Down behind our place flows the muddy old river. I often go there after school and watch the sticks and leaves drift sluggishly past. One time I found a plastic drink bottle stranded on the green slime. Noticing something different about the bottle, I fished it out. Cutting the bottle open, I pulled out a piece of paper. On the paper was written this letter.
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125 Riverside Road
Wakanui New Zealand
Dear friend,
If you find this letter please write to me. I have brown hair and am 9 years old. Please write to me, specially if you live in Australia or America. I don't have many friends here.
Love from
Amy Brown |
I put her letter in my pocket to show it around at school. But by the end of the week that letter was still in my pocket. I supposed that really, like Amy, I was a bit lonely, too. Or perhaps I just didn't have enough courage to be that mean. What about her letter?
On Saturday morning I got another empty drink bottle and poked her letter into it. I screwed the top tightly on and biked down the road carrying it. From the old wharf by the factories, I threw the bottle far out into the tide. The water there was swift enough to carry it out to sea at least. That was last year. Amy is still in my class and she still seems lonely. I haven't heard about the letter. But then, that sort of mail can take ages to get to Australia or America.