What the Fireflies Knew

1

 

"We there yet?" My big sister, Nia, unbuckles her seat belt and lays cross the back seat beside me. Her skin shimmers in the sun from a half-cracked window, which lets a tiny breeze slide in that carries her cottony hair back and forth, up and down. People say Nia's the one who looks like Momma. They have the same oval eyes and mahogany skin. My eyes are rounder and my skin pale yellow, like the color of french fries that ain't quite cooked.

 

Momma ignores Nia's question. Probably cause it's bout the tenth time she's asked. My nose finds the smell of rotten banana and that's got me thinking back to that night, almost six months ago now. The smell fills the car, just like the stench in our old basement that stuck around even after Daddy was buried. I dig my hands into the seat cushions and touch something sticky, but it's more peppermint sticky than banana sticky. Days ago, laying with a book in the back seat, one of my favorite places now, I got interrupted by Momma and Nia, right outside the car door and yelling, like always. They ain't see me, so I crept out before they could, hiding the banana I was just bout to bite. I hid it in a perfect place to come back for later, once all the fighting finally stopped. But it never did, and now I can't remember where I put it. I rub my eyes as I look around. I wanna fall asleep, but now I'm awake and smelling that stink.

 

Nia don't look my way, just stares out the window, so I stare out the window. Ain't nothin' but flat green spaces. Cars speed by on both sides. I like that Momma drives slower than the other cars, cause then I don't get carsick. I count signs bigger than me as they blur cross my reflection in the car window. There's one for Toys"R"Us with a big picture of the new Easy-Bake Oven and Snack Center right in the middle. A now open sign for a new restaurant called Ponderosa. And one with a picture of a bunch of kids playing with dirt, and

Kai Harris

Harris rewrites the coming-of-age story with Black girlhood at the center.
New York Times Book Review

"[A] sensitive, realistic portrait of a ten-year-old trying to understand her world in the wake of her father s death. Sent to spend the summer with a grandfather she barely knows, she contends with her losses and fears while learning more about her family, finding her own voice in the process."
The Washington Post

"[What the Fireflies Knew] is not an easy read . . . but it feels authentic, and does what good fiction does: takes readers on a journey they otherwise wouldn t travel."
Associated Press

What the Fireflies Knew is the best novel I have read in a long time, and Harris has brilliantly captured KB s voice. She jumps off the page so strongly that I was invested not only from the first page but, indeed, the first sentence.
Free Lance-Star

Harris s story helped me remember what it was like to be a young Black girl on the border of adolescence.  
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Combining complex characters, writing that instantly penetrates your heart, and the restorative power of nature, What the Fireflies Knew is a luminous reminder that sometimes the only true path to healing is through facing our painful histories, and that we don t have to do it alone. With a debut novel this remarkable, Kai Harris is a writer I hope is around for a long, long time.
Mateo Askaripour, New York Times bestselling author of Black Buck

"What the Fireflies Knew is a fabulous debut and truly a gem of a novel, full of the beauty, tenderness, and poignancy of Black girlhood.
Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies

"What the Fireflies Knew is sharp and graceful, poignant in its depiction of a family learning