“Oh I could have a lot of fun with this,” thought Pem.

The boy would use a number of names, depending on whom he visited, and how he felt at the time about choices of names. One day he would grow up and use his current choice of names to introduce himself to Admiral Nelson of the Seaview. In the latter half of the 20th Century, he would use his power of tampering with time, and use it repeatedly to toy with the Admiral and indirectly with his men. At this point, the time tampering Pem was just a boy. He had travelled around in the time stream and learned that many legends thought to be mere children’s literature had turned out to be well hidden historical facts. The key point in time was a period when places like Wonderland, Neverland, Brobdingnag and other similar realms had been found, and where giantesses had been as real as the woman next door.

It had all started with Willie Tinkerer and his Wonder Beans. Centuries before the Seaview adventures that Pem would have as an adult, Willie Tinkerer had invented beans that would enlarge the growth of various things. Pem understood the science better than Willie himself. Everyone had assumed that Willie Tinkerer’s beans themselves had grown into a beanstalk. In fact, they had dramatically increased the growth potential, and speed of growth, of existing plant roots in the field outside Jack’s house. They could just as easily do the same thing to something else, thought Pem. He knew that he had studied the current timeline enough. To him, it was like a storybook that he had read to the point of boredom. He wanted time to construct a new story for him to observe and enjoy. To that end, he would make time ripple out in a butterfly effect, by changing one crucial event. Once the time ripple effect started, many other apparently unconnected events would be altered or replaced as well. The story would begin anew.

Pem took himself back to the moment when Willie Tinkerer began selling things in the market place, only hours before Jack would arrive with his mother’s last cow to sell in exchange for the beans. Pem had acquired money in the currencies of all times and places on earth. It was not a fortune, but enough to meet small needs whenever he was in a particular time period. He went to Willie Tinkerer and bought his beans.

“A buyer who believes in the value of the unknown at last,” thought Willie, “I’ll have to make some more soon. I don’t have much more to sell today. I might have to leave the market early.”

Having purchased the beans, Pem decided to simply give them to a boy who had been of no consequence to the previous timeline, but who would play a crucial role in the new one. The next day, he met the young boy, when the lad was on his way to school. 

The boy was approaching seven years old and his name was Skip.

“Would you like these?” asked Pem, “They’ll do wondrous things.”

“Thank you,” said Skip, “I’ll give you my yoyo.”

“You keep it. I don’t need anything in return,” said Pem.

Skip put the Wonder Beans into his shirt pocket and walked to school. It was in a large country school house. There were only two teachers: Miss Agnes Jensen, who was 23 with brown hair and Miss Fern Shields who was 35 with blond hair. Miss Jensen taught the infants class, which was kindergarten to 2nd grade. Miss Shields taught a combined 3rd to 6th grade class. There were two rooms, linked by an adjoining door.

At the beginning of lunch break, Skip walked out and sat on the seat beside Miss Jensen in an isolated part of the school. Miss Shields was on duty, which left Miss Jensen free to sit by herself.

“Hello, Skip,” she said, “Have you come to keep me company?”

Skip didn’t fully understand it at his age, but the boy had a massive crush on Miss Jensen.

“Would you like one of my beans?” he asked, taking one out of his pocket.

“Thank you. I’d love to try one,” said Miss Jensen.

She opened her mouth, inviting him to put the bean in. He slipped it onto her tongue and slid his finger out, enjoying the moist touch of her tongue. No sooner had she swallowed the bean, and Miss Jensen suddenly grew to gigantic size. She crouched down behind the tall pine trees, so that the other students would not see her yet.

“Oh!” said Skip, “The boy who gave me the beans said they would do something wondrous. They must have made you a giant.”

“Oh dear, my hands are too big to take my sandwiches out of my lunch bag,” said Miss Jensen.

“I can put them into your mouth for you and push them to the back of your tongue, so you can swallow them,” said Skip.

“Thank you, but put the rest of your beans in my hand first, and I’ll throw them away,” said Miss Jensen, “Otherwise, they might fall out of your shirt pocket and make me even bigger, if I swallow them while you’re in my mouth.”

She put out her huge hand, and Skip climbed onto it and gently placed all the beans in the centre of her palm. Then he stepped off her hand onto the grass. Miss Jensen flung the beans far away into the field. Then he took her lunch bag in hand and she lifted him up, while she sat, and placed him gently onto her lower lip. He climbed into her mouth and took out the sandwiches. Skip put them down on her tongue, and slid them to the back. There was no more excuse to stay in her mouth, but he would have loved to. He climbed back out onto her awaiting hand and looked at his now gigantic teacher’s mouth.

Skip looked at Miss Jensen, and watched her close her mouth and give a slight gulp. She didn’t even feel the movement of the relatively tiny sandwiches as she swallowed them.

“That’s not much food for me at my new size,” she said, “I’m still quite hungry.”

“I’ll put my lunch in your mouth too,” he said.

“Alright. Could you push it off the back of my tongue this time?” she asked.

“Yes, Miss Jensen.”

Skip took his own lunch out, and climbed back into her mouth and placed his lunch onto her huge sparkling tongue. He lay down to steady his balance on her slippery tongue, and stretched his arm out until he had pushed the food off the back of her tongue into her throat. He could feel her giant tongue against his face and his neck and his forearms. The unpredictable result of the bean had been very pleasant for him so far. He was in no hurry to climb out of Miss Jensen’s mouth. He lay there and enjoyed the fact that she had not opened it yet. Then he felt her moving her tongue a little below him, so that he slid backwards and forwards a little. He was enjoying that as well, and wished that lunch time would never end.

Suddenly he felt the front of her tongue, which was below his legs moving up, so that her tongue was on a downwards slope towards the back. He felt himself sliding towards her throat.

Peeking between the other side of the trees, Miss Shields had come to investigate what looked like a giantess from the other side of the trees. She had not been able to see much between the branches, but it had definitely caught her attention. Now she could see that Miss Jensen had closed her mouth, with Skip inside it.

Skip slid into the top of her throat, and wondered if she had accidentally lost control of her mouth. Then he felt the most enormous gulping going on around him, and he was carried rapidly down into her stomach. He could feel tingling acid all around him. It didn’t hurt his flesh, but he could feel his arms and legs starting to dissolve. His face was still above the surface. Above him, he heard her voice.

“Sorry about that, Skip. It’s just that you were so tasty, and I’m still so hungry.”

Miss Shields had seen and heard enough. She ran back to the playground, calling all the students to pay attention.

“Everybody run into the classrooms now!” she said, and gathered up two stragglers and ran with them towards the building.

Miss Jensen stepped around the trees and into view and snatched up one boy, before he could make it inside.

Miss Shields was about to lock the door, when she heard the boy call out. She turned and looked out the door.

“Agnes, don’t!” she called, “You’re supposed to be a responsible teacher and keep them out of danger and trouble, not eat them.”

She hadn’t even realised that she had used Miss Jensen’s first name in front of the students.

“I need to eat at least some of you,” said Miss Jensen, “I’ll let the others go, just as soon as my tummy is full.”

By now, Skip was submerged in acid, and being digested rapidly.

Fern watched in disbelief as Agnes put the second boy into her mouth and swallowed him whole. She slammed the door shut and locked it.

“Is Miss Jensen going to eat us?” asked a small boy.

“Not if I can help it,” said Miss Shields, kneeling down to hug the boy.

She kissed his cheek, and then heard a noise. She turned to see that the door had fallen to the ground. Miss Jensen had knocked it in with her giant hand. Now they saw her fingers reaching into the room. It was a tight squeeze, but her hand was now groping blindly for them. Other boys saw her face appear at the window. Now she could guide her hand visually. She caught another boy and pulled him towards the door.

Fern knew that it was too late to waste time struggling against Agnes’s giant grip to free the boy. She had to make use of the time that it took for Agnes to eat that boy, and find a way to save the others. Then she remembered something that Agnes would not know about. She was ten years younger, and had only been at the school for a short time. Fern knew something that Agnes did not.

“Quickly, everyone, into my classroom!” called Fern, and hurried the children through the adjoining door.

One boy was standing at the window looking out. He watched as Miss Jensen sat back up and raised the boy up in front of her face. Like himself, her current meal intended was one of her own students.

“I don’t mean to frighten you, little boy,” she said, “It’s just that I need to eat some of you to take away that hungry feeling down in my tummy. I won’t bite you at all, and I’ll swallow you as quickly as I can.”

“Jeremy, come on!” said Miss Shields, “Or she’ll see you at the window and get you next!”

Suddenly she was pulling him towards the adjoining door. He felt frustrated that he had not been able to watch Miss Jensen put the other boy into her mouth and eat him. He was probably the only person in the room who wished that she was eating him instead. He wanted to stay behind and let her catch him. He had always secretly liked looking into her mouth, and now he knew for the first time why that was. Miss Shields dragged him into the other room and shut the adjoining door.

She asked the older students to pull her desk and chair to the side of the room, and then folded back the carpet to reveal a hidden trapdoor. She opened it and herded the students down into a secret cellar. 

There was no way that she could pull the carpet over and disguise what she’d done, but the desk would hopefully suffice. At any rate, Agnes’s hand would not be able to get at them. She pulled the desk and chair back into place, darted down the first few steps, closed the trapdoor behind her and locked it from below. She told the students to leave the light switch off and stay silent. Maybe Agnes would assume that the students had run out the other door of Fern’s classroom and escaped unseen.

When all was silent for over half an hour, Fern climbed up the stairs and lifted the trapdoor only an inch. If the giant Agnes was watching through Fern’s classroom window, her huge distant eyes would not even notice it. However, it gave Fern a chance to look out and see if Agnes was still there. Sighting nothing at the window and hearing no movement outside, she noticed that there were no shadows over the windows either. Agnes might well have moved on. She cautiously opened the trapdoor and walked over to the window. Looking out she could see nothing.

Fern walked to the door, unlocked it and opened it just enough to peek out and get a look from a different angle. What she saw in the distance was mind boggling.

The giant Agnes was climbing up a gigantic beanstalk which had somehow grown in the field beyond the back of the school. Fern ran out into the school grounds and watched until Agnes seemed to disappear from sight in the clouds. She ran back inside, let all the students come up from the cellar and sent them home early. She then explained the whole story to the township and everyone decided that it would be best to leave whatever lay at the top of the beanstalk unexplored. The field in which it grew was guarded for some time by armed men with cannons, in case a hungry Agnes Jensen should choose to return. After three months, they were convinced that the giantess would not come back down, and abandoned it. She had obviously found all the food she needed in the place to which she had gone.

School had resumed successfully, with 24 year old Miss Kara Jones replacing Miss Jensen as the infants’ teacher.

A few months later, on the last day of school, Jeremy knew that he would not be missed by the teachers. When school broke up, he snuck out into the fields beyond the back of the school, and came to the beanstalk. It could only have been accessed through the school, which was private property. The teachers had forbidden the students to go into those fields. They were permanently out of bounds, so that nobody would ever go to the beanstalk again.

However, Jeremy would not be caught, now that the two teachers would be on their way home to start their holidays. Jeremy looked at the stalk. Its trunk, if one could call it that, was wider than his own body.

Come to think of it, it was wider than an adult’s body. Each leaf was as large as a surfboard, and most of them were wider. He eased his way up onto the first leaf and began climbing. It was late in the afternoon by the time he reached the top, which came out in a beautiful gigantic garden. It surely would have been made for a lady the size that Miss Jensen had become. He walked through a flowerbed, which had flowers the size of the trees that he remembered from his own country.

When he reached the other side of the flowerbed, he looked out at a seat, upon which sat the beautiful giant Miss Jensen. She was reading a book, which was positioned between himself and her eyes. It blocked him from her line of sight.

“Miss Jensen!” he called.

She put the book down on the garden seat beside her, and looked down.

“Hello!” said, “You must be one of my students … Yes, it’s Jeremy.”

“I climbed up the beanstalk on the last day of school. Nobody knows I’m here except you.”

“It’s nice to see you again.”

“There’s a new teacher now, but I missed you.”

She picked him up and placed him in the lap of her dress.

“I’ve missed you too, but I stayed here, because this is the Land of Brobdingnag. Everyone here is born my size. The lady who owned this house moved away and let me have it.”

“Well I’m here now. So I guess you can eat me.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. That last day I was at school I was so hungry that I had to eat some of you. The beanstalk must have grown from the beans I threw away, after Flip gave them to me. When I couldn’t find the rest of you, I stood up and looked around and saw the beanstalk.”

“We were hiding in the cellar. Miss Shields took us down through a trapdoor in her classroom.”

“No wonder you all seemed to disappear. I would have eaten quite a few more of you. I climbed up here and found this land. I’ve had all the giant sized food I’ve needed since then.”

“I was watching you, when you were about to eat that last boy. I didn’t get to see you put him in your mouth, because Miss Shields dragged me away from the window. She thought you’d catch me next.”

“I probably would have,” said Miss Jensen, “But I don’t need any more little boys for food now.”

“Did the boys you ate taste as nice as the giant food?”

“They were actually tastier,” said Miss Jensen.

“Would you like to eat me anyway?” asked Flip.

“I’d love to. But why would you want me to do that?” asked Miss Jensen.

“I wanted you to catch me that day, but Miss Shields took me away. I think it would be nice to be eaten up by your giant mouth.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said, and picked him up and kissed him on his entire face, “Do you understand that you’ll dissolve in my tummy? It won’t hurt, but you’ll be all eaten up.”

“I still want you to…. Please eat me, Miss Jensen?”

 “Alright,” she said, and took him in the fingers of her left hand, but why don’t you watch this first, just to be sure.”

She leaned down and picked a handful of grapes from a bunch that grew at the edge of the flowerbed. She used the tips of the fingers which held him to pluck grapes, one at a time, and place them into her mouth. He was able to see the grapes being put onto her tongue and eaten at point blank range. It was the most spectacular sight that he had ever beheld. Then she reached for a glass of water on the other side of the seat, not the one with the book, and drank it, washing her mouth thoroughly.

“The boy who made me a giant didn’t know I was going to swallow him,” said Miss Jensen, “I didn’t even know myself until I’d tasted him in my mouth for a few minutes. Miss Shields must have seen me gulping him down and then rushed you all indoors. Why don’t you slide over my lip and onto my tongue and lie in there for a while? I’ll leave my mouth open and you can look off the back of my tongue and down my throat. It’ll give you more to think about, before you tell me you’re really really sure. You have to be really sure, Jeremy. There’s no coming back from my tummy.”

“Thank you, Miss Jensen.”

He eased himself over her lower lip and onto her tongue. Unlike Flip he would enjoy the subsequent experience as much as this one. He lay there for a long time, until he felt her tongue extending out of her mouth and her hand clasping him again. He was turned to face her beaming eyes.

“You’re the tastiest of them all,” she said, “Do you still want me to gobble you down?”

“Oh yes please!” he said.

“You’re my most special student!”

“I love you Miss Jensen.”

“I love you too,” she said, and let him snuggle against her cheek and look out at the giant garden while they talked for a little longer.

“The sun will be going down soon,” she said, “Would you like me to do it now?”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“It might be nice for me to lean my head back a little and put out my tongue and lower you onto it. Would you like that?”

“It’ll be so exciting!” said Jeremy.

“Then goodbye, little darling,” said Miss Jensen.

She lifted him a little over the height of her mouth this time, and then arched her head back. He looked down at her outstretched neck with a recognition of the fact that it would soon be gulping him down. 

Then she opened her mouth and put out her tongue. He was gently lowered onto it and then slid into her mouth, and then felt a wonderful gulp that took him into her throat. He was on his way down to her tummy.

“Well well well,” thought the young Pem, “I wonder what other changes will occur in this timeline.”

The time ripple from the Beanstalk Effect continued to change aspects of the past. A lad named Lyman went walking along a riverside trail until he came to a hole and crawled in. Suddenly he found himself falling through a wide hole in the earth, in slow motion. As he fell, various objects floated around him, including a piece of Wonderland cake.

Unaware of its properties, and keen to pass the time by enjoying some food, he snatched at the cake, before he could fall out of its reach, and ate it. He soon noticed that he was shrinking in size, using other floating objects and the width of the hole in order to measure his size by comparison.

He eventually saw light coming up from below, and looked down to see that, far below him, the hole came out above a table, where four ladies were having a tea party. One was wearing a white dress with red heart card symbols on it. Another was wearing an entirely red dress. Another was wearing an entirely white dress. All three of these ladies were also wearing crowns. The fourth lady was familiar to him. It was Alice! She owned the huge house with its large lawns and gardens and creek next door to his adoptive mother’s place. She had occasionally asked him over and given him picnic lunches.

Now she was wearing a grand dress and sitting at the table with the three queens.

As he floated down closer, still unseen by the four ladies, he could see place markers beside bowls in front of each lady. They were labelled ‘Red Queen’, ‘White Queen’ , ‘Queen of Hearts’ and ‘Alice’.

Then, as unexpectedly and as without explanation as any occurrences in a dream, the tea party was no longer a tea party, but a full meal. He fell down and landed in a large bowl in the centre of the table, and saw that he was surrounded by salad. His head was now smaller than a baby tomato. It gave him the clearest indication of his size. None of the ladies had noticed him descending into their main dish.

Then he saw a large salad spoon and looked up, as the Red Queen spooned a serving of salad into her bowl. He noticed that, apart from the lettuce, tomato, cucumber and onion which he had first seen, there were also pieces of cold chicken in the bowl. Then he saw the spoon come in again and scoop up much of the surrounding salad, including himself. Alice served it into her bowl, apparently completely unaware that he was not a piece of chicken.

He looked across at Alice’s towering tummy, and then up at her face. Then he saw an ordinairy silver spoon scoop up a baby tomato and place it into her mouth. He watched her neck gulping. He watched Alice’s face each time she spooned more food out of the bowl and into her mouth, but her eyes never gave any sign of having recognised him nor even of having noticed him.

The three queens also seemed oblivious to his presence. Eventually, Alice’s spoon passed under him, and brought him up in front of her mouth. He quickly glanced at her eyes again, and saw no sign of acknowledgement of anything unusual. Then he saw her mouth open and her tongue come out to receive him, as the spoon despatched him. He slid through Alice’s mouth, and into her throat.

Suddenly he found himself falling in slow motion again, surrounded by Alice’s throat. When he reached the bottom of the dark hole, he could suddenly see the dinner party below him again. Somehow he was back in the hole above the table, falling again. Once more he landed in the salad bowl, and once more he was served into Alice’s bowl and eaten in the same way. This cycle happened several times. There were variations in the movements of her tongue each time. On one occasion, she brought him up towards her mouth, and then licked her lips after the previous mouthful, with her tongue swishing from side to side right in front of him, just before he was spooned inwards. After several rounds of this inexplicable loop of events, he waited for the spoon to lift him upwards again, and then jumped off it and landed on her dress. He saw her hand come down and lift him up and attempt to place him into her mouth without the use of the spoon.

He grabbed hold of her lower lip and tugged on it.

“Alice, it’s Lyman from next door!” he said, “You’ve been eating me very nicely, but I keep falling back into the salad bowl, instead of your tummy.”

“You look just like one of the little folk now,” said Alice, “I thought I’d eaten lots of them. Still, if you don’t stay in my tummy, I suppose there’s no point in trying to swallow you again. Well your Majesties, it’s been a lovely dinner. Now I’d best be taking my little friend home with me.”

“Thank you, Alice, but how will we get home?” asked Lyman.

“Through the Looking-Glass,” said Alice and walked across the room and stepped through a large mirror.

He looked around, to see that Alice had carried him into a room that looked like a reflection of the one that they had been in. She walked through another room and out into what he now recognised as Alice’s lawn.

“You can’t go home at that size,” said Alice, “You can live in my garden, and I shall come out and play with you each day.”

When he never showed up at home, his adoptive mother moved away, and Alice bought the land for herself.

“And the alterations continue,” mused Pem, as time continued to rewrite itself.