William lives with his uncle Nils. His father is dead and his mother is mentally unstable. Nils retired early and spends his day buying and selling stuff at a favourable price. Nils owes some gangsters money and they want their debt paid back.

Since his father died and mother went into a mental hospital, schoolboy William lives poorly but relatively happily with his dodgy 'retired' maternal uncle Nils, a small fry crook who fences and so on. Both need cash, William to pay off bully Martin and Nils to pay Djernes' the money he lost gambling. William earns a reprieve by dog-walking Djernis' guard dog, but Nils isn't earning nearly enough to make that deadline and decides to stake it all on the horse races, expecting 'lucky' William to pick the right winner, with neither informed, so the kid goes by a mysterious advice his mother wrote down at their last visit.—KGF Vissers