“Eleven-year-olds start doubting themselves when a guy in a gold watch talks into a loudspeaker,” Kenneth said.

“Matty’s got my blood,” I said.

“He’ll hold.”

The speedometer needle crept past sixty-four and settled at sixty-five as the school zone warning sign came into view through the trees.

The clock over the basketball hoops read 1100 when three hundred sixth graders packed into the wooden bleachers in the Shoreline Middle School gym.

A yellow vinyl banner ran across the back wall, printed with COURAGE STARTS HERE in thick white letters.

The Virginia Beach police officer had just finished showing off his handheld radar gun, and the Coast Guard officer had stepped back to the wall.