"You're my boyfriend. I’d never had the chance to swallow anyone before, when I ate that little boy last year. He must have made the same discovery you did."

She continued as his girlfriend, while he tried to perfect an antidote. He enjoyed lying on her chin, stroking her full lower lip at nights, and having her huge kisses.

One day she told him that she had also met someone her own age.

"Are you … going to eat me?"

"You would make an excellent celebration lunch today," she said, "but thank you for the good times we've had."

She took him to the dining room, put him on the dining table, and went to the kitchen. He grabbed a napkin, parachuted to the floor, and ran for the laboratory room she had been allowing him.

He soon heard her coming back. She noticed his absence in the dining room, and ran straight for the lab, while he hid under a cupboard.

"I know you're in here. You'd come back to try to restore your size. What makes you think you could have made an antidote now, after weeks of unsuccessful attempts? Besides, I'm not going to let you near your chemicals."

On the other side of the room was the experimental time travel engine he had made, using the knowledge he’d gleaned from Miss Corlani’s secret time classes. At his present size, it might well teleport him out of the present, if he could reach it, and hold onto it, when he activated it. He snuck around, while she searched for him. He ran for the device, and pressed the switch. She turned around and ran towards him. She reached down to grab him, and he vanished out of sight just in time.

He materialized in the past, in the room which would become the laboratory.

"I'd better get out of this house," he thought, "I'll have to get back to my house, find out what time period I'm in, and then try to perfect the antidote in my own house. My younger self can help me, if I make sure my grandmother doesn't see us. It would be hard to explain a tiny boy, if she's still alive in this time."

He made it out to the garden, and started across it. Then he heard footsteps and looked up. He saw the editor walking along a pathway. She stepped onto the grass and walked over to a seat, sat down and began reading a manuscript. He remembered it was what she did.
"I'd better get away from here as subtly and quickly as possible," he thought, "or she'll eat me, just like she did to the other tiny boy. She’s sure to be indifferent to me in this time."

He looked up at her, admiring her beautiful face for a while, and then stepped back, about to make a run for it, hoping the flowers would conceal him.

Then his foot fell on a dry leaf, which rustled.

He saw her look up.

Then he remembered her story of the boy she'd eaten.

"It just happened exactly as it happened then. It was me all along!" he thought, "I'm the boy she ate, after I time travelled. If I don't escape this time paradox, she'll eat me for her dinner tomorrow night!"

He ducked his head, saw her stand up and walk towards the garden. She stood towering in front of the garden, and looked in. He backed away, and then turned and ran. She searched the garden and eventually found and caught him. She picked him up.

"Are there any other boys like you?"

"No. I shrank myself. I was a normal sized boy before that," he said, without thinking, and then realised it was the exchange of dialogue she'd narrated in the future.

"Well you'll make a delicious dinner for me tomorrow night. I'll be here another two days to read a manuscript through, and mark some alterations on it."

He knew there was no point in pleading with her. She had even been prepared to eat him in the future as her ex boyfriend. He had to escape.

That night she let him lie on her neck, and then against her cheek while she slept. In the morning, she placed him in her lap, and later on her shoulder, while she read the manuscript. Late in the day, she took him to the kitchen and prepared him to be served in the dining room, and happily ate him.