ONCE UPON A TIME there was a little mermaid. She had a voice as melodious as water running through the strings of a harp, skin like rose petals and eyes as blue as the deepest oceans. But she was a solemn child, filled with a deep yearning to visit The Land Above The Sea.

It was the custom for mer children to swim to the surface on their fifteenth birthday, but not before. So the little mermaid had to wait and wait. Every year another of her five elder sisters visited the surface and returned with more tales of its wonders and every year the littlest mermaid grew more and more full of longing. Until at last she too was fifteen and she rose to the surface as fast and eager as a bubble.