I am reincarnated as a puddle. Every place we've ever seen a photograph of, I've told him I want to see it.

Anyway, I often tell Ellis things I'd tell no one else, but if I told him how badly I wish I had that ten dollars for the Electric, he'd laugh in my face. I want him to think well of me. He hates superstition as much as he hates cities and spinach and snakes.

Excerpted from Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Copyright © 2017 by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Children's Books.