A Stay Overseas -Kane-

(Note: Dialogue in [] brackets is not actually in English.)

The sun was setting on the Orient.  A young, female red panda, 10 or 12 maybe, was in the middle of collecting seashells on the beach.  She was dressed in traditional Chinese garb, colored red and white.

[...Hm?]

She noticed something glistening in the sand.  The red panda got closer and dug it up; it was a large corked bottle, with some sort of gray cloth all rolled up inside it.

[Oh, how wonderful!  Maybe it's a treasure map!  I've got to show my sister this!]

The red panda rushed home immediately with the seashells and the bottle in tow.  She more or less banged open the door, startling her older sister who was right in the middle of doing the laundry.  Said older sister was also a red panda, around 16 or 17; she was dressed similarly to her younger sister, but her clothes were blue and white instead of red and white.

"[Suki!]" the elder panda exclaimed.  "[You're back early!]"

"[Maki!  Look what I found down at the beach!]"

Suki proudly held up the bottle, and Maki took and examined it.

"[This doesn't look like it came from anywhere near here.]"

"[Do you think that's a pirate's treasure map in there, Maki?]"

"[Haha.  You and your fantasies, Suki.  Let's get it out and see what it is.]"

Maki couldn't get the object out of the bottle even with a pair of tweezers, so she had to break it on a rock to retrieve it.  They unrolled the object as soon as they could; it was an unconscious, flattened gray wolf.

Suki was even more excited now.  "[It's a person?!  Wow!  I bet he had to bottle himself and toss himself out to sea in order to escape from pirates!]"

"[Well, let's give him some rest, and he can answer our questions when he wakes up.]"

Maki prepared a hot bath, then laid the wolf out in it.  The hot water quickly decompressed him back to his normal breadth, and a moment later he opened his eyes.

"Ugh," he muttered.  "Where am I?"

Suki and Maki chattered among one another for a moment.  Maki stepped up.

"[Are you all right?]"

The wolf looked up.  "Excuse me?  I don't understand your language."

"[You don't... you do not speak Chinese?]"

"English?  Do you speak English?"

Turns out he'd lucked out.  Maki did indeed speak a fair amount of English, as she'd been studying it for some time.

"My name is Maki, and this is my younger sister Suki.  This is our house."

"Ah!  Good to meet you.  My name's Kane."

"[Ask him if he's on the run from pirates, sis!]" Suki exclaimed.  "[Maybe he knows the location of some secret pirate treasure!]"

Maki laughed a bit.  "[All right, sis, all right.]  My sister is curious to know how you ended up here."

Kane got out of the bath.  "There's this girl I know named Indigo.  She's a bit of a prankster.  She decided it'd be funny to flatten me out, stuff me in a bottle, and leave me at the mercy of the ocean waves.  I lost consciousness after a day or so... what day is today?"

"It's the 18th."

"The 18th?!  It was the 10th when she tossed me out.  I've really been adrift for over a week?"

"You must be very hungry if you went that long, Kane.  I'll prepare you some of the local food right away."

Over a very filling dinner, Kane chatted with the red panda sisters.  They were all surprised to find out how much distance Kane had covered inside that bottle, and they enjoyed learning about the similarities and differences between their respective cultures.  Suki was kind of disappointed Kane wasn't a hero on the run from pirates, though.

Kane actually ended up staying with the red pandas for a day or two, but then he became concerned that his friends back home must be missing him.

Which raised the quandary: how would he get home?  He couldn't just be stuffed into another bottle and tossed into the sea again; who knew where he'd wind up.  He didn't have enough money for an airplane ticket, either.  There had to be another way...

Suddenly, Kane snapped his fingers.  "Wait!  I've got an idea.  Can you two afford postage to send a letter to my hometown?"

"Yes, absolutely."

"Good.  Here's what we'll do..."

Kane addressed an envelope to his friend Jack, and had Maki and Suki write the letter.  Then Maki carefully sent the wolf through her laundry wringer, flattening him thoroughly.

I hope Indigo never gets one of those things, Kane mused.  Who knows how much damage she'd do with it.

Once he was wrung flat, Maki gently folded him in half and sent him through again to compress him even further, and repeated until he was small enough to fit inside the envelope.  By this point he resembled a small handkerchief.

Maki dropped the envelope containing Kane in the mailbox after making sure it was properly addressed and stamped.  He arrived at Jack's place a few days later, and the lizard anxiously restored him.

Overall, the past two weeks had been one heck of an adventure for Kane.  He never forgot the kindness of Maki and Suki, and they never forgot about the wolf that'd turned up in a bottle on the shore near their home, either; in fact, before long Kane and Maki became penpals.

And in the end, although he wouldn't admit it to anyone, Kane was sort of grateful that Indigo had bottled him and tossed him out to sea.