He saw the flicker of understanding in Ms. Belfrys expression. She must have realized shed pushed him to the edge of his comfort zone, beyond it even, and what she was asking him now was an impossibility.

Actually, she said, withdrawing the pen and stepping backward, maybe someone else would like to try drawing what Olivers explained?

Samantha, one of the brash kids who craved attention, leapt up and snatched the pen from Ms. Belfry. Together they went over to the board and Ms. Belfry helped Samantha draw a diagram of what Oliver was describing.

But as soon as Ms. Belfrys back was turned, Oliver felt something hit the back of his head. He turned and saw a ball of screwed up paper at his feet. He reached down and picked it up, not wanting to open it, knowing thered be a cruel note inside.

Hey… Paul hissed. Dont ignore me. Read the note!

Tensing, Oliver opened up the paper ball in his hands. He smoothed it on the desk before him. Written in terrible spider-crawl handwriting were the words Guess what else can fly?

Just then, he felt something else hit his head. Another paper ball. It was followed by another, and another and another.

HEY! Oliver cried, leaping up and turning around angrily.

Ms. Belfry turned too. She frowned at the scene before her.

Whats going on? she demanded.

Were just trying to find things that fly, Paul said innocently. One must have hit Oliver by accident.

Ms. Belfry looked skeptical. Oliver? she asked, turning her gaze to him.

Oliver sat back down in his seat, hunkering down. Its true, he mumbled.

By now, the boisterous Samantha had finished her diagram, and Ms. Belfry was able to turn her attention back to the class. She pointed at the board, where there was now a diagram of a wing, not straight but curved like a sideways stretched teardrop. Two dotted lines indicated the paths of air passing above the wing and below it. The flow of air going over the humped wing looked different in comparison to the flow going directly under it.

Like this? Ms. Belfry said. But I still dont understand how that produces lift.

Oliver knew all too well that Ms. Belfry knew all this, but having just been pelted by paper balls had made him reluctant to speak again.

Then he realized something. Nothing he did was going to stop the teasing. Either he sat there silently and got picked on for doing nothing, or he spoke up and got picked on for his intelligence. He realized then which hed prefer.

Because with the air following in different paths like that, it creates a downward force, he explained. And if we take Isaac Newtons third law of motionthat every action produces an equal and opposite reactionyou can see how the resulting reaction to that force, to the downward force, is that the air traveling under the wing creates lift.