Message in the bottle
Tuesday June 15
Dear Diary, it's been raining for several days now. I feel like something crazy is going to happen but I don't know what; there is just a feeling in the air. The entire morning I was trying to figure out what was making something feel different than the days before. After I had lunch and got ready for the day, I then noticed that something was different, and I wasn’t just crazy! It had finally stopped raining! I thought to myself “finally I had some freedom from being locked up here for days.” Now that I was dressed, I went outside and saw a hole going under the driveway, near the front of the driveway where the water piles up when heavy rain falls. You know how I'm alway curious so I peered in the hole and saw there was a pit of mud. As my eyes adjusted to the dark hole, I noticed there was something in the mud. I cautiously inched closer and stretched my arm as far as it could go and touched something cold and hard. I grabbed and pulled it out of the hole. It was a dirty, sky blue bottle with what appeared to be a piece of paper rolled up inside.
Since it was Tuesday and my mom was gone for work, I had no one to tell me whether or not to open the bottle. But you know my crazy curiosity, so I desperately wanted to see what was inside. As I cleaned the mud off the bottle I pulled out the paper and it had the strangest message. The message said “51, 45,-196 help by sundown…” What on earth was that supposed to mean??? You know how much I love a good puzzle so I just had to solve this. I was so confused about what those numbers were and what “help by sundown” could mean. I was honestly excited for a new mystery (I read a lot of Nancy Drew). And the expression “ help by sundown”; was that a timeline or something else? Okay let's see,...... Could it be a phone number? No to few digits. An address? No it can’t be, it doesn't have a street name and house numbers aren’t negative. I almost ran out of ideas until I had a brainstorm! What would the trusty internet tell me about those numbers? I decided to type those numbers in and it worked! They were coordinates for a cave in a park that is only about 3 minutes away from my house! What luck!
Friday June 17th
Wow, the week is finally over! It has been the longest week of my life. With dancing and school I have had no time to think about the rest of the mystery! I am so excited to get home because I decided I am going to go on an adventure to go find the cave! But first I have to make a plan on how to get there and how to convince my mom to let me go.
Saturday June 18th
I figured it out! I will tell my mom I am going to my friend’s house and I will be back for supper. That will give me enough time to get there, do some sleuthing and see if I can find the answer to the mystery! I am so excited I will make sure to write all that happened tomorrow!
Sunday June 19th
Well it was even more exciting than I imagined it would be! After I wrote the note yesterday, I took off on my bike and quickly rode to the park. The park is very large so it took a bit of time for me to find the caves.
I finally spotted caves in the hillside so I hiked over and when I got there I saw a man quietly sneaking in the same direction. I went up to him and asked
“Are you lost?”
“No, I am just trying to get back to my camp in the woods.” he shouted defensively.
He ran off and I followed him because he was acting so weird. He actually ended up going into one of the caves and was talking to himself, or at least at first I thought it was to himself. It made me scared and I remembered I was all alone and no one knew I was there. I started moving away when I stepped on a very dry stick and it snapped so loud. Panicking, I dove to the side into the bushes, hoping he didn't see me. He looked back but didn’t see where I was hidden.
I kept quiet for about a minute and then he kept going. Once he stopped in the mouth of the cave, he looked around making sure nobody was watching him. After what seemed like hours, I was going to leave and run as far as I could from the cave when all of a sudden I heard a muffled scream coming from deep inside the cave.
Even though I was scared, I inched my way closer to the cave, always being hidden by the bushes on the side. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the cave I saw that the man who yelled was coming face to face with a bear who must have been resting in the cave. He would never have expected that since bears do not usually hibernate in June!
Whether this man was good or bad, I knew I had to act fast to help save him from being eaten by the bear. I darted from the cave, ran back to my bike and raced home. Wouldn’t you guessit? My mom left a note that she was gone for groceries! Who could help me!! I had to think fast! I called the police and told them about the situation.
The police told me to meet them at the park gates so I could show them the way to the cave. Once the police came we raced to the cave and we could hear the man’s screams from inside.
The police yelled “Who is in there?”
The strange man cried “Please help me, the bear is angry”.
The police man yelled out “Stay still; I am going to throw in a smoke bomb that will put the bear to sleep but you have to keep your mouth closed and rush out as soon as I say go.”
The man replied “Yes, please hurry”.
The police said on the count of three,”One, two, three” and tossed in the smoke bomb as the man ran out into the open air and fell to the ground. As we waited for the smoke to clear and for rangers to come move the bear, the man ran away as fast as he could. The police suspected there was more going on in the cave than just the bear so one policeman chased him down. After they caught him they said his name was Connor and he was wanted in multiple countries for robberies and besides the bear, there were jewels, gold artifacts, and art masterpieces. One of the masterpieces was an actual Monet that belonged to the Prince of Monaco!
The police wanted to know why I was looking at the cave in the first place so I told them about the bottle with the message inside. I know what the numbers meant but I was still stuck as to what “help by sundown” meant and I never liked to leave a mystery unsolved.
I have to admit, this mystery was stumping me, how did the bottle get to my house and what was that message? I thought and thought and thought,.... And then I had an idea. When I was crouching in the bushes, my feet got very wet. I went back to where I was hiding and noticed it was next to a river that flowed downstream to the road where I lived. Since it rained so much, I bet the bottle must have been carried by the amount of water that was going down the hill and the bottle landed in my driveway in the mud hole. One mystery solved.
But, the bigger mystery is who put the message in the bottle and tossed it in the river? As I was thinking about this bigger problem, I overheard the policeman talking and asking Connor where his identical twin brother Gregory was? Connor got very angry, “that no good double crossing brother of mine is no longer my family! He betrayed me!”
Suddenly I realized that maybe Connor’s twin brother Gregory was upset with his brother and didn't want to be a part of all the stealing. Gregory could have thrown the bottle into the river with desperation to try and stop Connor’s evil scheme. But how could I confirm my hunch?
I looked closely at the note and I noticed something I did not before, in the bottom left corner there was a G. It was Gregory’s stationary so it was him that sent the message! I ran to the policeman to report my discovery.
I was so happy to not leave a mystery unsolved!
Sunday June 26th
Dear diary, I know it has been awhile but with the discovery of the treasures and the fact that I have been on the news for solving this mystery, it has been a pretty busy time for me. I have some good news though, the city is giving me a medal of honour and the Prince of Monaco has donated his painting to my school and invited me to tea at his palace this summer. I am sure I will have lots to tell you about that trip too!
Just like I have always said, solving a mystery is worth the effort! I can’t wait to tell you about my next adventure. I can't wait for the next time it rains for days!
THE END
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