Introduction
Once, in a time, (it was in it you see, not upon it, the time was very definitely all around and not just underneath) there was a girl. At least, she knew she was a girl. People might have said that she couldn't be one because she was too old, but she knew she was the same little girl she had always been. She lived in a big city and she went to work whenever she had to and tried to do her best, but sometimes her best wasn't enough and her manager would shout at her for daydreaming. She didn't like him very much.
One day she had a dream. She went into a park and walked all the way down to the edge of a lake and looked at her reflection. She was very green and muddy. Then her face went all wobbly because a big black swan had swum on to it. The swan looked at her. It had a very red beak. She looked at the swan.
"Hello" it said. And then she didn't have time to finish the dream because she had to go and make cappuccinos and clean some tables, so she never knew ever what the swan had been going to say next.
