Lucky Plants Near Seven

Lucky is a bright ladybird with seven spots on her back, and in the whole of Lucky’s Meadow there is one thing she knows better than anyone: where to plant. Every day, when the two dice are about to roll, Lucky trundles over and plants herself right by the patch marked 7. Always seven. And she almost always ends up with the most flowers.

“Why seven?” asked her little friend Dot one morning. “Why not two, or twelve?”

Lucky twinkled her spots. “Because seven can be made the most ways! Watch.” She lined up the two dice. “To make seven, one die can be 1 and the other 6. Or 2 and 5. Or 3 and 4. Or 4 and 3. Or 5 and 2. Or 6 and 1! So many ways! And every one of those rolls lands a flower on the seven patch.”

Dot counted on her little legs. “That’s… lots of ways!”

“Lots and lots,” said Lucky happily. “Now — how many ways can you make two? Only one: 1 and 1. That’s it. So the two patch hardly ever gets a flower. And twelve? Only 6 and 6. One way too. Those patches stay small.” She patted the tall seven-patch beside her. “But seven has more ways than any of them, so the dice land here again and again. That’s why my patch grows tallest.”

Dot looked at the meadow with new eyes. The seven patch was a great big blooming hill. The two patch and the twelve patch were tiny little sprouts.

“So you’re not really lucky at all,” Dot realized. “You’re clever. You planted where the most ways are!”

Lucky laughed, delighted to be found out. “A little bit of both, maybe. But mostly — I plant near seven because seven has the most ways to come up. More ways means more rolls. More rolls means more flowers. Simple as that!”

And sure enough, when the two dice rolled that day, they landed on seven, and then on seven again, and Lucky’s patch bloomed taller than ever — while the far-out patches waited and waited for their rare, once-in-a-while roll.

Plant near seven, because seven has the MOST ways to come up on two dice — so its meadow patch grows tallest of all. That’s Lucky.