Dark Hope by Monica McGurk Page A

and face, and black boots with platforms so high she probably could have looked Michael in the eye. The truth was, she scared me more than a little. I’d noticed that while most of the other black kids in school kept to themselves in pretty tight cliques, they all steered clear of her—as did everyone else.
    Now, Tabitha skewered me with a look of wry amusement, one heavily penciled brow arching high in a question as she swept her long bangs out of her deep mocha face. “I guess since lover boy split, it’s you and me, huh?”
    I felt my cheeks turning red. “He’s not my boyfriend,” I protested.
    “Whatever,” she snorted, grabbing her notebook up in her shiny black fingertips. The chains dangling from her belt rattled as she hopped off her desk toward me. “What d’ya say, partner?”
    She cleared her throat and tapped her thick-soled toes on the floor, reminding me that she was waiting for my answer.
    “I guess so.”
    “I hope you’ve got more in you than ‘guess so,’ because this paper has got to kick ass,” she smirked, stomping over to take the seat next to me. “I already know what we should write about,” she asserted, flopping the list of topics down in front of me. “Look.”
    I followed her pointed finger to the topic she had circled.
Child slavery
.
    “Atlanta has become a hub for human trafficking,” she enthused, leaning in to convince me. “Just like it is for drugs and illegal immigration. Kids get kidnapped and end up in all sorts of bad situations. Lots of organizations are trying to intervene, churches and nonprofits and even the FBI, and there are shelters for kids that get rescued. We could even interview them. I heard all about it at church last Sunday.”
    She was moving too fast for me and I blurted out the first thing that popped into my head.
    “You go to church?”
    She drew herself up in her seat, staring coldly at me. “Don’t you judge me by how I look, little miss. I happen to be a PK.”
    “PK?” I was bewildered.
    “Preacher’s kid. We’re expected to rebel,” she pronounced, gesturing elaborately around her clothes and face. “But in the end, we all come around. Or so I’ve been told,” she smirked. “And I’m no dummy, either. I’m making a 4.0. You could do a lot worse than to have me as your research partner.” She crossed her arms, dark tattoos peeking out from under her cuffs, and wiggled her foot impatiently.
    I nibbled the eraser on the tip of my pencil, reappraising the situation.
    “What about this topic,” I said lamely, pointing to
recycling
. “Or this one?”
    She snorted again. “Really? You want to write about video games and Facebook?” She started gathering up her things. “You and everyone else in here, probably. If you want to make a difference in something real, research these kids. It’s my one condition for being your partner.”
    She was standing now, looming over me with one hand on her hip. I had the sinking feeling of being bulldozed. Somewhere deep inside me something was shifting. Old fears—fears I didn’t even know I had—were coming to the surface. Could I face my own history and all these feelings that I might not be able to keep locked away?
    You’ll regret it
, the little voice in my head said.
    “I don’t think I have any choice,” I muttered, looking up from my chair, feeling for all the world like a child being browbeaten by a babysitter.
    She beamed at me. “I knew you’d do it. Why don’t we meet after school to work out our research plan?”

    Tabitha turned out to be right. The topic was fascinating, and Atlanta really did have a problem. I tried to block out my unease by focusing on the facts.
    “Look at this,” I said, pointing out the results of my latest web search. “This article says that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation has started making more human trafficking raids than raids on marijuana or cocaine shipments.”
    “Hmmm,” she mumbled, reading over my shoulder. In the quiet of