Leaving Atlanta

Often called “Tasha,” this character who re-appears throughout the novel is the main character in Part 1, “Magic Words.” Tasha is a fifth-grader at Oglethorpe Elementary School with a younger, babyish eight-year-old sister named DeShaun. Her parents are Dolores, originally from Oklahoma, and Charles, who comes from Alabama and calls his daughter “Ladybug.” Dolores supervises the payroll department at Pitman and Sons. Dolores and Charles’s brief marital separation is painful and confusing to Tasha, who is faintly aware of her father’s involvement with another woman. Dolores and Charles soon reconcile, partly to ensure their daughters’ protection from serial killer who is targeting African-American children. Tasha develops a crush on Jashante Hamilton, a boy of a lower economic class, when they spend time together at a skating rink. Before, during a fifth-grade relay race, they had argued and scuffled on the playground due to Jashante feeling rejected by Tasha. She wishes him death at the hands of the child abductor. Shortly after they reunite at the skating rink and establish a friendship, Jashante disappears and Tasha wonders, in horror, over the power of her words.