"Well. maybe they don't go anywhere at all."
Mrs. Babbidge chuckled, and Tarnover flushed.
"What I mean is, maybe they just stop being in one place then suddenly they're in the next place."
"If only you could skate like that!" Jason laughed. "Bit slow, though.
Everyone would still pass you by at the last moment."
"They must go somewhere," young Dan said doggedly. "Maybe it's somewhere we can't see. Another sort of place, with other people. Maybe it's them that builds the birds."
"Look, freckleface, the birds don't come from Russ, or 'Merica, or anywhere else. So where's this other place?"
"Maybe it's right here, only we can't see it."
"And maybe pigs have wings." Tarnover looked about to march towards the cider and perry stall; but Mrs. Babbidge interposed herself smartly.
"Oh, as to that, I'm sure our sow Betsey couldn't fly, wings or no wings.
Just hanging in the air like that, and so heavy."
"Weighed a bird recently, have you?"
"They look heavy, Master Tarnover."
Tarnover couldn't quite push his way past Mrs. Babbidge, not with his sail impeding him. He contented himself with staring past her, and muttering, "If we've nothing sensible to say about them, in my opinion it's better to shut up."
"But it isn't better," protested Daniel. "They're blowing the world up. Bit by bit. As though they're at war with us."
Jason felt humorously inventive. "Maybe that's it. Maybe these other people of Dan's are at war with us — only they forgot to mention it. And when they've glassed us all, they'll move in for the holidays. And skate happily for ever more."
"Damn long war, if that's so," growled Tarnover. "Been going on over a century now."
"Maybe that's why the birds fly so slowly," said Daniel. "What if a year to us is like an hour to those people? That's why the birds don't fall. They don't have time to."
Tarnover's expression was almost savage. "And what if the birds come only to punish us for our sins? What if they're simply a miraculous proof —"
" — that the Lord cares about us? And one day He'll forgive us? Oh goodness," and Mrs. Babbidge beamed, "surely you aren't one of them? A bright lad like you. Me, I don't even put candles in the window or tie knots in the bedsheets anymore to keep the birds away." She ruffled her younger son's mop of red hair. "Every one dies sooner or later, Dan. You'll get used to it, when you're properly grown up. When it's time to die, it's time to die."
Tarnover looked furiously put out; though young Daniel also seemed distressed in a different way.
"And when you're thirsty, it's time for a drink!" Spying an opening, and his opportunity, Tarnover sidled quickly around Mrs. Babbidge and strode off. She chuckled as she watched him go.
"That's put a kink in his sail!"
Forty-one other contestants, besides Jason and Tarnover, gathered between the starting flags, though not the girl who had fallen. Despite all best efforts she was out of the race, and sat morosely watching.
Then the Tuckerton umpire blew his whistle, and they were off.
The course was in the shape of a long bloomer loaf. First, it curved gently along the edge of the glass for three quarters of a mile, then bent sharply around in a half circle on to the straight, returning towards Tuckerton. At the end of the straight, another sharp half circle brought it back to the starting — and finishing — line. Three circuits in all were to be skate-sailed before the victory whistle blew. Much more than this, and the lag between leaders and stragglers could lead to confusion.
By the first turn Jason was ahead of the rest of the field, and all his practice since last year was paying off. His skates raced over the glass. The breeze thrust him convincingly. As he rounded the end of the loaf, swinging his sail to a new pitch, he noted Max Tarnover hanging back in fourth place. Determined to increase his lead, Jason leaned so close to the flag on the entry to the straight that he almost tipped it. Compensating, he came poorly on to the straight, losing a few yards. By the time Jason swept over the finishing line for the first time, to cheers from Atherton villagers, Tarnover was in third position; though he was making no very strenuous effort to overhaul, Jason realized that Tarnover was simply letting him act as pacemaker.
But a skate-sailing race wasn't the same as a foot race, where a pacemaker was generally bound to drop back eventually. Jason pressed on.
Yet by the second crossing of the line Tarnover was ten yards behind, moving without apparent effort as though he and his sail and the wind and the glass were one. Noting Jason's glance, Tarnover grinned and put on a small burst of speed to push the front-runner to even greater efforts.
And as he entered on the final circuit Jason also noted the progress of the slow bird, off to his left, now midway between the long curve and the straight, heading in the general direction of Edgewood. Even the laggards ought to clear the final straight before the thing got in their way, he calculated.
This brief distraction was a mistake. Tarnover was even closer behind him now, his sail pitched at an angle which must have made his wrists ache. Already he was drifting aside to overhaul Jason. And at this moment Jason grasped how he could win: by letting Tarnover think that he was pushing Jason beyond his capacity — so that Tarnover would be fooled into overexerting himself too soon.
"Can't catch me!" Jason called into the wind, guessing that Tarnover would misread this as braggadocio and assume that Jason wasn't really thinking ahead. At the same time Jason slackened his own pace slightly, hoping that his rival would fail to notice, since this was at odds with his own boast. Pretending to look panicked, he let Tarnover overtake — and saw how Tarnover continued to trip his sail strenuously even though he was actually moving a little slower than before. Without realizing it, Tarnover had his angle wrong; he was using unnecessary wrist action.
Tarnover was in the lead now. Immediately all psychological pressure lifted from Jason. With ease and grace he stayed a few yards behind, just where he could benefit from the 'eye' of air in Tarnover's wake. And thus he remained till half way down the final straight, feeling like a kestrel hanging in the sky with a mere twitch of its wings before swooping.
He held back; held back. Then suddenly changing the cant of his sail he did swoop — into the lead again.
It was a mistake. It had been a mistake all along. For as Jason sailed past, Tarnover actually laughed. Jerking his brown and orange silk to an easier, more efficient pitch, Tarnover began to pump his legs, skating like a demon. Already he was ahead again. By five yards. By ten. And entering the final curve.
As Jason tried to catch up in the brief time remaining, he knew how he had been fooled; though the knowledge came too late. So cleverly had Tarnover fixed Jason's mind on the stance of the sails, by holding his own in such a way — a way, too, which deliberately created that convenient eye of air — that Jason had quite neglected the contribution of his legs and skates, taking this for granted, failing to monitor it from moment to moment. It only took moments to recover and begin pumping his own legs too, but those few moments were fatal. Jason crossed the finish line one yard behind last year's victor; who was this year's victor too.
As he slid to a halt, bitter with chagrin, Jason was well aware that it was up to him to be gracious in defeat rather than let Tarnover seize that advantage, too.
He called out, loud enough for everyone to hear: "Magnificent, Max!
Splendid skating! You really caught me on the hop there."
Tarnover smiled for the benefit of all onlookers.
"What a noisy family you Babbidges are," he said softly; and skated off to be presented with the silver punch-bowl again.
Much later that afternoon, replete with roast pork and awash with Old Codger Ale, Jason was waving an empty beer mug about as he talked to Bob Marchant in the midst of a noisy crowd. Bob, who had fallen so spectacularly the year before. Maybe that was why he had skated diffidently today and been one of the laggards.
The sky was heavily overcast, and daylight too was failing. Soon the homeward trek would have to start.
One of Jason's drinking and skating partners from Atherton, Sam Partridge, thrust his way through.
"Jay! That brother of yours: he's out on the glass. He's scrambled up on the back of the bird. He's riding it."
"What?"
Jason sobered rapidly, and followed Partridge with Bob Marchant tagging along behind.
Sure enough, a couple of hundred yards away in the gloaming Daniel was perched astride the slow bird. His red hair was unmistakable. By now a lot of other people were beginning to take notice and point him out.
There were some ragged cheers, and a few angry protests.