Jim McMahon/Mapman®
Josie Law loves going to the beach to look for seashells, shark teeth, and sand dollars. But in May, the 11-year-old from Howell, Michigan, found something much more special: a message in a bottle. It had been dropped into the ocean almost seven years earlier.
Josie and her family were on vacation on Anna Maria Island in Florida when the small bottle washed ashore. Inside Josie found two paper birds and a handwritten message. A phone number and the date August 17, 2018 were written near the bottom.
Josie’s mom sent a text to the number. She was surprised to get a reply—from a 21-year-old woman in Hawaii! The woman and her younger brother had tossed the bottle into the Pacific Ocean when they were kids.
“I can’t believe that they responded,” Josie says.