The Glass Bottle’s Secret

It was a humid summer day in London, England, but Timothy would not have it any other way.  His determination was strong and he was focused on the main objective, going to the pond on this special day of 1978 to meet his friend.  Timothy often found himself lonely and was yearning for attention from his mother who would always have something better to do. Where he and his mother lived there were no boys his own age for neighborhoods around except for Patrick.  Patrick was the best, and only, friend that the young boy had ever come across, so they decided to try to meet every Thursday at the banks of the pond. It was strange how the two met, Timothy remembered. He found Patrick all by his lonesome at the pond.  All his soon-to-be friend was doing was sitting and doing nothing except looking out towards the splendid Richmond Plane Tree where birds like the Red-Crested Pochard inhabited. Timothy started talking to Patrick and after the two made acquaintances, their friendship has never ended.  Timothy’s plan was quite simple. All that was required was that he had to ask to go, and if that failed drastic measures like pouting could be applied. Although he could just sneak off, the juvenile boy could not stand the shame if his mother knew that he had left to a strange place without telling her.  The pond was not strange to Timothy, but his ever-worried mother would shun him for leaving.

“Mom has to let me go!  Patrick will believe that I do not want to spend time with him,” he thought as he walked to the prosperous garden where his mom would spend hours tending to her ever so plentiful rose bushes.

So as the boy walked up to his caramel-haired mother, he noticed the twinge of anger on her long shaped face even before he asked the question that he did every Thursday.  As he opened his mouth slightly to speak, the woman unleashed a hurricane of anger that struck Timothy harder than punishment if he would have just went by his lonesome without permission.  The harsh words made Timothy’s thin frame and pale hands shake violently.

“Go, just go to the banks of the pond where you found something to play with.  But I will tell you this, you will not be allowed to visit your Patrick if your imagination can not comprehend what he truly is,” the young woman stated harshly as her six year old son’s bright blue eyes welled with tears.

Timothy wanted to explain that he did not understand what the difference was between him and his friend.  Patrick should not be shunned just because he was unable to talk, and his friend was a someone, not at all a something!  Every word of his thoughts the boy wanted to say to his mom, but he could not bear to hear any more outbursts of rage as he did moments ago.  His synapses were firing inquisitively on the matter, but he had to redirect his attention to going to see his best friend. Patrick would leave disappointed if he could not get to the pond’s bank quickly.  Timothy began to sprint down the block with his long, blond bangs blowing into the slight breeze that gently whisked the tree leaves to and fro. The feeling of the wind in his face had always made him feel empowered, so he decided to increase his speed.  The acceleration lasted until his legs began to shake underneath him and his breathing was heavier than it had ever been. He walked until he could see the pond with Patrick sitting beside the water alone as always. Patrick was still as a stone, and he was always in the same exact spot that Timothy left him last week.  Maybe it was because his only friend was a stone, but the boy’s active imagination could not see that the plain, grey pebble was not an actual living creature. Even when the boy’s mother would not allow him to come for almost a month, Timothy still could instantaneously perceive the stone from the rest even though it had no special markings or having an obscure color.  This was because Patrick was the only one known to Timothy as a friend, the rest were just boring stones to him that he would skip across the pond. Since it was the 14th of July, Patrick’s birthday, it was the stones turn to pick the activity for the time while they were both there. On any other day the boy would climb a tree while the stone, in the boy’s mind, would try to find him without opening his eyes.  The peculiar point of this game to the boy was that his best friend would always let him win.

“Patrick,” he told the inanimate object, “I think I know which game you would like, after all you pick it every year.  I should know because the only other time I come beside every Thursday is on your birthday!”

The stone agreed in his silent way and since the activity was agreed on, the boy picked up one of Patrick’s kind and threw it as hard as he could into the clear blue water.  After many cheers from Timothy and silent kudos from Patrick for beating his record of six skips, he skipped another. On the third stone he began trying to beat his new record of eight skips.  He threw with all his might, but the third stone came skipping back.  This was very much startling.  The boy then noticed a small figure across the pond that had undoubtedly skipped a stone back.  Being the curious boy that he is, with Patrick in his hand, Timothy walks around the bank to see a girl about his age with caramel locks of shoulder-length hair framing her oval face.  Timothy slowly approaches her to see who she is, but something stops him from saying hello. He remembers the advice given to him by his mom and starts to worry. She always told him to never talk to adults he did not know, but this was not an adult, rather a girl more than likely younger than him with the softest looking brown eyes he had ever seen.  With is courage and confidence growing, he finally musters up a hello, and the girl starts talking with rapid speed and energy.

“Hello to you!  I am Melyssa Grace Hiller, but I prefer Grace!  I am five years old, and you seem older than me.  Who are you? I need your help to figuring out the strange script on this bottle.  I can not seem to read it, but that might be because I can not read yet!”

The boy only knows to reply to all of this with quick answers so he will have time to talk before she starts rambling on again, so he replies,”I am Timothy Andrews Peterson, but since we are going with nicknames I suppose you can call me Tim.  I am six years old, and before you ask again, I can read. Where did you find that bottle anyway?”

Grace then tells that she came to the pond to watch the birds, and that the green glass bottle was just floating there in the water.  She did not know how to open it, so she hit the fragile object against a rock to break it open. After this long conversation that involved more rambling about the color of the bottle (jade green or olive green), Timothy took the note from her and read it to himself before reading it aloud.  The note said:

“To whom it may concern, I am sending this letter on account that I am trying to find my long lost daughter, whose name is Melyssa Grace.  She has caucasian skin, brown eyes, caramel hair, and a very thin body structure. She looks very much like me except for her oval shaped face.  If you know her or see a girl of this description, please come and bring her back. I miss her very much, and will offer a reward to whoever finds her.

Thank you, Charlotte”

Timothy was confused beyond himself, and wondered why anyone would put a note this important in a bottle.  Maybe they had no other choice, and this was the only chance they had of finding this girl. He looked over at Grace, who’s eyes were filled with joy and confusion at the same time.

“Do you think that is her?  I knew I was adopted by the Miller’s, but I never thought that I would find my real mom! I wonder if she looks like me, and where she is.  Come on Tim, we are going on an adventure,” the girl with the white, poofy dress with the satin red ribbon, said excitedly and loudly proclaimed to the boy who replied that first they would have to go to his house first for lunch before going somewhere.

So the two children raced back to Timothy’s house which Grace thought looked like a castle with the many windows and victorian look.  In the kitchen that had the most modern appliances made, lunch was being made by his mom, who was shocked to see that Timothy had made a real friend. After telling his brown eyed mother about the message in the bottle, she told them that they would have to find someone that might know where Grace’s mother is.  After lunch, which with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with carrot sticks and homemade ranch, the two went to the place that they knew best.

The general store was old compared to the newer one in the town, but there were always more people here because of the lower prices.  A woman carrying a child around the age of seven months old with her large blue, floppy hat said that she was familiar with the name of Charlotte, and told the two with her strong British accent that she believed that the woman worked at a floral shop right down the block after turning left at the nearest stop sign.  After thanking the woman with the big hazel eyes and the floppy hat, Grace practically dragged Timothy to the floral shop. Once inside, the smell of lilies and carnations filled the shop with a pleasant aroma so strong and sweet it could remind anyone of being out in a field full of the most beautiful flowers imaginable.  Timothy looked around the shop, whose walls were used for even more flowers in vases on the shelves along with the paintings on the walls of bright, golden sunflowers. Grace, on the other hand, was already at the front desk, asking for the woman that was her mother. He barely heard the owner in the “I LOVE ROSES” apron that Charlotte had not been working there since ten years ago.  Grace bolted out the door with Timothy following, and the chirping birds outside could not help her from crying.

“I will never be able to find her.  I might as well tear up this letter and never dream that I will ever find my real mom,” Grace said between the emotional outbursts.

As Timothy tried to comfort her, he realized that Patrick was still in his possession.  He gently placed his friend into her hand, realizing that Patrick was just a stone, and Grace was a true friend that he needed to help.  The boy helped the disappointed young girl to her feet, and lead her back to his house where the two sat in the kitchen looking at the letter that Timothy made her promise not to destroy.

“What is this,”said a voice startled the two as it said, “and who signed the paper at the bottom?”

Timothy realized that it was his own mother who had spoken, and while Timothy was going to tell his mom that it was just a letter, his companion told her everything that had happened and who the lady was.  After Grace’s long story, the mother just stared off into space. Then, after a brief period of time and akward silence had passed, the mom thought to be of an only child confessed a true story as well. She had a second baby a year after her first that was adopted because she could not afford any more children.  

Now it was the boy’s mother who began talking quickly, unlike she was moments before, as Grace had when Timothy first met her, “I wonder daily who adopted my only baby girl, and regret every time that Timothy goes to meet his friend that I could not have kept her so he could have someone to play with besides that stone of his.  Which it seems to me like it belongs to you know, Grace. What was the woman’s name, sweetie? You forgot to mention that.”

Grace handed the note to the woman, and she started crying herself, although she seemed to be joyful.  Timothy never knew what his mother’s name was, and never had asked before. This seemed like the perfect moment.

So the young boy asked his mother for the first time in his life, “Mom, what is your name?”

The woman only replied with, “I am the woman with two children.  Timothy, you have a little sister because I am Grace’s mother.”

After many long hours discussing the situation with  the Millers in person, and Grace’s non stop begging to stay with her real mom, the couple agreed that their adopted daughter could stay with Charlotte and Timothy.  This was only on the condition that they could visit every Wednesday from 5:00 to 9:00 until the girl became settled into her new home. Now that Timothy had a real friend he could part with the stone that had made him so happy.  The two children rejoiced in knowing that they were siblings, and Charlotte was the happiest of all knowing that she had her daughter back. No longer would either of the two children have to question where they belonged. The glass bottle’s secret had brought a family together for the first time.