Alice had a special friend, one who might well have been missing her since her journeys from England to Wonderland to Looking-Glass Land to Brobdingnag. This man was a church minister, named the Reverend Charles L Dodgson. However, Charles Dodgson had grown used to Alice’s absence a long time ago. Years earlier, the girl had reached adolescence, and had no longer been content to sit by the riverbank and listen to Dodgson’s imaginary stories about her, which had so captivated her when she had been a young child.

Dodgson’s stories had found a much wider audience, when they were published as novels and poems and short stories under the pen name by which he was known to children and adult readers alike: Lewis Carroll. Many lonely evenings were spent sitting at a desk lit only by candles, thinking up new stories and putting them to paper.

But with Alice’s departure from his life, Dodgson had missed the personal experience of telling his stories to a small audience of close friends: one or two, to be precise…

Until his loneliness was concluded with the arrival of Sylvie and Bruno.

It had all begun one day, around 18 months after Alice had stopped visiting Dodgson. He had been sitting at a workbench in his garden, making repairs to the Rectory Umbrella, in case the reign caught it and took it out of circulation. Walking out of his ferns had come two tiny people, who had introduced themselves as Sylvie and Bruno. They delighted to hear Dodgson’s stories, and he soon found that he was writing himself into adventures about them and calling his self-muse character “The Professor.”

One day he went out to the garden to greet Sylvie and Bruno again, and asked them which story they would like to hear.

“Tell us the one about the Hunting of the Snack,” said Bruno.

“I’ll bet it didn’t want to be eaten,” said Sylvie.

“Not snack, but Snark,” said Charles, “and I won’t be able to tell you that one until I get to the beginning of it.”

“But you’ve already started it,” said Bruno.

“I started it at the end,” said Charles, “I’m writing it backwards.”

“Isn’t it a bit hard to see the pages, with your hands behind you?” asked Sylvie.

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Charles, “Besides that, today I’d like to tell you a true story, about God.”

“No thanks,” said Sylvie, “The Rhetoric Response Sprites (a group of little folk from our own people) have explored the gardens of other ministers, and told us what they’ve overheard while they were sneaking through that U-shaped Tube in the garden of the minister in the next town. We don’t like what we’ve heard about this God of yours. In fact, we don’t even believe in Him.”

On the Island of Lilliput, teenaged Gary Gulliver was still searching for his father Thomas Gulliver, while Captain John Leech plotted to steal Gary’s treasure map from the boy and his dog Tagg. (Maybe a dog tag wasn’t the best place to hide it. LOL). In their latest adventure with his four regular Lilliputian friends Egar, Bunko, Flirtacia and Glum, Lilliputian lad Egar had been involved in rescuing Flirtacia from Leech, after awakening from a dream in which he had acquired super strength by eating a berry.

Up until that moment, Flirtacia had been preoccupied with her infatuation for Gary Gulliver. Yet now she fell head over heels in love with Egar, and the two of them were not so keen to go out on further escapades with Gulliver and Tagg. Instead, they began courting. Within weeks, Flirtacia was singing to Egar one moonlit night on the shores of the island:

“By the light of the Lilliput moon,

We’ll see Gulliver soon,

But I’ll never more swoon,

When he battles a goon.”

The boundaries between Charles Dodgson and Lewis Carroll have been deliberately blurred a little in my story, to enable him to have interacted both with Alice and with Sylvie and Bruno (who appeared in “Sylvie and Bruno” and “Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.”).

The next morning, Gary Gulliver headed out on another search for his father, accompanied by Bunko and Glum, who were both riding on Tagg. They travelled faster than they had ever gone before. Gary was willing to run this time, and the two Lilliputian lads held more tightly to Tagg’s collar than they had done in the past.

In time they came to a sight which caused all of their hearts to sink.

“Dad!” called Gulliver, and ran over to the two men who lay on the ground, both severely wounded unto death. The other was Captain Leech.

“They must have caught up with each other and fought it out,” whispered Bunko.

“We won’t be safe,” said Glum with characteristic pessimism, “Leech will turn out to be only stunned.”

“They’re both dead,” said Gulliver, despondently.

The loss of Leech brought him no comfort. For 17 weeks, he had searched the island for his father, only to have it end in tragedy. Gulliver buried both Leech and his father, and returned to Lilliput to make an announcement.

“I am going to start building a new boat and leave Lilliput. I will miss all of you, my brave friends, but the loss of my father has left a deep feeling of sadness with me on this island.”

It took time, but eventually Gulliver was fully prepared for his journey. He had completed construction of his boat and found his own large supplies of provisions. King Pomp led a royal parade down to the beach to see him off, as all of Lilliput watched Gary Gulliver set sail into the seas.

“May I inquire as to why you don’t believe in God?” asked Charles Dodgson.

“I have a reason,” said Bruno.

“So do I,” said Sylvie.

“Let’s hear yours first,” said Bruno.

“From the stories we’ve heard from that great history book you ministers talk from …”

“The Bible,” offered Charles.

“Yes, the first half of the Bible is full of stories that show this God of yours to be a murderer,” said Bruno.

“Can you two wait here, while I go inside and fetch an Oxford Dictionary? They’re very fashionable in this part of the world.”

The two little folk waited until Dodgson returned.

“Here I have it: Murder is defined as the illegal taking of another’s life. Now life started when God created Adam from the ground, and then God’s own Holy Spirit gave the breath of life to Adam, and then to Eve. Not only that, but He warned them that if they sinned against him, they would surely die. In other words, they would disqualify themselves from His gift of life; His to give and withdraw as he pleases. So God can’t be a murderer. His withdrawal of His own life giving Spirit is merely the act of taking back what belongs to Him to begin with. Adam and Eve did sin, and sin thus entered the world. In a sense, they were effectively committing a form of suicide, when they rebelled against their creator. Sin equals death. It’s spiritually toxic.  People have been dying ever since, some of old age, some of sickness, some of suffering. Yet Jesus stepped in with a plan to save people, if they accept him and turn to Him as their Lord and Saviour.”

“Which brings me to my reason for wanting nothing to do with God,” said Sylvie, “My friends in the Rhetoric Response Squad have also told me that your God, if He exists, tries to intimidate and threaten me into accepting Him. The R.R.S. have said that God will put us through eternal punishment if we don’t serve Him. So please count me out. I couldn’t ever allow myself to believe in a God who would do that to people.”

In the days ahead, Tagg fell overboard during a wild storm at sea, and was sadly drowned. Now grieving the losses of both his father and his pet, Gary Gulliver sailed further away from England, and eventually found himself passing through an uncharted perpetual fog at sea. When he came out of the mist, Gary found that his boat was approaching a large beach. He reached the sand, and the boat came to a halt.

He looked around, wondering if anyone lived nearby, who might come out to greet him. He got out of his boat and began to walk along the beach. A little further along the beach, he heard a churning in the water, and then turned to the side to look at it.

Something was stirring up the water, but it was still below the surface. Whatever had created this effect was rapidly drawing closer to the beach, covering enormous distance in very little time.

Then Gary saw a gigantic female face and long hair rising out of the water, followed by the neck, and the rest of the body. (Well it wasn’t that girl who would be hiding from Dr Know centuries later).

A beautiful giant girl his own age stepped from the ocean, wearing a fashionable bathing suit. Gary could only gape in wonder, as he saw her towering legs come to stop just in front of him. There was in fact, much gaping to be done on that beach that day, as Gary strained his neck back to look up at the girl’s eyes, which were in turn gaping down at him. She knelt down and sat on her legs, which was a magnificent sight for Gary Gulliver to behold. Her hand came down and lifted Gary up into the air.

“Please don’t drop me!” he called.

“No … I wouldn’t,” said the girl pleasantly, “I’m Glumbdalclitch, one of the Queen’s palace maidens. I shall take you to meet her, if you like.”

“I take it that she’s also a giantess,” said Gary.

“Yes,” said Glumbdalclitch, “From your point of view, as it turns out, she is.”

“I’d like to meet her,” said Gary, “And I’m very happy to meet you.”

“You’re welcome, little boy,” she said and gave him a lovely giant kiss.

“I’m Gary Gulliver,” he said, “But you look more like a beautiful princess than a maiden.”

Glumbdalclitch smiled sweetly, showing him two perfect rows of even white giant teeth separating her shapely pink lips.

Gary thought how much easier it had been to return the giant girl’s affections, than it had been to reciprocate Flirtacia’s feelings. Even when he had drunk from the Island of Lilliput’s Forbidden Pool and been shrunken to Lilliputian size, until he located the antidote pool and restored his size, he had still felt no inclination to respond to Flirtacia’s constant compliments with anything more than a friendly nod of acknowledgement.

Here was this lovely girl’s gigantic smile right in front of him, level with his own eyes and wider than his whole body.

“Eternal pun-ishment?” asked Bruno, “Does that mean we’d have to listen to Cary Cature’s puns forever and ever?”

“No,” said Dodgson, “Although I’m quite a fan of his witticisms. He’s the only writer around who’s more versatile than me.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do, but sometimes other Ministers get it wrong,” said Dodgson, “All of my parishioners know that I don’t believe in eternal torment. The book of Ecclesiastes says that the dead know nothing. They are asleep in the ground and will have nothing more to do with anything under the sun … until, as promised in the New Testament, the second coming of Jesus. The Son of God will come back, to raise the Christians to eternal life, and the non-Christians to what is known as second death: the death of both body and soul. It goes back to the warning in the original creation story: The day they sinned they would surely die, not face eternal torment. Ezekiel said that the soul that sins shall die. Jesus said that whoever believed in Him should not PERISH but have eternal life. We don’t even need a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word perish. It denotes a complete cessation of existence, not an ongoing state of perpetual suffering throughout infinity. With that apostasy going around some churches, I’m hardly surprised myself, that so many people don’t even want to hear the slightest mention of God.”

“What about all the mentions of the word ‘Hell’ that your neighbouring minister uses?” asked Sylvie.

In an entirely different place called Neverland, the Lost Boys were in a constant state of fear and anxiety. Since the final defeat of Captain Hook, several rats had deserted his sinking ship, and had begun to breed. Soon the island was overrun with rats. Peter Pan could fly and wield a small sword with expertise, but he had not the means to combat a plague of rats.

In time a stranger appeared on the island, calling himself The Pied Pipe Eddy. Pipe Eddy offered to rid Neverland of the rodent plague once and for all. Peter Pan had never before in his life been so grateful. As he and the Lost Boys looked on in admiration, the Pied Pipe Eddy began to play his pipe, and all of the rats were somehow hypnotized by the music. They began a suicide dash towards the rocks and drowned in the sea. (Such a thing had not been seen since Jesus sent a legion of demons out of the man they’d possessed and into a herd of pigs, which promptly caused the pigs to charge off the cliffs and drown. The Pied Pipe Eddy’s powers were not in Jesus’ class, but rats are much easier to vanquish than demons.)

 “Thank you for ridding us of those rats,” said Peter Pan.

“You’re welcome. Now there’s just the small matter of my fee,” said Pipe Eddy.

“We can’t pay you a fee. We don’t have any money,” said Pan, “We all ran away from home and came here to avoid having to earn it. It was either that or join up with Fagin’s gang.”

Sylvie was beginning to wish that Reverend Charles Dodgson would change the subject and come up with another tale of fictional adventures about herself and Bruno.

“There are four Greek words in the original Bible: Tartarus, Hades, Sheol and Gehenna,” said Dodgson, They’ve all been translated to the word Hell in English, and then incorrectly used interchangeably to misunderstand scripture. Parables and prophecies come in symbolic language. But the one direct reference to hell from Jesus himself says not to fear men who can only harm the body, but to fear God who can DESTROY both body and soul in hell. So there is no possibility of eternal suffering for something that has, by its own choice to reject God now, been destroyed at the end of the world. You can avoid that anyway, by choosing to commit your life to God now, and that will lead you on a voyage back to the perfection with which Adam and Eve were originally created. This time it will last through life eternal, with the Serpent Satan dead and gone and no longer able to bring temptation into the New Earth and ruin it.”

“I don’t know,” said Bruno, “I came here for a story. Your preaching is a bit too heavy handed for my own peace of mind.”

“He’s right though,” said Sylvie, “We’ve tried to deny the existence of God, because we hadn’t understood His nature correctly. I’d like to see God bring about changes in my life starting today.”

“Then you need only to tell Him,” said Dodgson, “That’s what prayer is. I’ll keep your names out of my next sermon, but I’m going to make this discussion the basis of it.”

Clutching Gary Gulliver gently in her hand, and collecting his boat in the other, Glumbdalclitch ran briskly up the hillside, and into the palace, where the Queen could be heard singing:

“Oh bring me a fellow named Kerwin,

Who won’t be directed by Irwin,

As long as there’s Ray,

Good scenes will yet play…”

“Your Majesty,” said Glumbdalclitch, “This is a little boy I met on the beach. Gary Gulliver, may I present the reigning monarch of Brobdingnag.”

The Queen put out her hand, and Gary kissed the flesh of her giant finger and bowed for her.

“Young Gulliver, do you have anywhere to live in this land?” asked the Queen.

“No, your highness,” he said, thinking that she was very high indeed, “I only just found your shores by accident. I came through a lot of fog.”

“That must have been the Swift Mist,” said the Queen, “My people are unlikely to ever venture beyond it, though it doesn’t obscure the entire ocean from our eyes, only the portion seen from a certain stretch of sand on the beach.”

It must have been more than a mist, thought Gary. He had come from a place where people were either his size or tiny like the Lilliputians, through the Swift Mist, and into a place where people were as large to him as he had been to Flirtacia.

“I like him,” said Glumbdalclitch.

“Then may I say, young Gulliver, that you have already made a favourable impression on both of us. Since your needs will no doubt be modest by our standards, I invite you to make your home in the palace with me.”

“Thank you most kindly, your gracious Majesty,” said Gulliver.

“You are welcome,” said the Queen, “And Glumbdalclitch, you are most welcome to come and see your little friend whenever you like.”

“Oh thank you,” said Glumbdalclitch, smiling ecstatically at each of the other two in turn.

The Queen of Brobdingnag knew nothing of the existence of the beanstalk, nor the house which was linked to Looking-Glass Land; and had not been aware that any of her citizen giantesses had any interest in gobbling down little boys. She continued to busy herself with the most important affair of state: the annual ceremony in which she was presented by the palace maidens with her own weight in delectable food items.

For the first time since he had left Lilliput, Gary Gulliver’s emotional state was not predominantly determined by the memory of his discovery of Captain Leech and Thomas Gulliver lying dead on the Island of Lilliput.

“Nothing comes for free, you know,” said the Pied Pipe Eddy, “Did you think all of this was just a pipe dream?”

“I’m sorry,” said Peter Pan, “We simply can’t pay anything.”

“Then I shall take my own choice of payment,” said Pipe Eddy.

With that announcement, he began hypnotically piping all of the Lost Boys aboard Peter Pan’s flying ship (which he had converted after his last encounter with its former owner Captain Hook, little knowing that his presence had caused an exodus of rats). The Pied Pipe Eddy then flew the ship away, taking the Lost Boys with him. So powerful were the hypnotic effects of Pipe Eddy’s playing, that one of the chords, one that he directed specifically at Peter Pan, actually prevented Pan from following the ship until the trail was lost.

One day in Lilliput, Bunko awoke to the sound of a great commotion, and asked Glum what it was about.

“The King’s down on the beach, leading the archers in their attempts to secure another giant,” said Glum, “It’ll never work. Gulliver and Tagg broke the ropes with ease.”

Bunko ran down to the beach, his heart pounding. Another giant! Would this one be as friendly as Gulliver or as dangerous as Leech? To his surprise, he saw that it was a giant girl! She was lying on her back. So he could not make out her facial features. Bunko climbed up onto her neck, and made his way towards her chin. That would not be so easy to climb onto.

Further along the girl’s body, standing on her stomach was Glum, who quickly dodged sideways, as a rope and arrow flew over the girl’s body to help tie her down.

Bunko stretched up and placed his hands on the end of the girl’s chin and pulled with all his might. His legs soon dangled just above her neck, and he was able to hoist his whole body up onto the girl’s chin. Her face looked very attractive, and had the déjà vu air of familiarity to it. Yet he could still not understand why. He stepped onto her lips in order to look past her nose and study her eyes and cheeks and hair in the hope of resolving the confusion.

Bunko remembered the antidote pool, which restored Gary’s and Tagg’s size to their normal giant form. He had been wondering if some Lilliputian (whose facial features he might have subconsciously recalled) had drunken from the antidote pool and become, from a Lilliputian perspective, a giantess.

“The giantess is secured,” said King Pomp.

Having felt the Lilliputian’s presence on her neck and then her chin and lips, the girl began to stir, and awoke with a deep yawn. This caused her mouth to open wide unexpectedly, and Bunko fell into it, and straight against her soft wet tongue.

“And just as I realised why she seemed familiar,” he thought.

Before either Bunko or the giantess could do anything about it, the Lilliputian lad slid down her tongue (which was currently in a vertical position) and into her horizontally positioned throat.

“It’s just as well she’s lying down,” he thought.

“The giant has eaten Bunko!” yelled King Pomp, “She is clearly not friendly! Archers, prepare to fire ammunition arrows this time, not those attached to ropes.”

Flying the ship of Lost Boys off into the sky, the Pied Pipe Eddy somehow came to fly over the Valley of the Giantesses, as the recent normal sized visitors to Brobdingnag had come to know it, wherein lived the giantess Mrs Grimble and her daughter Serena, their next door neighbour Alice and the former manager of Alice’s house and the link to Looking-Glass Land known as the Red Jean, because she always wore elegant bright red dresses.

The Pied Pipe Eddy landed the ship in Mrs Grimble’s garden, and commanded the boys to stay there while he went to explore. He walked for quite a while, until a huge female hand suddenly seized him and lifted him above the plants and into the face of a beautiful giant woman. She put out her tongue and licked Pipe Eddy once, and then carried him to her kitchen and placed him straight into a pie.

“Don’t worry. I’ll eat you out of there and gobble you down in one piece,” said Mrs Grimble.

 “I could bring you many more boys to eat if you spared me,” said Pied Piping Eddie.

She agreed, and he led her out to the ship of Lost Boys.

“There’s enough to have a banquet! I’ll invite all my girlfriends, and that new girl next door. It would be nice for Serena to have a friend her own age,” said Mrs Grimble.

She put the ship of Lost Boys on a high kitchen shelf and let the boys leave the ship and make themselves comfortable on folded kitchen towels. Then she set about preparing the banquet, and went to deliver the invitations. She invited the giantess who ate Nils (who had never told Nils that her name was Olda), and her new neighbour Alice, and enough giantesses, so that there would be one Lost Boy for each giantess to eat at the banquet.

Alice had learned that she could control her size changes in Brobdingnag, and made a point of hiding Robert’s existence from Mrs Grimble. Now that she was no longer facing the hunger pains which had troubled her in Wonderland, she was happy to reciprocate the White Robert’s affections. However, she would certainly enjoy partaking of one of the Lost Boys at Mrs Grimble’s banquet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At King Pomp’s command, the royal archers of Lilliput aimed their bows and arrows at the normal sized girl (who was like a giantess to them) and prepared to fire.

“No, please don’t do that!” said the girl, “I was asleep. I didn’t realise there was a man in my mouth until it was too late. I’m a visitor to your shores. Let me explain.”

She began to lift her head a little to sit up.

“No! Keep still!” said King Pomp.

“It’s alright. You can trust me,” said the girl.

“We may yet take that chance,” said King Pomp, “But you must remember that you have one of our young lads in your throat. At the moment, we can see his movements in your neck. Should you reach a sitting position, he will undoubtedly fall down your throat.”

“Of course, you’re right,” said the girl, “But it’s so difficult to talk properly with a boy in my throat. I’m going to turn my head to the side a little, and then try coughing him up.”

“Proceed with the utmost care,” said the King.

The girl did so, and managed to cough Bunko back into her mouth, and was then able to pluck him out with her finger and thumb, when he was close to the front of her tongue.

“There you are, my little man,” she said, “I’m awfully sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Moist not, flaunt not. That’s what I always say about beautiful tongues,” said Bunko, “Don’t you remember who she is from that picture we once saw? This is Gary Gulliver’s sister!”

“Oh my, yes!” said King Pomp, “She does look a little different from this angle.”

“Not to me,” said Bunko, in a softer voice that only the giantess could hear, as he was still the closest to her head, “She looks as lovely as I remember her.”

The girl smiled at the compliment.

“You mentioned my brother,” she said, “Is Gary here?”

Flirtacia felt simply awful about the way she had once been so needlessly jealous of Gulliver’s sister and run away from the city of Lilliput, endangering her own life and that of Glum, who had come to help her. She and Gulliver had not been meant to be. She was deeply committed to Egar now, and it seemed that Bunko was the one with feelings for Gulliver’s sister.

…and now they must break the awful news that her father had died.

“He was here,” said the King, “Young lady, it is my deepest regret to tell you that Gary’s search for your shipwrecked father ended in the tragic loss of him. Gary looked after our city for a long time, and shared many adventures with us, but now he has sailed away to forget his grief in time, we hope.”

“I’m sorry you had to find out like this,” said Bunko gently.

“Thank you,” said the girl, tears forming in her eyes.

“People of Lilliput,” said the King, “Please disperse back to your regular lives, and allow the girl to get accustomed to her present surroundings in privacy.”

“Thank you, your majesty,” said the girl, “But please stay, little one in purple and green. I … I think I would like a friend.”

“I will,” said Bunko, and began to cut the ropes that bound her, as the others quickly got on their way, “I’m Bunko.”

“I’m … I think the shock of losing father has given me the most unusual case of selective amnesia. I seem to remember everything, except my own name,” said the girl.

“Unfortunately Wilhanna and Jobarbra, the official historians of Lilliput, never had the chance to ask Gary to go into detail about you. Your name is not in our records. For now, would you be happy for me to call you Miss Gulliver?”

“Very courteous,” she said, and sat up at last, “Thank you for setting me free too.”

“It’s the least I can do,” said Bunko, “In time, when your grief is not so prevalent, I hope you might remember why I was the only one to recall you from the one picture that Gary showed us.”

“I was so tired when I got here, and my sleep was interrupted by the meeting with your king,” said Miss Gulliver, “I need to lie down again, with my head on its side. Would you like to use my upturned cheek as a mattress and keep me company?”

Bunko accepted her invitation, and enjoyed snuggling down on her soft lovely cheek.

On the night of the banquet, Mrs Grimble had given Pipe Eddy the run of her back garden, and advised him to avoid the indoor banquet that night, lest he be mistaken for one of the Lost Boys and eaten by a giantess. He sat down in the back garden, with the castle lights illuminating the scene for him, and began to play melodic pipe music, quite unlike the tunes which he had used to hypnotize rats and Lost Boys or to restrict Peter Pan’s movements.

After a while, Serena came out to the garden, carrying her harp.

“I’ve never heard such beautiful pipe music,” she said, “Would you mind if I played along with my harp?”

“Not at all,” said the Pied Pipe Eddy, who at once felt that he had been more than adequately compensated for his piping pest control services back in Neverland.

For nearly an hour, Pipe Eddy and Serena played the pipe and harp in perfect harmony.

“You’re very talented,” said Serena at last, “Is there any special girl who likes you where you come from?”

“I don’t really come from anywhere,” said Pipe Eddy, “But I do feel sure that there’s a very special girl where I am now. Would you be so kind as to hold me up in front of your face?”

“My pleasure,” said Serena, and put down her harp and lifted Pipe Eddy up in front of her eyes.

“Could I go down one level?” asked Pipe Eddy.

Serena obliged him. With her generous lower lip right in front of his face, Pipe Eddy proceeded to kiss it.

“Thank you,” she said at last, “That was even nicer than your music. It’s a shame that I promised Mother I’d make an appearance at that banquet. I’d much rather stay out here with you, but I’d love to see you again soon.”

“Now that your mother has invited me to live in her garden without being eaten, I’m sure we shall see a lot of each other,” said Pipe Eddy, “I look forward to it very much.”

Inside Mrs Grimble’s castle, Alice enjoyed eating one of the Lost Boys as soon as they were invited to make their choices. Shortly after that, Serena came inside and introduced herself to Alice, and the two of them quickly made friends with each other. While the banquet was still in full swing, Alice invited Serena over to her own house to meet Robert, whom she now had no intention of eating. Serena took the opportunity to leave the banquet, and soon marvelled at the way Robert sometimes shrank temporarily almost completely out of sight, and later regrew to the approximate size of the Pied Pipe Eddy. Serena warned Alice that her mother would waste no time in eating Robert if she ever learned of his existence.

“I can understand that,” said Alice, “I almost ate him myself on several occasions, but that was when I was hungry.”

“We’re in love now,” said Robert to Serena.

“I was always in love with you,” said Alice, “I just prioritized eating over kissing when I was hungry.”

Meanwhile, Red Jean picked up one of the Lost Boys. All around the large room, giantesses were either eating Lost Boys straight away, or making conversation and getting to know their meals first. One Lost Boy even managed to secure a dance on the shoulder of a giantess, before she went on to eat him.

Red Jean’s Lost Boy looked into her eyes and spoke:

“My name is Michael. If I have to be eaten, I’d much prefer to be eaten by the sweetest looking lady here.”

“Why thank you, said Jean, and carried him out onto the front lawn of the castle’s property, “… Little darling, I’m not really going to eat you. I think you’re a very handsome boy too. I’d like to take you with me, and we’ll have many kisses.”

Red Jean and Michael left the banquet early, after Jean had concealed Michael on her person to give the impression that she had eaten him.

Late in the evening, the banquet began to wind down, and the guests soon left, one by one. Actually, it was two by two, as each of the swallowed Lost Boys had no choice but to be carried out of the castle inside the stomach of whichever giantess had eaten each of them.

Alice and Serena returned to the castle to find that there was still one Lost Boy remaining in the main room, while Mrs Grimble was taking down decorations.

“Was one of the other guests not hungry enough?” asked Alice.

“He’s my own Lost Boy actually,” said Mrs Grimble.

“But you haven’t eaten him yet, Mother. It’s not like you. Have you taken ill?” asked Serena, concerned.

“Not in body,” said Mrs Grimble, “But perhaps in mind or heart. I’ve begun to wonder this evening, why I even thought of putting on this function, when I could, in time, have eaten all of the Lost Boys myself.”

“And you haven’t even eaten one of them,” said Serena, “What’s on your mind, Mother?”

The Lost Boy, named Bartholomew, looked on in suspense as the ladies continued to talk. In a way, he was still very much the subject of the conversation.

“I’ve eaten so many boys, that it doesn’t always seem such a special treat,” said Mrs Grimble, “But for the first time in my life, I think I’ve fallen in love with one of them.”

The lost boy listened with joy, as he had not failed to notice Mrs Grimble’s great beauty.

“Really Mother! That’s wonderful!” said Serena.

“I didn’t realise it straight away,” said Mrs Grimble, “But now I can’t deny it to myself any longer.”

“I am the luckiest of all the Lost Boys!” thought Bartholomew, hoping she would waste no time in kissing him.

“Spuriouser and spuriouser. What makes him so special?” asked Alice, not quite ready to believe her ears, after all the gobbling she had witnessed earlier that evening.

“I guess I’ve been missing Jack ever since he got away,” said Mrs Grimble, to the immediate dismay of Bartholomew, “At first I thought I was just disappointed that he’d escaped my attempt to eat him. Then I realised that there was a stronger more overriding feeling … one of great romantic love.”

“Where did he come from?” asked Alice.

“From a beanstalk which leads from a world of small people into a cloud just near the edge of my back garden,” said Mrs Grimble, “I’m far too big for it to support my weight, and I can’t even see down through the clouds, but that’s where Jack came from. He fled back down there, declaring his love for me once more with his parting words, and hinting that he might be back. How I wish I hadn’t frightened him away.”

Alice was astounded. There was another way into Brobdingnag. (She was not aware of the third way, which only Gary Gulliver had discovered: through the Swift Mist at sea).

“As you only eat boys, and I can now control what I’m about to do anyway,” said Alice, shrinking down to her normal size, “I see no harm in telling you how I may be able to help you. I have the power to change my size to Jack’s or yours at will. I could climb down that beanstalk and find Jack and convey a message of your new feelings for him.”

Having concluded her shrinking demonstration, Alice grew to giant size again.

“Oh thank you. I would be most grateful,” said Mrs Grimble, and hugged Alice, “Now I think I’ll enjoy my little Lost Boy after all!”

Bartholomew listened to them talking, taking in the fact that Mrs Grimble was planning to give her affection to another would-be meal who had once escaped her, rather than to him, and the boy bursts into tears.

“There now, don’t be quite so frightened,” said Mrs Grimble, turning to look down at the boy on the table, “I’m always very delicate with my delicacies.”

 “I understand, Mrs Grimble,” said the boy, “It’s just that I thought you were talking about me, when you said you’d fallen in love. I was falling in love with you too.”

“I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, little boy. You’re a handsome one too, but I have special feelings for my Jack. I’m sure Alice will take a while to locate him and convey my message. Would you like to spend the night with me on my neck and then go out on a picnic tomorrow in my garden? I’d be happy to save you up and have you for dinner tomorrow night.”

“Yes thank you. I would like most of that very much,” said Bartholomew.

By now, Bunko had taught Miss Gulliver all of the methods that Gary had used to secure food supplies for himself in the great quantities that a full sized person from England was used to. Sometimes she would even wade out in the ocean and catch fish, but she was not truly satisfied, until she went out alone one day and discovered a second tiny kingdom called Blefescu. It was full of tiny people, some dressed as civilians, and others in raiment somewhat similar to that of normal sized Vikings.

She introduced herself to the king and made an announcement.

“From time to time, when I find the food on the Island of Lilliput to be not sufficiently satisfying, I shall come here and select one of your nicer young men to eat,” said Miss Gulliver, “The rest of you are free to go about your lives and enjoy yourselves.”

From then on, she made an occasional practice of reducing the population of Blefescu by one male at a time, and ensured that Bunko never came with her on such errands.

Alice waited two days, until Mrs Grimble had concluded her plans for Bartholomew, so that Jack would not be in any way jealous, as he would no longer have a rival for Mrs Grimble’s undivided affections. Then she went down the beanstalk, where Jack was on a rug at the bottom of the beanstalk composing love songs about Mrs Grimble, a habit he had kept up whenever he had the time:

“Oh stunning Mrs Grimble,

I’m little more than thimble.

When I recall your eyes,

I’d climb up to the skies,

If only such a trek

Won’t end up in your neck…” sang Jack.

“You must be Jack,” said Alice, “Mrs Grimble has told me all about you.”

Even though he had no idea of Mrs Grimble’s new feelings, it warmed Jack’s heart to know that she had been thinking of him.

“I guess you must have overheard how much she means to me,” said Jack, “I can’t play any musical instrument, but I’m good at writing words to other people’s tunes.”

“Well Jack,” said Alice, “Mrs Grimble is in love with you, and invites you to return to her castle as her boyfriend, rather than her dinner. You can be assured, that should you accept her offer, two gifted musicians will be provided.”

“Two?” said Jack, “I didn’t know that she shared Serena’s talent for the harp.”

“She doesn’t,” said Alice, “Serena’s new boyfriend is the Pied Pipe Eddy. He’s your size, and very good with the instrument of his namesake.”

“When did you find the beanstalk?”

“I found it from Brobdingnag,” said Alice, “I got there another way and came down to fetch you back for Mrs Grimble.”

“I guess you’re lucky she doesn’t eat girls,” said Jack.

“Actually I’ve acquired the ability to grow to her size when it suits me,” said Alice, “I’d be happy to head back up with you, but I’d like to find out where we are now.”

Jack led her into town and she soon realised that his town, although out in the country, was not impossible to be reached from her own. She now had two ways of travelling between her town and Jack’s.

The pair soon returned to Mrs Grimble’s castle. As soon as Alice had gone back to her own giant house next door, Jack embraced as much of Mrs Grimble’s lovely face as he could with his arms, pressing his face and shoulders against her lower lip.