“You’re
the tastiest meal I’ve ever had,” she said, “Now I’m going to swallow you.”
Harriet
put him into her mouth and lifted her tongue up and down a little, probably to
tease him. Then she suddenly drew him into her throat. He was being swallowed!
It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. He went down and
down and down and into her tummy.
He
felt a tingling all around him and realised that her stomach was beginning to
digest him.
“Now
that I know how much fun this was, I’ll always remember it, but I wish I could
go back to this morning,” he thought.
Suddenly
he felt time unravelling, and realised that the technique he’d learned from
Miss Corlani was working for him, even though he had used it subconsciously. He
had sent his consciousness back in time several hours. It was the beginning of
the day. He was back on the footpath approaching the school bus stop. This time
he went to school and avoided Ellie Blish and wasn’t shrunken by her nor eaten
by Harriet.
One
day he decided to tell Harriet the whole story of the original timeline and how
he’d altered it.
“To
me, you actually did eat me,” he said, and explained how he had briefly altered
time.
“And
you used this … time power of yours to change things back, so that I hadn’t
eaten you after all.”
“Yes,
but it was so much fun when you did,” he said.
“But
you’re the only one who gets to remember it,” said Harriet.
“Would you like it if I could still swallow
you now?” she asked.
“I
think I would,” he said.
“I’d
like it very much too,” said Harriet, “At least I can still lick your cheeks,
even though you don’t make a mess with your desserts anymore.”
She
secretly invited him around to her home after school, promising that she would
lick his cheeks again.
After
the licking, she served them both some drinks, and drank hers with a hearty
gulp. He looked at her neck and then drank his own too. Suddenly he shrank to
tiny size.Then Ellie Blish stepped into view, and explained that Harriet had
befriended her and told her the whole story. Harriet picked him up and placed
him on a baking tray and put it into the oven. Then she showed Ellie out, and
returned to the kitchen. She sat in front of the open oven doorway and looked
in at him.
“Now
you can swallow me,” said Edmond.
“I
certainly can!” said Harriet, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, when you’re
warmed up and ready to be eaten.”
She
soon served him at the table and swallowed him.
He
used his time reversal power and went back to just before he had accepted her
invitation to her home and told her:
“I
won’t come over now.”
“I can eventually find another way to trick you into Ellie’s range,” she said.
“But
I can still unravel time and come back,” he said.
“Then
I guess I never get to have you in my tummy,” she said, “But you must have
liked it a lot, if you waited to be eaten by me a second time, before reversing
time.”
“I
do. I just don’t want things to stay that way, with me being eaten forever.”
“I
understand. I like what you’ve done for me, even though I can’t remember it.
Would you like me to go steady with you?”
“Yes,
Harriet.”
So,
with only Edmond able to recall the times he had been eaten by Harriet, he
became her steady boyfriend. Ellie remained a friend of both of them and would
occasionally shrink Edmond, so that he could be eaten by Harriet and then
reverse time to escape.