Amazing Stories: Lucky

"Yeah, but what if someone gets killed?"

"That's their fault. They should have lucky charms, too."

"Do you know what day this is?" I said, suddenly remembering.

"Friday?"

"You have to pay that man tomorrow."

"A fish?" said Jimmy. "I'm so lucky, I could pay him a million fish! I'll just go up to him and hold out my hand, and a fish will drop into it. Easy!"

"See if you can get a fish now?" I said.

Jimmy held his hand out.

No fish arrived.

He snapped his fingers and looked around.

"It might have landed nearby," he said.

We searched the wharf for a while and then Jimmy sat down on a pile of rope and scratched his head.

"Maybe it will come tomorrow?" he suggested. "I don't need it today. Why should it come today? I don't have to be lucky with fish till tomorrow."

"I don't think it will," I said. "I think the lucky charm doesn't work on fish."

"What!?" said Jimmy.

"It's the only thing you haven't got as soon as you wanted it," I reminded him.

"I'll catch a fish then!" he said. "First I'll need a fishing line!" Obediently, a fishing line dropped off a passing truck and Jimmy started to reel it down into the water.

"No bait!" he said suddenly.

He looked around for some bait, but the wharf was made of cracked, dry wood, and fish didn't go for that.

With a sudden flash of inspiration Jimmy took the lucky charm off his neck and snagged it on the hook.

"This will catch me a fish!" he said, letting it down into the water. In three seconds he had a fish. It was a big one, with rosy pink sides and iridescent colors on its head. Slowly he lifted it up out of the water, and there it hung, in all its glory, only an arm length from us. Then it gulped the lucky charm with its huge mouth, slipped off the hook (that was lucky!) and dived into the water again.