Up in the bleachers, Matty raised his head half an inch, his round plastic glasses catching the white gym lights.

I took one step forward to the microphone in front of three hundred students.

I tapped the black plastic head of the portable mic twice to clear the shrill static ringing through the loudspeakers.

“I’m not a Navy SEAL,” I said into the foam cover.

The bleachers burst into a sharp wave of high-pitched laughter.

“Busted!” a boy in the second row of the middle school bleachers yelled.

Matty dropped his head at once and pressed both palms against his face, his round wire-rimmed glasses tipping sideways across his nose.