"Sure!" he said.

The second round started.

Brian knocked the target marble right to the groove of the circle.

"On the line!" shouted Les.

Garry knocked it right across the circle but lost his own marble. Brian missed completely. Jimmy hit all the marbles in the circle and collected his own when it stopped by his hand.

"Beginner's luck!" he said.

"Fluke shot!" said Garry, "How'd you do that?"

"Just lucky, I guess," said Jimmy. He patted his chest, where the charm hung under his shirt, "Want another round?"

"OK," they all said, reluctantly. I couldn't help smiling. All those times they'd cleaned Jimmy out. Now it was his turn to do it back to them. Like sheep to the slaughter . . .

I watched him play for twenty minutes. He got crazier and crazier, really pushing his luck. Once, when he had an easy 'bombs' he threw his marble into me sky instead. Really threw it, hard as he could, straight up! It bounced off a bird and came down smack, right on top of Garry's marble. Smashed it to bits too.

"You owe me seventy six bucks!" said Jimmy, when all the marbles were in his hands.

"You can have them," said Les bad temperedly.

"Fine!" said Jimmy, "Want another game tomorrow?"

"Give us a break!" said Garry.

We left them and went home.

From then on. Jimmy's luck never looked back. We lost count of the number of times he got everything right, or something good happened instead of something bad, or he found what he needed, or he did something and it went the best way instead of the worst.

But Jimmy changed.

I didn't notice it until the third day. He started to get, well, casual about things, like he didn't care any more.