“It was my pleasure,” she said, “Although this will be a far greater one. Farewell then.”

She opened her mouth wide in front of him. He looked in at the tongue inside her mouth, which looked different from the outstretched tongue view he’d just seen immediately prior to the commencement of the licking, but equally appealling to him nonetheless. With her finger and thumb, she placed him into her mouth, and then withdrew her hand, and slowly closed her mouth.

“After eating so many shrunken boys and leprechauns, I have refined the art of eating someone, to give the meal a chance to see the light very slowly go out in my mouth, rather than instantly being plunged into a wet darkness,” she thought to herself, wishing that her mouth was not ironically unable to voice that thought to him.

She let him lie on her tongue and contemplate what lay ahead for a few minutes, and then raised her tongue ever so slightly, so that he was only on a slight incline. Colleen wondered whether he would try to resist his destiny or simply start sliding. She felt his movements, as he drifted into her throat, and slid part of the way down. Then she gave a hearty gulping movement, and drew him down further. Then she felt the presence of him in her neck and throat no longer, and expected that he’d reached her stomach.

After the gulp had carried him a little way, Francis activated the wrist remote’s recall setting and was drawn back to his room at Miss Woodfield’s house on the Saturday afternoon in his own time. Only a few seconds had passed since he’d left for the past. He asked her if he could attend the lady teachers party at his tiny size.

“You can, but you’ll have to stay out of sight for most of it,” said Frances, “Miss Corlani and I are friends. So she’ll be arriving an hour earlier than all the other lady teachers. As soon as I hear the first doorbell of someone else arriving, I’ll have to hid you out of sight on the top shelf of the high lounge room cabinet. You’ll be able to look out through its glass doors and watch the party, but the other teachers won’t be able to see you, as you’ll be above their eye level. If they do spot you at all, you’ll just look like a doll in the cabinet from that distance, as I’ll have some other dolls there too.”

When the night of the party came, Miss Woodfield placed him on the table along with the food, so that he could help himself to as much as he liked in the first hour, before going into seclusion. Then they heard the doorbell.

“That will be Miss Corlani now,” she said, and went to answer it.

He soon heard them walking to the lounge room, and then saw Miss Woodfield go to the kitchen, calling, “Start on anything you like,” to Sandra.

Miss Corlani was his favourite of the three crushes, and she now walked straight over to the table and saw him.