Message in a bottle(Tara Callinan) Of all the places in the world, I never thought I would be here. Let me start from the beginning. Every year on my birthday, which is the 1st of July, my dad takes me to a place I’ve never been before. We stay in this place for a week and I can choose to go anywhere I want. The only rule is, it has to be somewhere I haven’t been to yet. One of the things on my dad’s bucket list is to visit all the places in the world before he is ninety. One year, we went to the Sahara Dessert which was really, really hot. Another year, we went to Sydney, Australia. Last year, we spent the week renting a minibus and driving all around South America. But this year, I wanted to spend my 11th birthday in absolute luxury. I decided that we would go to Hawaii.

Once we had checked in to the five-star hotel by the beach that we were staying in, and I had changed into my new pink bikini I got for my birthday, I ran straight for the water with my lilo. I splashed about for a while and then, I lay down on my lilo and floated around on the water. Soon enough, I fell asleep. I was tired from the long flight because I had been too excited to take a nap. But it would prove to be one of the most misfortunate things that ever happened to me.

About five or ten minutes later, I woke up and found myself much too far away from the beach. I could just make out a little figure in the distance franticly running around on the beach, sometimes stopping at the other little stick people. They looked like insects. I realized that the tiny little figure was probably dad looking for me and I started to panic. What would he say when I got back? He would be very angry with me and that would ruin the whole holiday. But more importantly, how was I supposed to get back? I looked down. The water seemed a different colour from the water around me and it seemed to move quicker and calmer. Something was wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Suddenly, it came to me. I was caught in a rip tide!

Now I was really panicking. ‘What am I going to do?!’ I thought over and over again. Then, I tried to remember what we had learned in school about rip tides. I pictured the leaflet in my head. Rule number one: don’t panic. ‘Well, that’s useful,’ I thought with sarcasm. Number two: try to swim parallel to the rip tide. Do not attempt to swim against it as it will only lead to exhaustion and panic. I did what the leaflet had said and tried to swim parallel to the current. The thing is, I’m not a great swimmer and this rip tide was very strong. In other words, I failed miserably. I was growing very desperate. Number three: shout and wave your hands in the air to attract attention or blow a whistle if you have one. I looked at the beach. The stick figures had turned into dots. My heart sank. I waved so much, I nearly took my arm off and I shouted so much, I lost my voice - but it was no use. Even if I had a whistle, nobody would have heard me from here. My heart sank even further and I did what any other person my age would do - I started to cry. I cried and I cried and I cried till my eyes were swollen purple. I managed to stop crying for a minute and look up to find that the beach wasn’t visible any more. I cried even harder. It wasn’t fair! I was here on my birthday holiday. I definitely didn’t deserve to be lost at sea on my special day.

About twenty minutes later, I found that the rip tide had led me to an island that was the size of a big trampoline. I heaved myself up on the patch of sand. My situation hadn’t improved very much but it was better to be on solid ground than to be floating on a lilo to God knows where. I took a deep breath and stopped crying. I noticed the crumpled piece of paper in front of me and a small blunt black pencil beside it. On the other side of the piece of paper, there was a large bottle with a cork. And since I had nothing better to do, I decided to write this letter.

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