There once was an ocean so vast and deep that it could not be crossed. The people who lived by the ocean were very happy people. They had barns full of animals, rooms of musical instruments, and blackboards filled with drawings and numbers so each child could learn. They had libaries so big you needed to take an apple-picker to reach the top books. They had a place for each citizen, and they had rooms of steaming hot food and crisp gingersnaps. The doors were never closed.

But the happy people were curious. They had food in their tummies, and so they began to wonder what was on the other side of the ocean - if in fact it had an opposite shore.

So the people of the happy town put out a challenge: anyone who can find a way to cross the vast ocean shall never be forgotten, and their memory should stand the test of time.

Out came the scientists and dreamers, with great steel boats and bridges made of diamond. But the steel boats were swallowed by the waves, and even diamond was not strong enough to span the distance to the opposite shore, nor long enough to reach the bottom of the ocean.

Then came the artists and musicians. The artists painted roads straight in to the ocean and ran on their beautiful paintings until the roads dissolved and sank to the bottom. The musicians played notes so perfect that they created magical staircases in to the sky. Little children ran up the steps in the wind with their eyes closed, feeling the way, and it would have worked, but no musician can play forever, and they always had to stop before the opposite shore was reached in a single song.

One young man came very close. he built a huge freezer and began to freeze the ocean, bit by bit, so that the happy people could strap on their skates and glid across. But after a while the ice would melt, and he would be left on a floating iceberg far from shore. He froze his way home (leaving his dissolving iceberg behind) and felt discouraged.

So the happy people were a little less happy than usual. They sat quietly in meetings until somebody blurted out "I know!" but the plans just didn't work. They didn't know what to do, but, being nice people, they decided they'd all go on long walks and come back when they felt less grumpy.

Now, a few of them had never taken long walks, having never been grumpy, or particularly fond of the outdoors, and they soon got lost. One such citizen wandered in to a very smelly bog. He didn't like it one bit, and so looked around for somebody who could lead him out. The first person he came upon was a young girl. She was very tall and she had tan bare feet sticking in the mud. She didn't mind the smell at all. Before he could even open his mouth, though, she had invited him in to her secret hideaway under the branches of a weeping willow tree. She gave him willow tea for his scrapes and told him her name was Gemma.

The man was very surprised, because the happy town was quite small, and he was sure he knew everybody in it. He began to be suspicious - was she a water nymph? A razikil? A witch? How could she hide from the happy town?

But Gemma just laughed and told him the other children didn't much like the smell of the bog, either, and she hadn't been a favorite in the schoolyard. She preferred the company of the wise trees, she said, although he could tell she wasn't exactly saying true things.

She told him the town wasn't always a happy place - sometimes when people have bellies full of gingersnaps all they can do is wait for something to get in the way of their happiness! Bad smells usually do.

But although she hadn't been to the school with the other children, she was just as nice, and she asked him why he had ventured in to such a smelly bog. He told her the whole town was grumpy becaues they could not figure out how to get to the other side of the ocean. She looked concerned for a few moments, and then sprang up and dashed through the willow boughs. He heard her shout instructions to him, so he could climb out of the bog. He was a bit dazed by the whole encounter, but he climbed out as she said and walked home, wondering if her manners were so good after all.

The next morning as the sun rose over the happy town, the gardeners and workers and little children noticed a figure they'd never seen before bent over by the shore, working on something. Of course it was Gemma. They tried not to get very close at first, because of the smell, but shen she called them over to help their curiosity got the better of them. They walked in small groups to the shore, but found they needed to walk much further to reach Gemma, because she was already out at sea quite a ways. They stared in awe at her project.

She had simply laid lilypads on the ocean! She tied the first to the shore and the the second to the first, and the third to the second, and so on, until there was a dazzling green road out in to the ocean. Each lilypad floated gently over all the waves and didn't sink at all. The gardeners and workers and little children stood in a long row on the lilypad road. They asked Gemma how she ever thought of such a wonderful idea, and she looked at her tan toes and said there were a number of things one discovered, living in a lonely smelly bog all the time.

Well, Gemma made the road long enough, with the help of her new friends, and the happy town got to see what was on the other side of the ocean. I can't tell you what it was, but I can tell you eyes popped and jaws dropped and several citizens were knocked over with feathers.

So from that day on, they visited the other side often. But the lilypads sometimes got old and shriveled, so the residents of the happy town visited Gemma all the time to thank her and pick new lilypads, which grew abundantly in the bog.

And the smell? I don't think anybody ever mentioned it again.