“Gimme some of that!” he shouted to Chuck Spier. who was bundled up in a big lumberjack shirt and green flannel snowpants.

Chuck grinned at him. “Get outta here, kid. I hear your mother callin you.”

Grinning, six-year old Johnny Smith skated on. And on the road side of the skating area, he saw Timmy Benedix himself coming down the slope, with his father behind him.

“Timmy!” he shouted. “Watch this!”

He turned around and began to skate clumsily backward. Without realising it, he was skating into the area of the hockey game.

“Hey kid!” someone shouted. “Get out the way!” Johnny didn't hear. He was doing it I He was skating backward! He had caught the rhythm-all at once. It was in a kind of sway of the legs…

He looked down, fascinated, to see what his legs were doing.

The big kids” hockey puck, old and scarred and gouged around the edges, buzzed past him, unseen. One of the big kids, not a very good skater, was chasing it with what was almost a blind, headlong plunge.

Chuck Spier saw it coming. He rose to his feet and shouted, “Johnny! Watch out!”

John raised his head-and the next moment the dumsy skater, all one hundred and sixty pounds of him, crashed into little John Smith at full speed.

Johnny went flying, arms out. A bare moment later his head connected with the ice and he blacked out.

Blacked out… black i. e… blacked out -… black ice black. Black.

They told him he had blacked out. All he was really sure of was that strange repeating thought and suddenly looking up at a circle of faces-scared hockey players, worried adults, curious little kids. Timmy Benedix smirking. Chuck Spier was holding him-

Black ice. Black.

“What?” Chuck asked. “Johnny… you okay? You took a hell of a knock.”

“Black,” Johnny said gutturally. “Black ice. Don't jump it no more, Chuck.”