Billie holds the little bottle in her hands. The girls all try to guess what’s inside. Billie feels very special to have found such a magical thing.

Then Billie has an idea. Carefully she balances the little green bottle on top of the sandcastle. It looks magnificent! Now it is the biggest, most beautiful sandcastle on the beach.

Charlotte jumps up and down excitedly. Harriet does a handstand. Billie decides she will do a handstand too.

But she is not used to doing handstands on the soft sand. She wibbles and wobbles, then…

crash! Billie falls down. Right on top of the big, beautiful sandcastle!

Harriet and Charlotte gasp.

Billie stands up quickly. But it is too late. The sandcastle is ruined.

Billie stares at the crushed sandcastle. Right in the middle is her little green bottle. It has cracked neatly in half. The girls kneel down to look at it.

And that’s when they see…there is nothing inside it. Nothing at all.

Billie covers her face with her hands. Big fat tears roll down her cheeks. She grabs the two pieces of the bottle and runs back to her mum and dad.

Chapter
Four

Billie has decided that this is the worst day ever. She has made a sandcastle and broken a sandcastle. She has found a bottle and broken a bottle.

Worst of all, she made a friend but now she is sure the friendship will be broken.

Harriet knows there wasn’t any message in the bottle. Billie was just making up stories. Harriet will never want to be friends with Billie now!

Billie sits on her towel under the beach umbrella and cries.

‘Why don’t you just say sorry?’ Billie’s mum suggests.

Billie shakes her head. She is much too scared to go and talk to those girls now. Especially after everything she has done!

Billie B Brown is good at lots of things. She is good at the monkey bars and she is good at making cubbies.

She is good at soccer and she is good at midnight feasts. But the thing that Billie B Brown is best at is coming up with good ideas.

Billie wipes her eyes. She looks at the little broken bottle in her hand. And then she has an idea. It is the superest-dooperest idea she has had all day!

Can you guess what Billie is thinking?

Billie tears off a corner of her dad’s newspaper. Then she takes his pencil and writes in very small writing.

Billie rolls the message up tightly and puts it inside one half of the bottle. She puts the other half of the bottle on top. Then she takes a hair-tie and wraps it around the two halves. It holds the message inside perfectly.