Gretchen tries to swallow the sea. She puffs herself up real big, but the sea is bigger still, so Gretchen gives up. She sits down on the beach and plays with the stones.

"I could swallow the stones," she thinks, "but they'd just make me ill. If I could swallow the sea... now that'd be something. All those ships and fish and people and storms, and the whole ocean inside me. I could open and close my mouth and they'd get day and night and wind as I breathed. Yeah, that'd be something."

Gretchen tries to swallow the sea again. She puffs herself up real big, bigger than she's ever been before, but the wind comes along and blows her over. You can still see her sometimes, bouncing between the sand dunes.