14 year old Drake, another student of Sandra Corlani’s time classes, was staying in his aunt’s house. He completed work on the time machine hidden in the garden.

He gave the machine a test, and it took him to twenty years into the past, where he stepped out, to see that a beautiful middle aged woman was walking into the bamboo area which partly concealed his time machine. She had noticed something, as it arrived, presumably.

He told her he was a time traveller from twenty years into her future, and introduced himself. She said her name was Iris, and invited him in for lunch.

After they'd finished eating, she started a conversation.

"I've moved back into this house, which I once shared with my previous husband. He died in the Great Irish war, when I was 33."

"Are you a time traveller too?"
"No. I think you're the first."

"But how can you be so young now, if you were 33 in during that war?"

"How old do you think I am?"

"In your early forties, I'd guess."

She smiled.

"You're very sweet to say so, but I'm 55. Now would you like to dance with me?"

He accepted, and they waltzed slowly to the music she turned on. Then he suddenly shrank to tiny size. She towered in front of him.

What both of them could not possibly imagine is that the leprechauns had once used the Ring of Reversal to reverse a period of time during which Colleen had shrunken several boys and young men and eaten most of them herself. The Ring had reversed this period of time, but also infected it. Anyone who used time travel to traverse this particular period in time could well end up arbitrarily shrinking to tiny size when they arrived in the past, present or future. It was simply an exposure (to the period of time that had been altered by the Ring of Reversal) that could trigger the shrinking effect. It was as if the reduction effect of Colleen’s device from the original timeline still had to go somewhere, and could only affect those who time travelled across that particular period in time. This is what had now happened to Drake.

"This must be a side effect of the time travelling," he said.

It was as close as he ever came to the truth of it.

"You're here before you were actually born. So nobody will miss you. I'm going to take you into the dining room and eat you."

"No, please, you can't!"

"It's useless to protest. I'm set on my purpose," she said, and took him to the dining table, sat down, and picked him up and licked his face with her huge sparkling tongue.

"Thank you for the dance, and your compliments about my age," she said, "And goodbye now."

She placed him into her mouth and closed it.

He waited for the moment when she would gulp him down, and it would be all over.

Then he suddenly pinched her tongue, and she opened her mouth and took him out.

AT THIS POINT THE WORD COUNT HAS BEEN REPEATEDLY CHECKED AT MORE THAN 500 WORDS AND YET GIANTESSWORLD KEEPS RETURNING THE “FAILED TO MEET THE MINIMUM WORD COUNT OF 500” MESSAGE. SO I WILL USE THIS PARAGRAPH TO BOOST THE WORD COUNT AND SEE IF THAT BYPASSES THE MALFUNCTIONING ONLINE SOFTWARE.