Sarah Smith sighed as she walked through the schoolhouse doors. "Another boring day at another new school," she thought dejectedly as she made her way to her locker. Thankfully, there was only a month left until the end of the school year and then maybe, just maybe, she and her mother would move again before the beginning of the next school year. Even though Sarah was just finishing up the sixth grade, this was her eleventh school. She and her mom moved a lot, but they seemed to be moving more lately, and it scared her. Almost 9 years ago, when she was four years old, her dad, who had been an FBI agent, had infiltrated an international crime ring. The boss of the ring found out her dad was a Fed and killed him, and he had been after her and her mom ever since. As a result, they never stayed in one place for very long.
She was used to moving around a lot, but this last time had really sucked. She had been at her last school since the start of the academic year, so she had actually been able to make some friends and she had hoped that they would be able to stay for the entire year. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. She hadn't been surprised when her mother had picked her up from her old school the previous week and she had seen her pink 'bug-out bag' in the back seat of the car, but she had been disappointed, bitterly disappointed. In the past, she usually had a day or two of warning before she and her mom made one of their frequent moves, but this time her mom had picked her up from school and they had left their small town without looking back. She knew she would never see her friends again and she missed them terribly. Her new school was big and most of the kids were unfriendly, so she kept to herself most of the time. Plus, she had decided not to make any new friends; it just hurt too badly when she had to leave them.
Sarah heard the bell ring, so she hastily shoved her jacket into her locker, and then booked it to her classroom. The calendar might have said it was almost summer, but the cold Montana air felt like early spring.
"Glad you could join us, Miss Smith," her teacher said sarcastically. Sarah could tell he didn't like her, not that she could blame him, he had suddenly been saddled with an additional student right before the end of the year; that would piss any teacher off.
"Sorry sir," she mumbled as she made her way to her desk. She let her long hair fall down to cover the sides of her face as she opened her notebook and pretended to pay attention to the morning announcements.
"And now," her teacher announced after he finished reading the messages, "We are going to learn about safety; both online and in-person." All of the students, including Sarah, groaned as an overly enthusiastic woman and a stone faced police officer entered the room. They were all 12 and 13 years old, and they were still going to get a 'stranger danger' presentation? She shook her head as she pulled the school issued iPad out of her desk so she could follow along with the childish presentation.
The woman talked about keeping information off of facebook and out of chat rooms; she warned against sending selfies to strangers, and she told them what to do if someone tried to solicit them online. Once she was done with the online portion, she told them to go to a website database for missing children. Once there, Sarah, who was beyond bored, started clicking aimlessly through the site.
"This site is a comprehensive site that shows not only missing children, but known and suspected abductors. It gives information regarding…" The woman went on and on about the website, but Sarah wasn't listening to her anymore, she wasn't listening to anything anymore. Instead, she was staring at her baby picture…her baby picture which just happened to be on the missing children website.