The Starfish Necklace

It was the hottest day of the summer. It was midday too. My eight year-old brother Ricky and I were walking along our sunny California beach with him lagging behind me by several feet. Yes, we own our own beach.

            “Uuhhhhhhhh!” moaned Ricky. “Rowan! When are we going home?”

            “Later. Mom said that she has to work until four,” I said annoyed. “We can go home then.” He called me a jerkwad. We continued into the tide pools and I started collecting old shells and dried starfish. Ricky found some hermit crabs and decided to make them a castle. At least it’ll keep him busy for a while. I relaxed next to one of the deeper pools and looked in. I found a monkey-faced eel, some lost minnows waiting to become the eel’s dinner, and a few hermit crabs. I was just about to get up and walk away when something caught my eye.

            I saw something shiny in one of the tide pools and went to look at it. I had to dig it out because it was half buried in wet sand. When I finally got it out, I found it was an old beer bottle with a faded Budweiser label. The cap was missing with a thick layer of leather tied around the top to replace it. I couldn’t tell, but I thought I saw something inside. I ran back to my bag and pulled out my wallet. I keep a very small, thin pocket knife behind my driver’s license, you know, in case I need it. It took a couple minutes, but I eventually cut through the tough leather and pulled it off.

            I dumped the contents out on the sand. There were two pieces of paper, some foreign coins, a small blue starfish, which were very rare, and the whitest pearl I had ever seen. One of the papers was an envelope and the other was much older looking and simply folded a few times. I unfolded the first one, and it said:

june or july2003

Whoevr shuld find this, please find Anna and Lokni

Carpenter. Theyre my mom and dad. they live in phoenix

My name is Tasina and im 7 years old and im stuck on a island in the

middle of the sea. I need help fast. please help!!!

            I was astonished. Had I actually found a message in a bottle, like in movies? I was so excited that I almost forgot about the envelope. I opened it and was surprised to find that it was dated only a few months ago:

summer 2010 I think ?

I despretly need someones help the winters here

r very harsh and stormy and cold. I lasted the

past 8-9 yeers livin off stuff I found in a old trading

shak on the island and its almost ran out.

HELP!!! SOS!!!

            I started thinking about this, deciding whether it was real or not. I decided it was real and that I was going to help whatever way I could. I considered taking this to the police, but who would believe a seventeen year-old kid who says that there is a girl on an island somewhere who needs help and has lasted the past near decade on old traded supplies? And our police were lazy anyway. Gang after gang formed around town and they did nothing about it. I was even in one, but we kept the peace, a hippie gang if you will.

            “Rowan! Rowan, Rowan, Rowan, Rowan!!! OWWWWW!!!! A hermit crab pinched me!!!” People in Washington D.C. probably could have heard Ricky yelling. I jogged over, removed the crab, and, looking at the time, offered to buy Ricky an ice cream before we went home.

            By the next morning I had decided what to do. I would take my little boat and go find this girl. I packed up my boat with blankets, the bottle and its contents, and a ton of food, mostly granola bars and beef jerky. You could live forever on that stuff.