Through the open doorway, he saw her sit down in the next room and start reading through the mail.

He began to nibble the lettuce. When he'd had enough, he thought, "It's a pity she covered the food with the dome. Now I'm stuck in here too, until she comes back."

She opened all of the envelopes, discarded them, and then brought the letters to the table, and placed them beside the dome. She filled a glass with tap water, and came over and sat at the table.

She took the dinner dome off and began to read the letters, holding them with one hand, and reaching for pieces of lettuce with the other hand.

"I'd better not talk now," he thought, "She won't want to be interrupted, while she's reading."

She soon finished the lettuce, and continued to read.

"Lettuce is nice, but I would have liked some meat too," he thought, "Maybe she's a vegetarian."
Her free hand enclosed him and placed him into her mouth!

"She's not a vegetarian!" he thought, "She must have been planning to eat me, ever since she first found me! I'd better talk to her now, before she closes her mouth, or I'll never have the chance to find out what I'm supposed to do for her in this time."

She closed her mouth, just as he was about to call out.

"It's too late!" he thought, and then he remembered that her older self had told him that the past she remembered was inevitable. So he must have had a chance to speak to her. He pushed upwards, trying to force her mouth open. He thought of morse code, and started tapping a message onto her tongue, and hoped she would feel what it meant:

            "Must talk to you. Please open mouth."

She opened her mouth, and took him out.

"Oh thank you," he said.

"You can speak English. Who are you?" she said.

"I'm from the future. I was walking from my university ball in what for you is a few years from now. The school's just three blocks away. I got surrounded by a cloud of mist. The mist somehow took me into the past, to your time, and reduced me to this size. I'm actually a normal 20 year old boy in my time."

"I see. I didn't realise any of that."

"It's alright. The main thing is that we got to talk, before you almost ate me."

She took him to the car, fetched the bag with her book, took it upstairs to her  bedroom, got into the bed, and sat up in the bed, and placed him in her lap again.

"I think it will take me about an hour to finish this book. It will give you more of a chance to prepare yourself this time. I promise I won't eat you-" she said, allowing him a split second of relief, "- until I've read the rest of the book."

"But now that you know who I am, I was expecting you wouldn't eat me at all."

It was all he could say, without revealing that her future self had already told him that he had a special destiny to make her happy. Somehow, he believed, it would all work itself out, and he would do his good deed. He wondered if he ever got his full size back. Her future self had not mentioned the change in size."