She had presumably come in to tidy up after the lesson and lock the room for the day.

Mrs Robertson started walking slowly towards the table that concealed him.

Mrs Robertson continued slowly walking until she was beside the table, and then stopped. Stefan looked up, and edged around the table leg, so that he was once again out of sight. It appeared to him, that Mrs Robertson had not noticed this movement. Yet she was not moving on, to go about her duties. Then Stefan remembered that his backpack would be in full view to her on the table.

Even if she hadn’t seen him when she’d first entered the laboratory, she would wonder why his backpack was on the table, if he didn’t appear to be in the room. If she left the room with it, he would find it a lot harder, if not impossible to get to his growth tablet. If she found that and removed it, it would be worse still.

How he hoped that she would put the backpack down on the floor, and then lock up and leave.

She stepped behind the table, and then bent her legs until her head was just below the table. Stefan tried edging around the table leg again, but it was no use. He saw her right arm and hand approaching, passing the table leg, and then felt her fingers enclosing him gently from behind.

She brought him around in front of the table leg and held him. He could see her lower legs looking like powerful towering limbs, capable of relatively giant steps now. He looked down immediately below his neck at the fingers which enclosed his body. They felt soft and comfortable to the touch, but the strength behind them dwarfed his own so much that his greatest potential efforts to break free would not budge even one of her fingers in the least.

Mrs Robertson gaped at him in surprise, as his glance wandered up past her towering neck to her immense face.

“I’ve never seen anyone so small,” said Mrs Robertson, “I don’t suppose you noticed why one of my students left his backpack behind.”

To her full sized eyes, his tiny form was so small that his face was around the size of her eye. She simply couldn’t discern his diminutive features now. She had not joined the dots and guessed that he was Stefan.

“It’s a bit hard to see from down here,” said Stefan truthfully.

“My name is Mrs Robertson. I’m a chemistry teacher at this university,” said Mrs Robertson, standing up and putting him down on the table, “I suppose I’ll have to lock the bag in the cupboard until next week. I’m sure the student will claim it then.”

“I could keep an eye on it up here,” said Stefan, without telling her his name.

“But you won’t be here all weekend,” said Mrs Robertson, “I won’t have time to eat you now, but I’ll come back and pick you up at 9:45 tomorrow morning and take you with me up into the Blue Mountains and have you for a picnic lunch on an isolated hillside.”