THE BLUE BOTTLE by 4 A

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When she came home from school, she decided to open the bottle. After uncorking it, a powdery, blue glow enveloped her and transported her to a desert island. After a while walking alone, she found a man with a long beard and grimy hair. She realised it was the man who had written the letter. After talking for a while, the man gave her a bottle similar to the one she had opened. She opened this one too, and the same dust made her go back to her room, where, to her surprise, the bottle was still uncorked. Thus she realised that the bottle was a magical portal to visit the lost man. Since then, he has been visiting him every night so that he does not feel lonely. Javier R

The book was based on a real story that had happened between the years 1993-1994. She thought that maybe the man in the letter was someone who had disappeared that year after the war. Someone who got lost after the storm and arrived at the island, so she is went on investigating more and more about the war, the storm, the increasing number of missing people; those who were found years after the war… Millie spent a whole week investigating documents and finished reading the book. At the end of the book there was a note from an old soldier which read: “Finally, the number of missing people has increased a lot and twe can't write an exact number but it is around five hundred people counting those people who got lost on the way back to the country and the people missing during the war. I talked to my missing friends’ wives and they are all broken, their kids as well, they have all been waiting for a long time at the train station for those men that didn’t come with us in the train. We all hope that those hundreds of people are still good or at least they can go back home one last time to see their families… I’m very grateful because I can say that I’m here again, I am going to see my

She went back home and fell asleep a couple minutes after taking a shower. Millie could finally sleep well that night. She couldn’t sleep enough during the whole time she had been investigating the story until she knew what had really happened. &nbsp;THE END ANDREA S

family again. I will see my kids growing up, going to school and studying what they want. My wife and I are going to get old as well with everything we need because I’m coming home and I’ll do what we need for us. When this train finally arrives, I’m going to bring some flowers to the train station for the people who are still waiting for the soldiers, to keep their hope alive… I’m really sorry for those, but I’m really happy for me and for the ones who can go to their homes again. And for those who we are not going to see again… we’ll see you all in many years. Wait for us.” &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Brendon Smith

She started crying when she finished the letter. She counted and realized the man had almost been there for around 26 years. Just unbelievable. She went to her computer to search for the man to know if he had been rescued. But there wasn't any news. He had been for around 26 years on an island and he is still there! She couldn’t believe it. He has missed everything about the world that

READ THE DIFFERENT ENDINGS THE STUDENTS HAVE WRITTEN

Years passed and Millie was about to graduate. She had completely forgotten about that blue bottle that she had once found on her shelf. It was her prom’s day, and Millie was very excited because she had studied in the school her grandmother always wanted for her mother.&nbsp; It was nearly her turn to be given the diploma, when suddenly, looking at the crowd, she saw something unusual. 'It can’t be possible' - she said to herself. It was that bottle. It was that blue bottle that had tormented her for years because she couldn’t do anything for the man that had died and his sad story. She couldn’t believe what she was looking at it. But the most surprising thing of all was that the owner of the bottle was her grandmother! When the event finished, the first thing that Millie did was to discover what was happening and asked her grandma why she was holding the bottle. Her grandmother said to her that she didn’t have to worry about anything and that when they arrived home, she would to tell her everything. Once at home, her grandmother said the following:

He had left behind. I couldn't find anything about it, but it's true that I found on Instagram a woman that reported her father had disappeared 32 years ago, more or less.&nbsp; She contacted her and they met in a café. She explained the situation and both agreed to find a solution for her father. They collected information about the boat and why he was in the middle of the ocean. At first, they believed that he was there because he was on a cruise ship and it sinked. So he had to go on a boat. But, finally, they found that he had the intention to get into the Guinness Book of World Records His aim was to cross the ocean in 50 days with a sailing boat. They found the position of the island, but with it, also bad news: the island was not there. The explanation was that the island was totally made of sand, so when there was a strong storm, the sand went to the ocean and it disappeared. THE END MIGUEL B

Written collaborativelly by 4º A

She looked down into the bottle, but it was too dark inside to see anything. So she shook it. She heard a rattling sound. There was something inside! She turned the bottle upside down and shook it again, to see if anything would fall out. Something almost fell out and then it didn't. Whatever was inside was now stuck in the bottle's neck. Millie shook harder and&nbsp; harder. Finally, something small fell onto the floor. It was a letter from a stranger.

This is kinda difficult every day that passes. I’m very tired. Some time ago I started to get used to living here. This became my home, I made my house and a new friend. It’s nice to go on vacation for a week or a couple of weeks, but I’m going to celebrate my 6th year here in less than a month. It’s very different. You just can’t imagine what this is like.&nbsp;Probably I have written the next sentences a hundred or a thousand times. I can’t even remember how many letters I have written&nbsp;and sent in a blue bottle since I've been here, asking for help. No boats, no planes, no tourists… Just me and my friend. So please, if you are reading this, please try to come here and help me and my friend. I’m somewhere around the world. When the storm broke my boat I was in the middle of the sea. Actually, I don’t know in what direction I went, I just relaxed and fell asleep. When I opened my eyes, what I saw was my tired body on the sand of a beach that looked empty, with a forest in the middle of the place and thousands of kilometres of sea. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I hope that helps you to find us. We’ll wait for you.”

One night, Millie was up late reading in bed. She finished the book she was reading (The Story of Ferdinand) and looked over to her shelves to see what else she might read before she went to bed. Right there on her shelf was something she had never seen before. It was a blue bottle. The blue bottle was about as tall as a small book, had a round bottom, and a thin neck. And while the bottle looked as if it were made out of glass, Millie could not see through it. Millie got out of bed and went over to the bottle. She picked it up, carefully, afraid that it might break. She was surprised at just how heavy it was. Certainly heavier than any other bottle this size she had ever before lifted.

Millie got out of bed to put the book back on the shelf, just to find out the blue bottle was actually there. She was so shocked she tripped over her own feet. She didn’t have the time to check if the letter was inside or not, she was going to be late to school and she still wasn’t really processing what was going on. “I will open it when I come back from school, for sure”, she thought to herself, to then get up from the floor so she could get dressed, grab her backpack and run outside of her bedroom. Aisha K

Millie didn’t like to go to school so she was looking forward to coming back home to confirm if the letter that she had read the night before was still there. When she arrived at her house, she immediately went upstairs to her bedroom and took the bottle from her shelf. Millie realised that the story was actually true when she found the same letter as the night before inside the bottle. Millie spent the whole afternoon thinking about what she should do with the message she had received from a strange man who had written the letter 26 years ago. At the end of the day, she told her grandmother what had happened to her.

&nbsp;Another day in hell- she said for herself, and you may ask why.&nbsp;Well, Millie was going to a school were nobody was friends with her and where she didn't fit.&nbsp;She was there because her grandmother had always wanted their kids to go to that school but they couldn't afford it.&nbsp;But since her daugther Ann, Millie's mother, changed her job 3 years ago to another one in which she earned more money, it would be possible for Millie to go to this high school, which was also catholic.&nbsp;She was so fed up with the way teachers explained ... things that weren't questionable.&nbsp; Franmi G

When Millie finished telling the story to her grandma, she suddenly started laughing like she had never done before. Her daughter was shocked because of her grandmother’s reaction. Then, Millie was told by her grandmother that the letter she had found the previous day was only a part of an adventure game that she used to play with her mother. They had lost the message the last time they had played and they had not known where it was since then. After that, Millie started laughing too, she had believed that the whole story was totally true. Finally, this adventure ended up in a good anecdote.&nbsp; THE END INMA G

He was as alone as me, so I brought him to the camp too. He really liked it. From that day he had a home with me, his friend, and a place where to sleep and where to live. I cry every time I think about it because he’s too old too and I know that every day there’s less food and water for us and one of us is going to die. I’ve got the feeling that he’s going to be the first one to leave the island to go to a better place and to have a better life. I don’t want that, I want to leave this island with him in my arms.

A loud noise woke Millie up. She couldn’t see anything, something heavy was laying on top of her head. Suddenly, too much light came directly to her eyes. She rapidly closed her eyes to avoid the damage it would make in her eyes. Her mom had removed the book from her head, just to find her daughter was still asleep, and probably going to be late to school. She began screaming at her again, so mad that her daughter had stayed up late the night before, even if she was reading. Millie rubbed her eyes to see properly, she couldn’t really process what was happening. The bottle, the man, his friend the monkey… was it all just another fantasy of hers, just a dream? When she finally realized the whole situation, she calmly told her mom to leave her bedroom so she could get dressed for school. Her mom left the book on top of the desk, and then left Millie’s bedroom harshly shutting the door. Aisha K

I’m going to go on writing these letters until I don’t remember how to write, how to talk, how to think… Every time I write a letter, lots of thoughts come to my mind; is this going to be the last letter that I’m going to write? Is this going to be the last time that I’m going to think of the people that I love? Is this going to be the last time that I’m going to see my little friend? I remember the first time that I saw him... I was looking for some fruits for breakfast when suddenly, a couple of bananas fell down next to me. I took them. I looked up to the tree to see if there was someone who had dropped them but I didn’t see anything. I turned around to go to my camp to eat what I had taken and&nbsp;there, next to me was a very little monkey. He was alone, without his parents or siblings. I waited to see if there were more monkeys to come with him like his family or his friends, but no, no one came.

Millie left the class because she couldn’t take it anymore and when she was in the hall she met the man who had written the letter, he told her that everything had been a dream and she woke up suddenly and realised that everything had been a nightmare. She told her mum about her dream and they laughed together. But when she went outside she found the bottle at the door of her house and she got really scared. Two weeks later an ad came out in the newspaper saying that Millie was missing.

we have now. He has missed his children's lives, growth, future grandsons or granddaughters, his life with his wife… everything. “At least he had his friend, the monkey…” she thought. Unfortunately, something that the girl didn’t know is that his friend, the monkey, died the week after the letter was sent. The man finally got ill due to the death of his only friend. And he finally met his friend again... in the other life in the following month. Being ill and alone was more difficult to bear. He was ill, but in part, he died of sadness.&nbsp; The girl thought that the man lived for a lot of years more with his friend next to him. No one wants or needs to tell her that what she thought wasn’t what had really happened. But what she still doesn't know is: why was the bottle in her house? Did someone find it and brought it to her house? Maybe… Andrea S

Tomorrow, with the first sunray, I’m going to wake up to try again to fix it. I wished someone were here with me and my little monkey to help us; but I didn’t find anyone around here. I walked inside the forest hoping that the person who had come to the island went there to explore a bit. But maybe the boat came propelled by the wind of the storm of the other day and no one came inside it. I’m getting old, and no one has come to rescue me yet. I started to think that my family, my son Johnny and my daughter Lucy and my wife Emily could have forgotten me, maybe they have started a new life with another father and husband; and that my friends had forgotten me too.

That note broke Millie even more after finishing reading the first letter of the man. That name sounded very familiar to her. She remembered there was an old cemetery outside the city so she went there to prove what she thought.&nbsp; After taking a bus to the cemetery, she entered and looked up for Brendon Smith. The cemetery has a really special place for the people who went to the last war the country had fought in. She really thought that, if the book was in the city library, it was because many of the soldiers were from the same city as her. And of course, she was right. There was the place with the remains of those men. She found the name of Brendom’s family in one of the rows. She left some flowers she had bought before going there and said goodbye to them.

Millie completely forgot about the bottle or the story she was reading before going to school. The teacher was talking about something that kinda looks important but she wasn’t paying attention. She fell asleep and had a nightmare where she lived in hell with her mother, where she had no friends. She woke up twice that day.&nbsp; A couple of hours later, the bell rang, which meant that school had finished. She went back home and realized that she had completely forgotten about the blue bottle or the story she had read many hours before. She entered her home at 15.30, where thehr was no one. Like every day, her mom was working. She used to come home at 17 o’clock or at 17.30. She was going to take her books to do her homework when she saw the pocket where the bottle was supposed to be. But it wasn’t there. Millie started shaking. She was very clueless but not that much to lose the bottle. “Where is it?” She asked herself. “Did I lose it at school today?” Though… she was about to run back to the school and look for it when she remembered the whole story inside the bottle. While she was reading the letter, she thought about the many questions she needed to respond to and searched about them in her laptop.

"Do you remember when your mother went to your bedroom and she found you asleep with a book on your head arriving late to school? So, when you went to school, she went to your bedroom again because she had seen that bottle. She mentioned to me what she had found and I had the suspicion of what it was. It was the same bottle that I had been receiving every month. I discovered that the letters that were inside the bottles were written by your grandfather. We didn’t say anything about this because we thought it was the best for you and we are so sorry. I wish you can forgive us. Millie couldn’t believe it, so, the man had died of sadness due to the death of his monkey, was her grandfather? She needed a moment to process all the information but she was more relaxed because she had always wanted to resolve the mystery of that man of the blue bottle. THE END MICHELLE

At school she hung out with people who were a bad influence on her. Then she started taking drugs and Millie started behaving worse and worse at school. She was continually expelled from high school and at the end Millie ended up failing all her subjects. However, during her holidays she studied every day and she managed to pass all those subjects that she had failed. Next she stopped hanging out with all those bad people, she become a good person, and she got a university degree. From that day her life changed, she became a millionaire and no one knew more about the bottle. Rubén F

Lucy's grandfather survived for many years on a little island to the north of Britain until he died. And after a lot of years disappeared, one day a fisherman arrived on that island searching for some fish when he found a letter from him, which was the same letter that Millie had read the day before, but even though they searched all the island, the man and his friend the monkey were never found. The story was so unusual and amazing that a very famous writer decided to reproduce it and made it known by everyone as "The Blue Bottle". And because of that each book came with a bottle that had the same letter inside that the fisherman had found on that island.&nbsp; So Millie's parents had probably bought the book and that's why she had found it on her shelf. THE END CHAYMAA

The letter on the floor seemed like it was very old. It was too damaged as well. She tried to open it but it was very difficult to do it without breaking it. Inside the old paper was something written that said: “Today, it´s 24th November, 1999… I guess. I've almost been here 5 years and 345 days. This week something strange happened on the island. I was fishing a little for lunch after I had breakfast with my little friend I mentioned in my last letter, I think. He still hasn't got a definite name, but I think that’s because I I hadn't had a monkey as a pet before this one. I was walking with him along the north beach when I found a boat. It was big and made of wood, but it was broken. I took it and tried to repair it but I couldn’t.

But although Millie didn't enjoy that school, she had met a girl called Lucy, who had become her best friend. The girl was very funny and kind but she didn't have a lot of friends because she was a little bit shy.&nbsp; So that day when Millie arrived at her school, it didn't take her long to tell her friend all about the situation that she had experienced the night before. And while Millie was talking, Lucy remained attentive and quiet because she remembered her grandfather. Yes!! The man who Millie was talking about was Lucy's grandfather!! Then, when she finished, Lucy explained to Millie the story of her grandfather that her mum had always told her. Lucy said to Millie that her grandfather had disappeared in the 90' when he went fishing with his fishing boat and from that moment no one knew where he was.

Millie investigated a lot about the story. She read many articles about finding people alive or dead bodies on desert islands, but the people who had been found weren't the man of the story. She printed maps, she read many books, she also printed some articles with pictures that she found related to the story.&nbsp; One night, Millie was reading an adventure book and something looked familiar to her. In the book, the characters were making a statement about people missing in action after a war and other people who had disappeared on the way back to their country by boat after a storm in the middle of the ocean… 15th January 1995 “We are here to finally say that the number of missing people is around a hundred and twenty five men. It is really sad news we didn't know how to say it to you. We hope they're safe or at least they stay alive… In a week, we'll receive another statement of the new number of missing people and deaths. But now, what we can only do is pray for those men and wait for the news.”

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