Message in a Bottle

先週セージとディズニーの「レスキュー」を見ました。誘拐された女の子が、助けを求めるメッセージを空き瓶に入れて海に流し、それを見つけたネズミ達が彼女を助けようと立ち上がる物語です。セージはこの映画が大好きです。ねずみが出てくる映画なら大抵気に入るのですが、この冒険映画は特に大好きなようです。

今夜、ソーイチがソーダのペットボトルを会社から持って帰って来たのですが、空になった後、そこに手紙を入れて浜辺へ行き、川に流して良いかってセージが聞いてきました。川にゴミを投げるのは法律違反で、牢屋に入れられるかもしれないよ、と話しました。（本当に投獄されるかどうかは知りませんが、罰金を払わなければいけないということを上手く説明できなかったので・・。）彼によると、ペットボトルはリサイクルできるのでゴミじゃない、とのことです。かわいい言い訳でしたが、法律は守らなければいけません。

そこで代わりですが、セージが言うとおりに手紙を書いて、サインをさせ、丸めてボトルの中に入れ、それをバスタブへ持って行きました。彼がお風呂に入っている間、風呂の端を浜辺にまねて、ボトルをお湯に浮かべた後、反対側の端を別の浜辺にまねて、そこへ到達したら発見されたことにしました。ボトルを開けて手紙を取り出そうとしましたが、濡れていてなかなか出てきません。歯ブラシの助けを借りてやっと取り出し、丸まっていたのを伸ばしてメッセージを読みました。

助けて！ありがとうございます。
セージより。

A few weeks ago we watched Disney's The Rescuers with Sage. In the film, a little girl is kidnapped. She sends out a message of distress in a bottle, which is found by a group of mice who devote themselves to her rescue. Sage loved the movie. He likes pretty much any cartoon with mice but the adventure of this show really captivated him.

This evening, Soichi brought a soda bottle home from work. When the bottle was emptied, Sage asked if we could put a letter in it, go to the beach, and throw it in the river. I told him that it is breaking a rule to throw trash in a river and that we might get put in jail if we do. (I don't think we'd really get put in jail but I didn't think I could explain the process of paying fines to him very well.) He told me that a bottle can be recycled so it isn't really trash! I thought his argument was pretty cute, but it didn't change the fact that we still couldn't throw it in the river.

So we came up with an alternative. Sage asked me to write a message. He chose the words and then signed his name at the bottom. We rolled it up, put it in the bottle, and took the bottle with us to the bath. While he was bathing, he pretended the edge of the tub was a beach. After he let the bottle float for a while, he put it on the tub's edge. He then announced that he "found" a letter on the beach! We took off the bottle cap. Sage tried to make the letter come out by turning the bottle upside down and shaking it. But it wouldn't budge. The paper had gotten a little wet and was sticking to the sides of the bottle. With the help of the narrow end of a toothbrush, I pried the letter out. Then we unrolled the letter and read the message:

HELP! Thank you very much!
Sage