“Excuse me everyone – eyes and ears on me!” shouted Eagle Bay Elementary School’s Principal, Ms. Snicket. “Miss Walten is ill today, so I’m afraid to say that you have a substitute teacher.”

The entire fourth-grade class smiled and looked around at there classmates in glee.

Ms. Snicket cleared her throat causing the students to obediently look toward her. “Mr. Davis will be here after recess and I expect you to behave for him as if he was your regular teacher. He will be writing down everything that happens today. Now, before you go for recess Mrs. Coffin is going to read you a story.”

The old librarian sidled in slowly and began to read the class an old story called Tom thumb….

Tom Davis sat in his car staring blankly at the mural of children holding hands on the school’s wall. He had agreed to substitute at an elementary school, when he was quite obviously more interested in coaching football, but work experience wasn’t easy to come by, so he took the job.

He jerked suddenly as the bell for recess rang and hundreds upon hundreds of little freckle-faced munchkins sprang out of the building and into the playground beside the parking lot.

“I guess that’s my cue’, the 25 year old said with a sigh trying to open his car door. It was one of those old Subarus with the mismatched colored doors known for not opening after 10 or so years of driving them.

Tom moved his body sideways, swearing under his breathe, and kicked the door, but it was jammed. He kicked and pushed and BANG! He hit his head on the underside of the dashboard.

Then darkness….

A ball rolled out into the empty parking lot of Eagle Bay Elementary. It stopped rolling just in time for fourth-grader Jason Stevenson to notice the coolest toy car he had ever seen.

The bell rang to end recess and he picked up the car, stuck it into his pocket, and went inside to wait for his substitute teacher.

Tom woke up in darkness. He looked all around him realizing by the little light that there was, that he was still in his car. However the car was upside down, and he was looking up at the driver’s seat.

‘Have I been in a car accident,’ he thought rubbing his aching head. But there were no paramedics, no other cars, and no people around that he could see – just darkness with a little light from outside the car windows. The only sound that he could hear besides his own breathing was muffled talking, loud muffled talking.

“Hello?” Tom cried out to who ever was talking.

 Suddenly everything shifted.

“Holy shit!” Tom screamed as his vehicle was lifted up into the air and turned upright. Tom looked up and went pale. The entire sky was the face of a child.

“SEE, I TOLD YOU IT WAS COOL, GUYS!” the child boomed.

Jason took the toy car out of his pocket and showed his friends Toby and Michael.

“I told you it was cool,” Jason said with a smile.

“It looks to real!“ Toby exclaimed trying to grab the toy from his friend’s hand.

“It’s mine. Don’t touch it,” shouted Jason and licked the car. “Now it has my germs on it. Teacher says germs can kill you!

“Ew!” Michael shouted and the three boys went to their seats. Jason promptly put the car into his desk because he knew the bringing a toy to class was against the school policy.

Tom moved to the back end of the car as two more giant faces came into view. 

“IT’S MINE. DON’T TOUCH IT! The first child boomed, and without warming Tom could see the inside of the giant’s mouth, gleaming, teeth, dangly thing and all, and then, nothing but tongue.

 “Don’t eat me!” He shouted, but just as soon as the tongue had covered the car, it was moved away from the child’s mouth, into his hand, and moments later into a giant box of some sort. The muffled talking resumed.

Tom should his head in disbelief. He had to be dreaming. There was no such thing as giant children. He probably had a concussion from hitting his head. Tom slammed on the dashboard in frustration. All four of the car doors opened.

Tom got out of the car and looked around. Giant things surrounded him; giant books, giant pencils, a giant lunch box, a giant cookie, and a giant box of raisons. Overhead was wood and underneath him was painted metal. He could see because there were holes drilled into the bottom of each side of the room – holes two times the height of Tom.

This wasn’t a room though. This was a child’s desk.

“Where’s the teacher?” Tom heard a muffled voice to the left of the desk.

“I’m in here he shouted,” hoping to get an answer.

The only answer that he got was a very muffled, “uh-dnno” from far away, and a, “Well, let’s have recess all day!” more clearly and much louder in the same voice of the boy who had picked up the car.

“Shit, I’m going to get in trouble for this,” Tom said aloud. “Now, if only I could provide a distraction so that these kids will notice me.”

 Tom looked at his surroundings and looked for something that he could distract the children with. The books were too big to do anything with, and the pencils were to heavy to lift. And it would be nearly impossible to spell ‘H-E-L-P’ with raisons and cookie crumbs by the end of the day. Tom would just have to look in the lunch box, as dangerous as it was.

“I call your chocolate pudding, and raise you a cookie,” Michael said and the poker pot got bigger. Jason, Toby, and Michael’s parents played poker together every Friday, so it gave the boys plenty of chance to learn the game.

“I call your cookie with a slice of day-old pizza,” Jason exclaimed and the river came down.  Unfortunately, Jason’s pair of 10’s was no match for the straight that Michael flopped.

  “I’ll get your winnings” Jason sighed and grabbed his lunch box from out of his desk.

He grabbed his pudding and the pizza and put them on the table.

“Can I play?” Shirley Hatchet asked the boys.

“Depends on what you have for lunch,” Toby inquired.

“I still have my half of me Halloween candy,” the girl replied coyly.

“Deal her in!” Michael exclaimed. “She still has candy-corns!”

Little did the boys know that this girl’s father played poker for a living.  After two hands the boys were reduced to health food for lunch and as Shirley munched happily away on the slice of pizza, they plotted revenge.

Tom crawled into the lunch box wearily. He looked around to see if maybe there were some pop-rocks or something that could potentially make noise. Mentos and Coke perhaps – but alas he had no such luck.

As Tom crawled back over the piece of pizza near the opening of the lunchbox, it suddenly lifted into the air and Tom found himself in the middle of a desk among other luncheon foods with four hungry looking giant kids and some playing cards.

  He waved to try and get their attention but they were too busy with their game. He waved for minutes, screaming until his throat was hoarse, then without warning there was a large groan from the boys and Tom was moving again – moving toward a little girl’s mouth.

“No! Little girl no!” he screamed as the mouth opened wide and he ran trying to get to the crust. Kids never ate the crust. He made it only half way there before the little girl to a second bit of the pizza, sending him flying backwards onto the girls lips.

Shirley licked her lips in delight as she continued to munch the piece of day old pizza. Then she washed it down with a can of sprite she’d won from Toby, and a cookie for dessert. Something had tasted odd about the pizza, but she just couldn’t put her finger on it. Perhaps it tasted weird because it was a day old.

“So, anyone else for poker?” she laughed. “I’ll do your math homework for a month if anyone can beat me” the little giantess exclaimed.

Tom was just about off of the little girl’s lips when he was caught off guard by her massive tongue. He didn’t even have time to breath as he was pulled into the void and masticated pizza. He did not know left from right, up from down, as he was tossed around. At one point his arm grazed a molar, causing a deep cut, but Tom was in too much shock to feel just about anything.

Then came the Sprite – Giant bubbles pulled Tom to the back of the girl’s thorat and as much as Tom tried to cling onto tastebud after tastebud, the initial swallow pushed him down her esophagus.

Tom couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t that he was cramped, but that he was drowning in the sprite that Shirley had just gulped down. He tried to cling to her esophagus walls, but their natural muscles and sliminess made him descend even faster.

After hitting a hard surface and standing upright drawing for what seemed to be forever, Tom landed in what he knew was the girl’s stomach.

He would have to act fast to get out of this. He did have a degree in physical education after all, so he knew a lot about the body, including the ins and outs of the digestive system.

Jason swam down twice into the girl’s Juices, now tingling his entire body, until he found what he was looking for – the way into the girl’s intestines.

“Hey, Shirley,” smiled Michael devilishly. “The boys and thought that as a token of gratitude for that wonderful lesson in poker, we’d get you something, so here’s the last of our treat stash – a single can of cola.“

“Awe, thanks boys,” Shirley blushed. “Uh - but it’s already open.”

“Toby was going to drink it, but I thought you should have it,” Jason said with a matching devilish smile to his two friends.

The girl took a sip of the cola and nodded at the boys in thanks, but as soon as she did, Toby burst out laughing.

“Quit it!” Jason said, punching his laughing friend in the arm.

 “What’s so funny?” asked Shirley causing Michael to join in the unknown hilarity.

Jason finally joined in too, as she took a couple more big gulps of the cola.

“We all spit in it!” Jason shouted out and now the entire class joined in the laughter.

Shirley’s blushing face suddenly became white and then slightly green. She grabbed a garbage can and gagged in to it but nothing came out.

Ms Snicket, who had just been walking down the hall to check on the new substitute teacher heard the commotion and barged into the classroom.

“what is the meaning of – aaaaaahg!” the principal screamed as vomit propelled at her cardigan sweater.

“Where’s Mr. Davis?” asked Ms Snicket in one of those voices so sweet it was mad.

The class fell silent.

“G – going to find you,” answered Toby, who was looking down at his feet.  “Shirley is sick and he didn’t know what to do.”

The principal looked around at the class. No one dared to make eye contact with her.

“Is this true class?” the Ms Snicket asked. The answer to her question was a furious nodding of heads. “Well, I’m going to get changed, and when he comes back, tell him to find me in my office. Shirley – please go to the nurses office, dear, before anything else happens.”

The nodding continued until Ms Snicket was ten feet down the hallway.

“Here goes nothing” said Tom ready to dive down into Shirley’s intestines.

He was just about to dive, then without warning there was a jerk upward and he was engulfed in stomach acid, and he fell back down again.

Tom has just enough time to ask himself what the hell was that when he was lurched back up again. Up and up and then light! Tom felt himself hurtling through the air. All he could see was a mix of stomach juices and blurted faces and then he hit something solid and clung on to it for dear life.

“WHERE’S MR. DAVIS?” a voice boomed from overhead.

“Ah fuck,” said the poor vomit soaked substitute teacher as he slid slowly into the principal’s cleavage.