By Phil Rowe

"Whatcha doin?" Billy asked his pal, on entering his neighbor John's garage and leaving the door wide open. John seemed to be working hard on some kind of special project, not even looking up from the task at hand. There was sawdust on the floor and hand tools lay all about. John was nearly through nailing some poles together and soon began tacking cloth onto the completed frame.

"Makin' a wind sail," John replied.

"What for?"

"So I can sail across the ice. The lake's good and frozen now. Gotta try this out before the snows come and mess up the smooth ice."

"Why do you need a sail? Can't we just go skating or maybe play some hockey?"

"I want to go fast. I read about ice-boats at the library and decided to try it myself. Did you know that ice boats can go over 40 miles per hour?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't look like an ice boat," Bill replied, scratching his curly red hair. "Where's the boat?"

"Hey. Close the garage door. Willya? It's cold out there."

Billy pulled the large swinging door closed. Then he sat on an overturned nail keg and watch his school chum. John finished by stapling a piece of old bed-sheet across the two-foot by four-foot structure. A diagonal pole held the contraption somewhat rigid in a rectangular shape.

"Where'd ya get the cloth? Looks like one of your mom's sheets."

"It was, but my mom said I could use this old torn one."

"Looks kinda silly with those pink flowers all over it. Who ever saw a sail with pink flowers?"

"It was all she had."

"Oh. Well, I don't suppose it makes that much difference, and besides those flowers are pretty well faded anyhow. I thought you said it was for an ice boat."

"No. I said I've been reading about ice boats. I'm going to sail across the ice with this on my back. Don't need a boat to do that, just the sail."

Billy looked puzzled. He scratched his hair some more and then asked, "How's it work?" Then he spied some graham crackers on the workbench. "Can I have one of those?"

"Simple, silly. I hold the frame by the crossbar here and the sail catches the wind." Billy still didn't get it, even when John stood up and placed the unfinished sail behind him, tightly grasping the diagonal bar with one hand up high and the other down low. Billy reached for one of the crackers and John didn't object.

"See it now? The wind will fill this sail and push me across the lake."

"Hmmmm. I suppose so," he replied while chewing on the graham cracker. "But what if the wind isn't blowing in the right direction? Then how are you gonna do it? How are you going to get back from across the lake?"

"Just like sailboats and ice boats do, I'll tack into the wind."

Billy laughed. "Tacking into the wind? You can't put tacks into the wind."

"No, dummy. That is what they call going across the wind. You turn the sail at an angle to the wind and go across. You've seen the sailboats on the lake do that in the summertime. Well, I can do it on ice the same way."

"Oh yeah. I forgot. But sailboats have keels. You ain't got a keel. Have you?"

"No. Don't need one," John explained. He was becoming convinced that Billy was too young to possibly understand the finer points of sailing. But, he patiently explained that his skate blades would act just like a sailboat's keel.

Billy watched in amazement as the sail was finally finished. He still had a bit of puzzlement on his face. But if John said it would work, who was he to argue? After all, John was two years older and in the fifth grade.

"There. It's done," John declared with a smile of satisfaction on his face. "You wanna watch me try it?"

"Sure. Right now?"

"Why not? Let me get my skates and put a coat on. Then we'll go down to the lake at see how it works."

Billy followed John down to the beach. There was a good thick coat of ice on the lake, about six inches thick, even along the shoreline. Both boys sat on a log while putting on their skates. The each wore hockey skates received last Christmas. Neither wanted figure skates. Those were for girls.

Billy was first out on the ice. He skated around a bit and then turned to watch as John joined him. Both boys were quite at home on the ice, having skated since they were toddlers. John even played hockey on the school team. A light breeze from the right blew down the lake.

John had a little trouble holding the sail in place behind him, at first. The wind kept blowing him around and once the sail got away from him and skittered several yards away, before John retrieved it. After several attempts, John finally got the hang of it and soon moved swiftly down the lake. Billy skated hard just to keep up.

"Hey, John. That's neat. Wait for me."

Suddenly a gust of wind came up and pushed John really hard. Before he knew it, he fell down face first onto the ice, but he kept a tight grip so the sail wouldn't blow away.

"Ha, ha, ha," Billy laughed. "Guess you didn't expect that. Did ya? Shoulda made that boat after all."

John sat on the ice. He wasn't very pleased that his young pal was laughing at him, but that made him all the more determined to try again. "You wait and see. I know what I'm doing," John declared with a serious look on his face.

Once more John stood up and positioned the sail behind him. By now the winds were back to the steady gentle breeze. John resumed his downwind ride, showing Billy that he knew how to do it.

"Better try to turn, John. We're getting too far from our beach."

With unsteady movements and nearly falling as he twisted, John managed to turn sideways to the wind, headed for the shore a quarter mile from where they'd started. Even in this light breeze he felt the force of the wind against him. It took all of his strength to hang onto the sail. And now he was going even faster than he had gone down wind.

The beach drew closer and some big rocks loomed up ahead. John managed to steer between two of them, but caught the lower edge of his sail frame on one. That impact jerked him around and now he was skating backwards. He had missed the rocks, but couldn't see that he was fast approaching the frozen sands.

"Look out, John," Billy shouted at the top of his lungs. But John was too far ahead of him and never heard the warning.

Crash. Down John went, backwards onto the hardened sand at the lake's edge.

Crack, came the sound as one of the frame poles broke. The sail wound up under John, as he lay there on the beach.

"Oh oh," Billy declared, as he caught up with his friend. "You all right?"

"Yeah. I think so. But my sail is busted. Look at it."