twelve and thirteen years old, and under five feet tall. They wore various ROTC rank insignia, and were talking to reporters nearby too, demanding a ban on military assault weapons and passionately describing sensible gun regulations—focusing on the “well-regulated” militia authorized in the Second Amendment. They said there were about fifty-five students in their unit, and they believed virtually all of them walked out.
They kept walking down the street, and the pace quickened as the wave caught up with them and they realized this was really happening, the whole freaking school, it looked like—and then some kids started running, soon everyone was running, laughing, no idea where they were headed, but they were really going there!
Reporters kept asking where they were going; kids kept shrugging.
“I honestly have no clue,” St. Piere said. “I’m just following the group.”
Finally, a kid at the front of the pack yelled, “Pine Trails!”
None of them actively tried to signal the Douglas kids. They did not plan to rev up from a leisurely stroll to a stampede right in front of Douglas, just as its students were retreating back inside. It just worked out that way. But the Douglas kids noticed.
At Pine Trails that afternoon, Douglas kids confirmed that it was the excitement beyond the fence that sparked their sudden decision to go. Their little brothers and sisters had taken to the streets to support them—that was the spark. And just as at Westglades, it was suddenly a wave. They followed the Westglades pack to Pine Trails. Seemed right, among the memorials. They hadn’t been there in a while. Nearly two miles away, but they didn’t mind.
The memorials were all still standing, but weathered and withering, the teddy bears, soggy and a little smelly after days of relentless spring rains. Each victim’s name was hand-painted on a sign, faded now, and Peter Wang’s was torn loose, lying on the ground. Freshly printed signs posted everywhere announced that everything soon would be collected for long-term preservation.
When the kids arrived, there was a lot of milling. No one seemed quite sure what to do now that they were there. But Susana Matta Valdivieso was ready. She had made a split-second decision as she watched her classmates bolt. She hit social media: Reroute! Angel Lopez and others helped spread the word. She chose a position in front of the angels and started her first speakers. Early arrivals walked over to see what was happening, and a crowd formed. The rabbi threw the microphone and speakers into her car, raced over, and hooked them up. Then it seemed official. That was the remarkable thing about the Pine Trails rally. It was spontaneous—organized, reconfigured, and expanded on the fly via Snapchat and Instagram, but with seeds sown long before.
Angel Lopez made it, frustrated that so few from his own school had. “The kids that were daring jumped the gates,” he said. David and Lauren Hogg arrived and held up an improvised sign. David said he had first gotten wind of it when he saw students heading for the doors. He was going to skip it, because he was so behind in school, but needed to cover it as a journalist. And then the fever grabbed him, and he was coaxed to the microphone and delivered the second-most-memorable speech of the event.
As the rally progressed, a little girl burrowed her way to the front, where I was holding out my phone to record the speaker. She wore a maroon justice sweatshirt, big white headphones around her neck, and red cat ears on her head. She rose just a little higher than my waist. Her name was Aarayln Hughes. She leaned in meekly to whisper to me. “Excuse me, sir. What if I want to speak?” She thought I was in charge. I wasn’t yet sure who was in charge, but Susana seemed to be directing people to the microphone, so I nodded toward her. Aarayln looked distraught. She had already summoned all her courage. I leaned down and encouraged her to scoot past me. I bet she’ll let you speak if you ask, I said.
A few minutes later, Aarayln Hughes took the mic and wowed the crowd. “It hurts for me to see all these kids crying,” she said. “No kid should be going through this. I want my voice to be heard because no other sixth grader is doing this. I want this generation to make a change for everyone: big, small, teenagers, adults—even if you’re eighty years old, I don’t