On a warm summer day, Ella walked along the crowded beach. Waves crashed against the sandy shore, and children played in the ocean. The soft cry of seagulls sounded across the water, and the bright sun shone out over the clouds. Ella was a young girl, around ten years old, with dark brown hair and green eyes. Ella's small puppy, River, trotted alongside her, as he always did. He began to paw at something-a bottle. Ella expected it to be simply trash from a vacationer, but upon further inspection, it contained a note. Carefully opening the small bottle covered with barnacles, she read the torn, old note:

March 20, 1720

I have to hide the gold before it's too late follow the map to find the treasure

It must be a joke, Ella thought as she continued to walk on and leave the bottle, but she made sure to put the note in her pocket.

It took days to understand what the note said. Some days, she was so busy she didn't even think about it, but others, she spent hours obsessing over it and trying to understand what it meant. She knew it must have been fake - if it was real, why hadn't someone noticed it already-but still, she felt like she had to solve it. Almost like there was some reason she noticed the bottle, or at least some reason why River noticed the bottle. She kept on repeating the words, "I have to find the gold before it's too late". Finally, after what felt like weeks of confusion, she understood.