“No you can’t, sonny, you can’t buy it. But you can try and win it with your half-dollar.”

“How do I do that?”

“What you do is give me your fifty-cent piece and I’ll give you a chip. You put the chip on your favorite number on that there board over there. I spin this here wheel and when the wheel stops spinnin’ an’ the little rubber arrow ends up pointin’ at your number you get to keep that big ol’ huntin’ knife.”

“And if it don’t end up pointin’ at my number?”

“You lose your fifty-cent piece.”

“I wouldn’t want a do that. A fifty-cent piece’s a lotta money,” said Billy.

“Yeah, it is. Your ma and pa know you’re wanderin’ around this park wavin’ a fifty-cent piece around, sonny?”

“Nope. But they don’t much care what I do. An’ my house ain’t that far away. So should I give you my fifty-cent piece?”

“Don’t know what to tell you, sonny.”

“It’s the last fifty-cent piece I have from all the dollars I made mowin’ lawns this week.”

“How many dollars you make?”

“Three dollar. An’ sixty cent too. I bought myself some things yesterday. This is all I have left, this here fifty-cent piece. But I want that there knife real bad.”

“Don’t know what to tell you, sonny.”

“They don’t make fifty-cent pieces no more,” said little Billy.

“I know.”

“Someone give this to me. He said keep it for good luck.”

“So you gonna keep it?”

“No. I’m gonna put it on number twenty-two.”

“Why twenty-two?”

“Dunno.”

“Okay, give me your fifty-cent piece, sonny, and I’ll give you this blue chip. You go over there an’ put the chip on the number twenty-two. See where the numbers are?”

“Yeah, I see ’em,” said Billy.

Some grown-up people were standing around the numbers, not paying much attention to an eight-year-old kid with a blue chip. The grown-up people were too busy concentrating on the serious business of choosing their own numbers. Billy wiggled into where he could put his chip on number twenty-two.

When everybody had their bets down, the man spun the big roulette wheel. Billy shut his eyes, put his dirty hands over them, and held his breath until he heard the wheel come to a stop. When Billy opened his eyes, he saw the rubber arrow pointing directly at number twenty-two. The man behind the counter grinned from ear to ear, reached up and grabbed the big, scary-looking hunting knife, and handed it to Billy.

The knife measured about ten inches from the top of the handle to the tip of the blade. It came complete with a leather holster with a loop on the back that Billy could slide his belt through. Billy Constable strutted around town wearing that knife, the holster banging against his hip, for weeks and weeks. He even slept with it belted around the waist of his jammies.