*CRASH-ROAR-PANT.*
The classroom door of Room 3B was secured behind them with an authoritative, airtight, pneumatic *THUD*.
The room returned to silence.
The only sound left was the sixty-cycle hum of the ventilation ducts, the steady breathing of Scout sitting beside Clara’s desk, and the rhythmic *tack… tack… tack* of Arthur Mercer’s chronometer watch on Captain Morales’s wrist.
Ben walked over to Clara’s empty desk.
From his pocket, he pulled out a clean, un-crushed copy of Clara’s “Real-Life Hero” report—restored on heavy archival bond paper, laminated in matte military protective vinyl, bearing an official gold seal from the Commandant of the Marine Corps.
He walked to the center of the “Real-Life Hero” wall.
Right in the middle of the board, directly beneath the American flag…
Ben pinned Clara’s project with two solid brass survey tacks:
*TACK.
TACK.*
Across the front, in clean, sharp, gold-embossed lettering, gleamed the title:
