Page 27

As they went out through the gym, Aaron grabbed a couple of baseball-sized rubber balls. On the playground Aaron brought everyone near a part of the building where there were no windows. Caleb took one of the balls from Aaron and bounced it off the wall a couple times. It would do just fine.

“Mr. Price, could you stand about fifteen feet away, directly across from me?”

Aaron nodded and jogged to his position.

“So, what’s the best way for me to send this ball to him?”

Several hands went up, and Caleb picked one.

“Just throw it to him.”

“Sure. Straight line, because the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.” Caleb threw the ball and Aaron caught it. “So, let’s say there were six of you in the way.” Caleb selected six students. “Get in the way.”

They went to stand between Caleb and Aaron.

“Now what?”

One of the students between them raised his hand, and Caleb nodded. “You could just throw it over us.”

“True.” Caleb nodded at Aaron, who sent the ball back over the students, who all tried to get it out of the air. “That works too. That used an arc to get it over your heads and still land it with Mr. Price. An arc is just another kind of angle. Now, what would happen if we couldn’t throw it over you? In hockey, the puck stays relatively low.”

“It doesn’t always,” one of the students who had identified as a player said after Caleb selected him from the hands that were raised.

“Right. But let’s pretend for this moment that it has to stay on the ice. That would make the arc impossible. What are the other options?”

The same student raised his hand again, although slowly, as if he hoped he wouldn’t be the only one. Caleb suspected the boy knew the answer and didn’t want to spoil the rest of the class, so he had the young man come over to him.

Caleb kneeled down next to the boy. “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

“Byron,” he said, nervousness evident in his voice.

“Okay, Byron, whisper the answer to me.”

Byron cupped his hand over Caleb’s hear and spoke softly. “You’re gonna use that wall, like you’d use the boards in a game.”

Caleb nodded and smiled at him.

Byron continued to talk quietly but didn’t do so directly into Caleb’s ear. “My coach always says the boards are your friends because you can use them to redirect the puck.”

“Your coach is a smart man. Stay here with me, okay?”

Byron nodded. Caleb stood to address the class. “Okay, the rest of you figure out where you want to be to stop the ball from reaching Mr. Price.”

As suspected, no one got near the wall. They simply piled in the middle between Aaron and Caleb. He saw Aaron squat, almost like a baseball catcher, and that let him know that Aaron knew what was going to happen.

“Here it comes.”

Caleb considered for a moment. He didn’t want to telegraph his intention too much. And the last thing he wanted to do was to hit one of the kids.

He threw the ball at the target he’d picked out. It bounced just as he intended and went to Aaron, who caught it. Caleb high-fived Byron.

The students practiced a few times, throwing against the wall and seeing how hitting different spots would change where the ball would go. Then they talked about how the same ideas could be used to intercept the ball before it got to its target. They played with the geometry for about twenty minutes, then returned to the classroom.

Once they were back inside, Caleb took his spot in the back of the room and Aaron moved on to a brief science lesson to get the students ready for an upcoming assignment looking at constellations. The class wrapped up with some questions for Caleb, and he answered a few after the bell rang.

When it was just the two of them again, Aaron sat on the edge of his desk next to Caleb. “You’re really good with them.”

“Not as good as you. Even when the kids don’t catch on quickly, you’re so patient.”