Warnings: Some profanity.

If you're ever going to wish for something, you'd best do it now. You only get one chance to be sixteen and then time's gone and you're an adult and then everything goes to shit. So do it now, Arthur. I know you think you have to act like a grown-up and be pissy all the time, but you're just a boy. You're my boy and I miss you everyday even though I know how furious you are with me for leaving. I love you so much, Arthur, and I want you to be happy now. Wish for something outrageous, something you don't think you deserve. I'm not saying your wish will be granted, but if there was ever a time of magic in your life, it'll be ending soon, believe me. Don't waste what's left, love.

Happy Birthday,

Mum

Arthur read the card twice, and then took the twenty pound note that had been inside, shoving it in his pocket. He wandered over to a trashbin and held the card over it for a moment before deciding better of it and tucking it into the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt.

Lighting a cigarette, he sat down on the cold cement of the alleyway and tilted his head up toward the sky to imagine the stars that might have been hidden behind the clouds and smog and vaporized sadness of the city. His stomach growled angrily, unsatisfied by the nicotine, and Arthur drew his knees up to make the feeling of emptiness go away. Arthur pulled his backpack over and rummaged through the extra clothing and books inside until he found the liquor bottle he'd stolen from his older brother before leaving the apartment. A few generous swigs did little to quell his hunger, but he was becoming so warm he hardly minded it anymore.

He sang happy birthday to himself as he smoked and drank and tried not to think too much about his mother. It had been three years since he had seen her, and he had no idea where she was or who she was with. There were never any return addresses on her rare letters or post cards, but if she could spare money, then Arthur figured she might not be doing too poorly. His stomach clenched painfully again, and Arthur debated using the money to buy something to eat until he realized that there was very little likelihood of anything being open so late.

Besides, just getting something to eat didn't seem like a special enough thing to use the money for, even if it was just a part. If you're ever going to wish for something, you'd best do it now. If nothing else, his mother had managed to instill a healthy respect for, perhaps even belief in, possibility beyond what could be seen, or as she called it, magic. Not that Arthur pretended to see faeries and unicorns anymore (or at least, not very often), but the idea of some force greater than human imagination was comforting. This was wish money. He had to do something important with it or else he'd just go back home in the morning and end up getting it taken from him.

Arthur downed the rest of the liquor in one go, and his eyes watered from the burn. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and tried to think of a wish. There were a million things he wanted, but he couldn't think of a single thing worth using a wish for. If his mother was right and all the magic in his life would soon be gone, then this was a very serious matter. He couldn't waste a wish on something frivolous. The more he thought about it, the more discouraged he became. Not only did he not have a solid wish, but he didn't have any of the proper wishing instruments. There were no birthday candles to blow out, no dandelions, no wells, and no shooting stars that he could see. All he had was a cigarette lighter and an empty bottle, and Arthur doubted either of those things counted for much in this situation.

Arthur rolled the bottle across his palm a few times. He lurched his arm back and made to throw it down the alley just to hear the crash it would make, but a thought stopped him. Arthur scrabbled around on the cement until he found the screw top to the bottle and considered his options. He could chuck the bottle and feel better having destroyed something useless, or he could turn it into a wish.

He dug around in his backpack again until he found his notebook and a pencil. It took him awhile to find a stretch of blank ages amongst the poems and short stories and doodles covering the lined pages, but finally he found a suitable spot to begin.

Hello. My name is Arthur Kirkland. I live in London, England and today is my sixteenth birthday.

Arthur paused, chewing on his thumb while he tried to think of what else to write.

Twenty minutes later he had filled four pages, front and back, with his story. He wrote down everything: details about his family, how he'd felt when his mother had left, the difficulty he was having in school, his growing loneliness, his hopes and dreams for the future. All he had left to do was make a wish.

If anyone should find this, however unlikely that is, and if that person should have happened to read through everything, which is also unlikely, I just want to say one last thing. Everything I believe in is coming down around my head and I need one foolish adventure before I grow up. So this is my birthday wish: if you, you reading this, feel like I feel, then we should meet. Come find me and take me away from here. I mean, I guess you don't have to, if you don't want. I know I probably couldn't be arsed to help out a little fuck like me. For all I know this message could wash up somewhere that no one reads English. But it doesn't matter. I don't care who you are or where you're from or how old you are. If you can get here, get here, and then we can go anywhere we like and nothing will stop us. There's magic in wishes, but I don't want it unless I can share it with someone.

Arthur scribbled down information on how to find him and drew a small map before rolling all the sheets of paper into a neat tube and popping it into the bottle. He screwed the lid on tight and closed his eyes sending out every positive thought he could to make his wish come true. Swaying slightly as he stood, Arthur gathered up his bag and began walking towards the Thames. It would be long walk, but he didn't know what else to do. You were supposed to throw messages like this into the sea, but that was at least two hours away and he had no way to get there. Arthur tucked the bottle under his arm and shoved his cold fingers into the pockets of his torn jeans.

It took his tired, tipsy brain a moment to register the feeling of the money in his pocket. Wish money. Getaway money. Arthur pulled the wadded up note out and checked his bag for any other currency. All he found were a few fifty pence coins and a ball of lint, but a plan was beginning to form in his mind. Buses were leaving the city all the time, buses that might go to Brighton or somewhere like that, somewhere with actual seaside. All he had to do was get to a bus depot, wait until the right bus came along, pray he had enough money or could talk his way on and he could be sending off his wish the proper way within a few hours' time.

Of course then he would be stranded in some town if he didn't have enough money for fare back to London. He would have to risk hitching a ride or, worse, call his brother to get him. Then he'd be sure to get a beating, if his brother bothered to pick him up at all.

Even if he did manage to make it to the ocean, what did he really expect to happen? His bottle would sink or get piled up with a bunch of garbage somewhere. The odds of it making it out to open waters and then washing up where someone could find it were so incredibly tiny that Arthur felt his eyes prick with frustrated tears just imagining all the terrible things that could happen to his wish. And what if someone did find it and thought he was an idiot? Maybe someone worse off would read it and decide that Arthur was a whiny brat and they would never come meet him. It was a stupid idea.

"No it is not!"

Arthur's hand flew to cover his mouth and he was mortified that he had spoken aloud in response to his own thoughts. But a small knot of confidence pulled in his chest and he threw his head back and yelled "No it is not!" over and over until he was out of breath and a dog in one of the nearby apartments was going mad barking at him.

"My wishes aren't stupid."

Nodding to himself, Arthur shouldered his backpack once more and took a deep breath. It was time he made some magic for himself.

All in all, Alfred F. Jones was having a pretty good birthday. He'd gotten cake and presents and now his entire family was going to watch fireworks on the beach. The fireworks weren't for him, but it felt special anyway. Alfred's dad always said that a boy born on the Fourth of July had to be destined to do something big in his life, and Alfred took that idea very seriously.

But Alfred was only fourteen years old. He was only just going to be starting high school in the fall, and he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. His brother, Matthew, seemed to have it all figured out and he was only a year older than Alfred. Everyone treated Matthew like he was so mature and smart, and like Alfred was the dumb baby of the family. They had gone on this trip partially to visit their grandma and while she gave Matthew a hug and a fifty dollar bill for his birthday a few days previous, she just patted Alfred on the head and referred to him as "Alfie" for their entire stay. To be fair, Alfred didn't like his grandma much anyway; she thought cough drops were the same as candy and she had way too many cats and her couches were covered in plastic.

Alfred huffed and dug his toes further into the sand. He kept piling it on until he couldn't feel his feet anymore even if he wiggled his toes. He tried to walk right through the mounds and break free, but he was stuck and he ended up losing his balance and falling right on his ass.

"What are doing, Al?" Matthew had been watching his struggle from the beach blanket a few feet away.

"Nothing. Just dickin' around."

"Alfred Jones, watch your mouth!"

Alfred rolled his eyes, but slapped on a contrite smile for show. "Sorry, Mom."

He brushed himself off and looked toward the pier where a crew was finishing with the fireworks.

"Hey, Mom? Imma go walk over there, okay? Just to look."

"I don't know… it might be dangerous. Mattie, go with him."

"Oh my god, Mom, I'm just going to go look! Besides, if it's so dangerous why would you send both your precious sons to their deaths?"

Alfred's mother pursed her lips and arched an eyebrow to communicate how thoroughly unamused she was, but she shrugged and waved a hand dismissively.

"Fine, kiddo, but you had better be back before the thing starts. I don't want you under there when the fireworks are going off, are we clear? And take a jacket. It's getting cold."

"Mom, it's Florida. It never gets cold. That's why all the old people and reptiles like it."

"Just do as I ask."

"Daaaaaaad!"

"Boy, do what your mother says."

It only took a flash of a stern glare before Alfred was pulling his jacket out of his bag. He trotted off toward the pier again, faintly catching his mother making a remark to his father.

"That boy needs some focus in his life, I swear."

Alfred frowned to himself. Alfred needs focus, Alfred needs purpose, when are you going to act your age, Alfred? It wasn't fair. How was he supposed to know what he wanted? It wasn't like he was going to be a grown up tomorrow. He still had time, right? Maybe he would just join the military after high school like his dad wanted. He liked science and technology and that kind of stuff, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

The crew on the pier didn't pay him any mind so Alfred just stood and watched them set up for a little while before going to walk underneath. The sand got colder and wetter and Alfred wished he had put his shoes back on. The pier creaked over his head and the sad moans made his skin crawl. He imagined the entire thing collapsing right on top of him, or maybe the fireworks going off and catching it on fire. Or maybe a giant wave would come out of nowhere and drag Alfred out to sea to be eaten by sharks or something.

Alfred poked around the sand, looking for shells or fallen coins or anything interesting. There was a giant clump of seaweed and garbage a few feet away, but it smelled so awful that Alfred didn't want to go near it. A light from the workers above shone through the wooden slats of the pier for a moment and Alfred saw a glint of something long and smooth near the seaweed. Covering his nose with his balled up jacket, Alfred got as close to the dank clump as he could stand and made a grab for the object.

It was a bottle; kind of brown, but with weathering that had turned once plain glass into something cloudy and ethereal looking. Alfred couldn't see the contents so he shook it a few times. There were no sloshing noises or pings against the inside, but he could feel that there was definitely something in there. Moving away from the seaweed to sit on the damp sand, Alfred opened the bottle, turned it over and shook.

A crinkly tube of paper fell out onto his lap and Alfred grew giddy with excitement. Maybe it was treasure map or a secret message or an SOS! He unrolled the top edge slowly, trying to be gentle with the crackling pages turned fragile by age and sun.

The date on the top of the first sheet of paper took him by surprise; whatever the message was, it was over two years old. Someone with less than perfect handwriting had written it on cheap lined paper in smudgy pencil. Alfred unrolled the papers a little more and read the first line.

Hello. My name is Arthur Kirkland.

BOOOOM!

"Fuck!"

Alfred dropped the papers and covered his ears, knocked flat on his back from shock. Through the slats of the pier he could see the first glittering firework disintegrating in the sky.

"Shitshitshitshitshit."

Scrambling to gather up the bottle and shove the letter back inside, Alfred tripped over himself as he ran from the pier. As he neared his family, he felt a sickly twinge in his stomach and decided to roll the bottle up in his jacket. This was something he didn't feel like sharing with anyone else, even if he couldn't quite understand why.

His mother gave him an earful when he got back, but Alfred wasn't really listening, thinking instead of the letter he had yet to read and Arthur Kirkland. He kept the bottle rolled in his jacket the entire night, then shoved it in his suitcase when they got back to the hotel. It was another three days before they were finally back home in New York and Alfred could lock himself in his room and read the letter.

That same afternoon Alfred gathered up all the loose money he had and put it into a sock, hiding it in his underwear drawer. He began hoarding his weekly allowance instead of spending it on fast food and comic books. He went around to the neighbors and asked if there were any odd jobs he could do for a little cash. Birthday and Christmas money remained untouched, and soon Alfred had a half dozen socks filled with cash in his underwear drawer. Eventually he transferred it all to a giant empty coffee can with "DO NOT OPEN" written across the top in black marker and "ENGLAND" written across the side.

As soon as he turned sixteen, Alfred got a job at an ice cream parlour and then another at a record store. He hated them both, because of the itchy uniform and pretentious customers respectively, but anytime he felt discouraged he would pull out Arthur Kirkland's letter and read it from start to finish. There was no reason he should carry it around considering he had long since memorized it, but it acted as a physical reminder of why he had to work so hard.

Boys born on the Fourth of July were meant to do something great, were born to make a difference. Alfred may not have had any idea what he wanted to do with his life, but this seemed like a good start. After a thousand times reading the letter, Alfred felt like he knew this Kirkland guy better than he knew half of his so-called friends at school. Just thinking about him and his situation made Alfred's heart start to race and his face would get red all the way up to his ears simply because he was so sad and angry that he couldn't help Arthur right away. He'd searched the Internet for someone by that name, but it seemed that this Arthur didn't have an account on any of the common social networking sites. So now Alfred had to wait until he could go to England and meet Arthur in person, if it wasn't too late.

Alfred needed this. He needed this purpose and he needed to feel like someone needed him. This Arthur Kirkland guy didn't know it, but he was about to get his wish granted.

A/N: Sorry to those of you who got notified that this was uploaded more than once. The site glitched out on me. I will be uploading the second and final chapter in a day or so.

In other news, I now have a Tumblr account for writing and general fanpersoning. If you would like to follow me, there is a link on my profile page.