Bluford High

Darcy's distress over her boyfriend Hakeem's move to Detroit, her grandmother's increasing frailness, and other changes in her life, leads her to make a big error in judgment when she becomes involved with the brother of a young woman who is employing Darcy as a babysitter.

Ninth-grader Darrell Mercer and his mother move to the Bluford area in the middle of the school year where, Darrell quickly becomes a target for Tyray Hobbs, the freshman class bully.

When his eight-year-old brother is killed in a drive-by shooting, Hispanic teenager Martin Luna is torn between his thirst for revenge and the pleas of his mother, teacher, and girlfriend for him to resist becoming a gangbanger.