Dalia resumed her patrol of time, and took her STM back centuries into Brobdingnag’s past, into the time of Mrs Grimble, Olda, Alice, White Robert and the others, and concealed herself well, so that she could secretly study and monitor Brobdingnag’s earlier years.  While concentrating on Brobdingnag, she would observe many of the events in the times ahead, but she was not aware of other happenings in a large estate near the Robert Hole.

Pixi Smith had been adopted from an orphanage when he was 4 ½ years old, by a kind woman named Mrs Smith, whose children had grown up and moved out. Mrs Smith was a very wealthy woman, and owned the neighbouring property to her large estate. She did not wish to send Pixi away to school. She did her best to home school Pixi herself, until the boy was 6 ½ and needed to be taught more complex lessons. Mrs Smith decided to hire a governess to serve as both nanny and teacher to Pixi.

Venturing into the town, she soon learned that a young 27 year old American colonial widow named Mary Parkin had moved to England and was seeking work of a similar nature. Mrs Smith introduced herself, and interviewed Mrs Parkin for some time, and then introduced him to her adopted son Pixi, explaining that he would learn very quickly, as he had the intelligence and vocabulary of a boy approaching 20. This had been one of the main reasons that Mrs Smith was not confident to administer the rest of his education herself.

Mrs Mary Parkin took the position, which gave her temporary ownership of the neighbouring property. She got on well with Pixi, and they soon became good friends. She was tall, had long dark brown hair, and a natural sweetness which endeared herself to children. Mrs Smith had given her free reign of the family house as well, including the right to use the nursery wing as a classroom for schooling Pixi. When she was home, Mrs Smith would prepare lunch for both of them, and bring it to the nursery. Sometimes the boy and his governess would eat it in the nursery. On other days, they would go out into the garden and sit down on the chairs or the grass. One day Mrs Smith prepared two bowls of salad, with ham, baby tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, onions and capsicum, and brought them out with spoons as well.

“This looks lovely,” said Mrs Parkin, as Mrs Smith returned to the house.

She dipped her spoon into the bowl and managed to scoop up a small piece of ham resting in a slightly curved piece of neatly cut lettuce, with a baby tomato on top of it. On the previous days, they had been served either sandwiches or bread rolls with other food inside them. Pixi hadn’t paid much attention to Mrs Parkin, as the two of them had bitten into the mixtures of bread and filling.

Mrs Parkin lifted the spoon to her mouth, and put out her tongue to receive the contents. For less than a second, as the food was still being lowered onto her tongue, Pixi glanced at a sight which took his breath away. He could not explain what he felt, and was far too shy or embarrassed to make mention of it. Yet nonetheless Mrs Parkin’s tongue created a sensation in him, which he had never known before. He watched eagerly, as she continued to manipulate the salad into her mouth with further use of the spoon, and it became clearer to him that he wanted to touch her tongue himself. Soon she was close to the bottom of the bowl, and a particularly long strip of lettuce would not remain on the spoon long enough for Mrs Parkin to deliver it into her mouth. After it had fallen off four times, he saw her pick it up between her finger and thumb, and then open her mouth to receive it. 

Without the presence of the spoon frequently covering most of her tongue, Pixi saw his best view so far of her tongue coming out, the lettuce being placed neatly onto it, and then her tongue disappearing into her mouth. Mrs Parkin was completely unaware of the effect that she had begun to have on the boy, and went about his afternoon lessons as usual. Pixi made a habit of looking at her mouth, while she talked. He did not want to be seen to stare too frequently, and he soon worked out that her mouth opened widest when she was pronouncing words with certain vowel sounds in them. He did his best to anticipate the uses of these words, and look closely at her mouth only when they were due to come out of it.

That night he turned into bed and lay awake thinking about the captivating sight of Mrs Parkin eating that salad. The more he thought about it, the more he came to realise just exactly the aspirations which were forming in his mind.

Pixi wanted very much to be that salad. He wanted to be spooned into Mrs Parkin’s mouth, or placed onto her tongue by her fingers and thumb. For nearly two hours, until he fell asleep, he imagined himself as the salad in the bowl, being spooned up by Mrs Parkin. He did not even think beyond that. His mind simply replayed every image it had stored, making believe that he was some secretly sentient salad item.

The boy did not dare to tell her of these yearnings and sensations. He wasn’t sure whether he feared that he would make her laugh or make her upset. In the next few days, as he watched her eat, he would look down a little as well, to hide the fact that he was paying so much attention to her mouth. He soon began to notice the way her lovely white neck would swallow and gulp as the food no doubt left her mouth and continued on its journey. This in turn added the thought of sliding down inside her throat himself as part of his nocturnal adventures of the imagination.

When Mrs Parkin would walk around the nursery, arranging things for lessons, he would only come up to somewhere below her waist, and had a clear view of her tummy. She always wore soft, dainty feminine clothes, and her tummy began to gain his attention too. He imagined snuggling his head against it. One day, as lunch approached, he heard a rumble from her tummy.

“Sorry, Pixi. That’s my tummy telling me it’s hungry and needs to have some food in it. Let’s go and see if our lunch is ready in the garden.”

Then, he watched her eating lunch again, and considered the fact that the food was travelling from her swallowing throat, down into that soft looking elegantly clad tummy. Pixi began that night, to incorporate into his thinking, the idea of having that soft lovely tummy all around him. Prior to these latest developments, he had not really thought beyond the sensation of being placed onto her tongue, drawn into her mouth and sliding down into her neck. Now, he combined all of the elements of his piecemeal discovered fantasy into one continuous sequence, which concluded with him envisioning himself inside Mrs Parkin’s tummy.

The next morning, he awoke early and soon realised that he would not fall back to sleep. So he read the next story in a book of children’s tales he had been given for Christmas. It didn’t entertain him that much. So, still having time before he had to get up, he went onto the next one, which was entitled: The Three Little Pixies.

The title caught his attention, and he subconsciously, automatically saw himself as each Pixi in turn. The story told of The Big Bad Woman, who had set her sights on three tiny pixies, having decided that they would make nice meals for her. Each of the first two pixies would sing “Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Woman?” mischievously and retreat into their houses, when she approached. Yet she had no trouble pulling their tiny straw and wooden houses apart with her full sized hands, catching the pixies and eating them. The final Pixie had outwitted her, by having built his house of bricks.

Yet it was the first two pixies that Pixi found himself identifying with. In the illustrations, the Big Bad Woman was drawn with rather stern expressions on her face. Yet her long dark hair reminded him very much of Mrs Parkin’s.

Suddenly Pixi’s nocturnal imaginings crystallized into one clear understanding, as he realised the implication behind all that had happened.

Pixi’s fondest longing was for Mrs Parkin to eat him!

He knew he could never confide such an unusual daydream to her, but he found himself thinking of it so often during classes, as he looked at her. It became the focus of his goals and dreams. He kept trying to think of ways to bring it about. He no longer wanted to be eaten as a salad. Somehow, he wanted her to eat him as himself. Yet he knew that such a thing, although possible, would hurt him physically. So even his thought processes would come up against this dead end of illogical yearnings.

One day he was fortunate enough to be eating cream buns with Mrs Parkin after lunch. She bit enthusiastically into hers, and left large quantities of cream on her lips and chin. He watched her tongue circling about her mouth, licking her lips, but soon saw that it could not reach the cream, which she still felt sticking to her cheek. How he found the courage to act, he would never know, but Pixi saw his chance. He reached out and scooped the cream off her cheek with his finger and said, “You can use my finger as a spoon.”

“You’re a thoughtful boy,” she said, and opened her mouth.

Pixi now had the chance to place his finger in her mouth and feel her tongue sucking the cream off. He turned his finger to the side as he withdrew it, so that the clean part of his finger would benefit from sliding against her tongue on its way out of her mouth. He had finally touched her tongue, and she thought he had done it as an act of politeness!

He could still feel the touch of her tongue in his mind that night in bed. How he longed for more of it.

A few days later, Mrs Parkin taught him a little about the theatre and explained that most conventional schools gave their students a chance to act in school plays. She told him of the process of building the props and sets and designating a stage upon which to perform it.

“This room would be a good enough stage for you and I to practice acting in a play,” she said.

She went on to ask him if there was any story he could think of that he would like to act out with her. He couldn’t think of one on the spot.

“Maybe you can tell me tomorrow,” she said, “We’ll go onto some mathematics for now.”

That night he went to bed again and began what had become a nightly habit of playing out the story of the Three Little Pixies in his mind, imagining himself as one of the first two and Mrs Parkin as the Big Bad Woman pulling his house apart and snatching him up and eating him.

Why hadn’t he thought of it before, earlier in the day? He knew exactly what to do now. The next day he took the book to lessons and showed her the story.

“I would like to act out this one,” said Pixi, and added as an excuse, “My name is like Pixie.”

“And you have a very clever brain,” said Mrs Parkin, “I might call you the Brainy Pixie sometimes, from now on, “Which Pixi would you like to play?”

“I could be all of them,” he said.

“Could you remember all their lines?” she asked.

“They’re mostly the same, and I’ve read the story lots of times.”

“Well the obvious role for a lady or governess to play would be the Big Bad Woman,” said Mrs Parkin, “So we’ll make the props together, and then learn our lines and act out the play.”

Pixi was overjoyed. Without sharing his embarrassing and unusual secret, he had used his governess’s own frame of reference to set the scene for having her act out his fantasy with him.

Mrs Parkin helped Pixi cut a door in a large cardboard box, after turning it upside down, as well as two holes for windows, and they painted it to resemble the illustration of the straw house in Pixi’s book. Then they painted a pattern resembling timber onto another cardboard box, and repeated the process to create the second pixie’s wooden house prop. Lastly, they painted bricks onto a third cardboard box to resemble the third pixie’s house, and cut the door and window holes too.

Then came the time to act out the story. Mrs Parkin let Pixi run ahead of her and get into the first house, before he peeked out the window and saw her looming towards the house. She was a fully grown adult, much taller than him, which enabled him to look up at her and imagine himself as a helpless pixie, even though the pixies in his story had been drawn relatively so much smaller than the Big Bad Woman.

He saw her long lace skirt and her button-less shirt as she stepped towards his ‘house.’

“Come out, little Pixie, so I can eat you all up!” she said, following the book to perfection.

Pixi was in a state of ecstasy and euphoria which he couldn’t fully comprehend, as he heard Mrs Parkin say those lines and saw the well acted ‘big bad’ smile that she put on to accompany them.

“Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Woman?” he sang, improvising a tune.

Mrs Parkin lifted the cardboard house away and put it aside, and reached down and picked him up in both her hands.

“I’ll gulp and I’ll gulp and I’ll swallow you down!” she said and lifted him up above her head a little, and tilted it back and opened her mouth wide to simulate eating him. Pixi was just about to test the waters of putting his fingers into her mouth, when she ended the scene and put him down.

She had no idea that he was an even better actor than she thought, as the boy concealed the nature of his enjoyment of the part he was playing.

“There, you’re all gone, little Pixie,” she said, “Let’s take an act break and get into position for the next scene.”

The next scene’s dialogue was largely the same with the second Pixie, until she tossed the ‘wooden house’ aside and lifted him up, saying, “I’ll munch and I’ll crunch and I’ll gobble you down!”

Pixi had always wanted to be eaten whole by Mrs Parkin, and this would never change, but he still seemed to enjoy the way she talked of munching and crunching and gobbling him, paraphrased from the original story.

Again she brought him close to her face. He waited for her mouth to open and give him another inviting view inside it, but she was drawing him closer still, until her face went out of focus. Suddenly he felt her tongue lick his cheek. It was only for two seconds or so, but it was the most wonderful thing she had ever done for him, and she had no idea. To her she was just adding realism to the role.

“That makes another delicious little Pixie all gone,” she said, following the story, “Now it’s time to eat the third one.”

The third act was an anticlimax for Pixi, as he simply remained in the house until the ‘Big Bad Woman’ gave away her plans for the third pixie, unable to pull up the house of bricks.

Pixi wanted Mrs Parkin to eat him more than ever now. He wanted her to lick him and put him in her mouth and gobble him all the way down to her tummy. The ramifications of the irreversible nature of such an act did not even enter his head. 

They had finished the play just before lunch, and were soon sitting in the nursery, eating together, as it was too rainy to go outside.

“I think we both acted very well,” she said, “You remembered all your lines and played all three parts to perfection.”

“It was almost like the book, but I was too big,” said Pixi.

“Too big for what?”

“Too big to be eaten like the pixies in the story. You couldn’t fit me into your mouth.”

“Well that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, it wouldn’t have been merely acting if I’d actually eaten you.”

He wanted to know something else, and had been leading up to surreptitiously prying it out of her.

“I hope I didn’t taste awful,” he said.

“Well I didn’t want to overdo a simple play. So I only tasted you once, but it was nice,” said Mrs Parkin, showing a slight shyness at discussing such subject matter, “But you needn’t think too much about it. You’re not a pixie, and you won’t need to be eaten.”

She had been somewhat ambiguous about what she would have done, if he had been small enough to gobble whole. Still he had learned that Mrs Parkin liked the taste of him. This both warmed his heart and excited him immensely. In the weeks ahead, he took care not to keep talking about the play, lest she begin to suspect his motives.

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

On the day of his seventh birthday, Mrs Parkin took Pixi out for a walk in the surrounding area and a picnic lunch.

“You’re a nice boy,” she said, stroking his hair as they sat on the picnic rug, “I need to lie down for a while. I didn’t realise that the picnic basket would be so heavy.”

She lay down beside him. He stroked her hair and said, “You’re a nice governess, Mrs Parkin, the best that any boy could hope for.”

“Thank you, Pixi,” she said, “Would you like to go for a little walk, while I rest?”

“Yes,” said Pixi.

“Don’t wander off too far. Just stay in the quiet areas we’ve explored just before lunch,” she said.

Pixi wandered for a while until he came to a group of ferns and bushes that looked as though it would serve to be an excellent cubby hole. He quickly crawled in and found himself falling slowly down the Robert Hole.

Pixi reached the bottom and came out in the strange curved room that Alice and the White Robert had discovered all those chapters ago. He saw a piece of cake on a table, with the words ‘EAT ME’ on it in icing. He had already enjoyed some cake for his birthday picnic, and had wished there’d been more. He snatched up the piece of cake, ate it and then remembered that he had been asked not to wander off too far.

“I’d better be getting back,” he thought, “I hope I can climb back up that hole.”

Suddenly Pixi Smith shrank to tiny size.

“Oh my goodness!” he thought, “Now I’ll never be able to climb up. How will I get back to Mrs Parkin?”

He ran back to the bottom of the hole and looked up. Now he simply couldn’t see the top. He felt lighter than air in that spot. He found that his feet left the ground, and he began floating upwards, at the same speed that he had floated down before. Higher and higher he went, until he came to the top of the hole and out into this more secluded part of England again. It was only then, that he noticed that he had grown back to normal size while floating upwards.

He ran back to the rug and saw that Mrs Parkin was still fast asleep. He sat down beside her and looked at her mouth, recalling the most recent views he had had of her eating her lunch. He wondered if he could persuade her to go with him to that strange place he had just visited, a place where –that was it! – he could now be eaten by her, assuming that his size would diminish again down there.

To his surprise, he shrank to tiny size again. He walked over and looked at Mrs Parkin’s face, standing just beside it. Her mouth was right in front of him. She had only to open it and he would fit in there. Yet she had not given him any firm clues as to whether or not the idea of eating him appealed to her. He saw her stirring and began to panic. 

Then he suddenly found himself growing back to reach his normal size, just as her eyes opened.

“I’m awake again,” she said, “Did you have a nice walk?”

“It was very nice,” he said.

“I suppose it’s time to take you home,” said Mrs Parkin.

He wondered what would happen if he suddenly shrank down beside her as they were walking back to the Smith Estate, but his size remained constant. When he went to bed that night, he began to worry that he might never shrink again. To have lost the opportunity to see if Mrs Parkin would eat him was more than he could fathom. He yearned to shrink again, and then it happened.

“Now I can’t get to her though,” he thought, “I need to be full sized again.”

Once again, it happened. Before he went to sleep that night, he had fully learned to control the effects of the Wonderland cake. One problem still needed to be solved. If he told Mrs Parkin that he had long entertained the yearning for her to eat him, he had no idea how she would react. She might be upset with him, and he would miss out on the other aspect of warmth he had felt when she had stroked his head and spoken sweetly to him on the rug. On the other hand, if she would in fact like to eat him, and he never told her about his own willingness, the opportunity would be lost for both of them. He thought about all of the clues, reviewing everything that had happened. She had been willing to act out the story he’d chosen (The Three Little Pixies), had put some realism into it with her tongue, and had even told him that he tasted nice. Yet she had also seemed uncomfortable and gone to some effort to change the subject. Was this the embarrassment of someone who didn’t want her employer to find out that she harboured longings to eat the boy in her care? Or was it a discomfort with the unusual direction that Pixi had been leading the discussion?

He went to sleep with no solution in his mind. He had been taught to say his prayers, and had even seen how God heard and answered his prayers in surprising ways. The God of the Bible was not someone who merely created people and then left them to their own devices for 70 years or so, and assessed the results at the end. Jesus was very active in the lives of His own created beings.

Yet a boy’s desire to be eaten was something that the Bible simply didn’t cover. It did not make the book any less the perfect Word of God. It was just that the Bible had no precedent for shrinking boys who admired their governesses’ tongues.

He awoke and thought some more the next morning, and recalled the play that they had made of the story in his book. Then a significant thought occurred to Pixi: Mrs Parkin may or may not be reluctant to eat a boy with whom she had been so friendly as to treat him on his birthday. Yet she might well be more likely to consider eating an actual Pixie, like the ones in the story. All he had to do was to convince her that he was someone other than himself. Mrs Parkin didn’t know that he had acquired the power to shrink. So she wouldn’t suspect someone who resembled a pixie of being Pixi. But would she recognise his little face?

There were no lessons on Saturday and Sunday. So the next day, he put it to the test, by simulating the view of a tiny person’s face. To do this, he stood on the edge of the boundary between his property and the neighbouring one (where Mrs Parkin had been living). He waited until he saw her coming out into the garden to sit down and read. He looked at her face and could not clearly make out her features. Only a boy who thought so much like an adult would have come up with such a plan at the age of seven. He could not distinguish her facial features. She could have been anyone, if he wasn’t aware that nobody else lived there. How much harder would it be for her to make out his facial features, after he had shrunken to tiny size?

On the following day, Sunday, he went to Mrs Parkin’s garden again, having made himself familiar with her movements over the past few weeks. He shrank himself to tiny size in advance and waited until Mrs Parkin came out. Seeing the tiny boy, she put her book on the seat, sat down beside it and looked at him in surprise.

 “I’d heard rumours among a select few women in the village, that little goblins lived in these parts,” she said, “But I didn’t expect to meet one.”

“I haven’t met the goblins myself, so far,” said Pixi, “I’m a pixie.”

“Do you live nearby?” she asked.

“Yes. I thought you might like to eat me.”

“Why do you say that?” she asked politely, a little confused.

“I saw you trying to eat the boy next door the other day. You lifted his house up and said you were going to gobble him. But he was too big. So you licked him and put him down.”

“We were just acting out a story in a play,” she said.

“Well I am a real pixie, and I’m so small that you could eat me. Would you like to chase me through your garden and catch me? I promise I’m very tasty.”

“I believe you,” she said, “But would you really like me to eat you all up?”

“Yes please,” he said, “Your mouth looks lovely, Mrs Parkin.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t be too difficult,” she said, “I can finish my book later. Do you need time to run away?”

“Just a minute or so,” he said, and ran into the garden bed.

“Here I come,” she called after a minute had passed.

He saw her running around the garden, looking everywhere for him, until she found him. The sight of her lovely hand reaching down in amongst the flowers for him was thrilling.

“I’ve caught you, little Pixie,” she said, and lifted him high up and licked him.

This time it was her tongue touching his tiny form! It was spectacular.

“How was that?” she asked, sitting down with him.

“Very good,” said Pixi, “Can you finish eating me now, please?”

“I thought you were just playing a game. Do you really want me to gobble you down?”

“Yes please, Mrs Parkin. I would like that very much.”

She looked a little puzzled, but to his delight, she put him into her mouth anyway. He was just getting comfortable on her tongue, when she suddenly opened her mouth and took him out again.

“I knew something was concerning me a little,” she said, “I just realised that we haven’t been properly introduced. How did you know my name? You’ve called me Mrs Parkin twice, which I never told you.”

“I …”

She waited for an answer, and he was unable to think of a response.

“There’s something awfully familiar about you,” she said, “Yet I don’t know how I could have seen you before. I’ve never met any of the little folk until today.”

She held him right in front of her eyes and looked closely at his face.

“Pixi! It’s you! No wonder you knew my name. How did you become so small?”

He told her of his visit down the Robert Hole and the effects of the Wonderland cake, although he was not aware of the names of those things.

“It’s given you an astonishing ability,” said Mrs Parkin, “But you must be careful when using it to play games. I might have swallowed you just now.”

“That’s alright, Mrs Parkin. I asked you to swallow me.”

“Yes, that’s right, you did!” she said and stared at him in bewilderment, “But why would you ask me to do such a thing?”

“Oh Mrs Parkin, I have loved your tongue ever since I saw you eating that salad a week after you first came here.”

He explained how subsequent events had either instilled or awakened his desire to be eaten by his lovely governess.

 “Well Pixi, it’s a unique honour I’ve never had before. You’re the first little boy who’s ever even wanted me to gobble him all down, let alone found the means to enable me to do it. I could put you back into my mouth if you like, but that’s as far as it would go. If I swallowed you, I would be without the job of teaching you. I would have to leave this nice house.”

“Well it would still be nice to go into your mouth sometimes.”

She kindly obliged him, and her mouth eventually opened to reveal that she had walked into the kitchen and prepared a treat for him to eat. They sat and talked for hours in the living room, and he explained every aspect of the way that she had affected him.

“You’re very sweet to think so much of me,” she said, “But my husband died young. So I never got the chance to have any children, when I was married. Having you with me five days a week has made up for that. I couldn’t see myself eating away such an opportunity.”

So they kept their secret together, and he sometimes enjoyed playing games with her and climbing into her mouth.

A few months later, on Mrs Parkin’s birthday, they went for a walk in the woods together, and came upon a very tall tree with a wide trunk, with doors in it. They climbed up until they saw an open door, and met a woman called Dame Washalot. She explained that this was the Faraway Tree, and that its uppermost branches led to whatever Land was up there at the time. For the next few Sundays, Pixi and Mrs Parkin made weekly visits to the Faraway Tree and explored the fascinating lands that they found at the top. The lands rotated or revolved (even Mrs Parkin wasn’t sure) around up there, so that a different one reached the top of the Faraway Tree each week. Apparantly the Lands moved about on Mondays, which meant that it was safe to visit them on Sundays without losing the opportunity to get back to the tree and being thus stranded.

One particular Sunday Pixi and Mrs Parkin were walking on in a Land for some time, and then they heard a noise like rolling thunder. They turned around in surprise and saw a curious sight. A giant ball, the size of a hot air balloon was rolling along the pathway near them.

“Goodness!” said Pixi, “Look at that! We must certainly be in a giant land.”

They were unaware that they had reached the Valley of Giantesses in Brobdingnag. Along with the Looking-Glass Land house discovered by Alice, Jack’s Beanstalk, Willie Tinkerer’s Beanstalk and the Swift Mist discovered by Gary Gulliver, the Faraway Tree had, at least until Monday, become a temporary link to Brobdingnag as well.

“If the giants see us, we will seem so tiny to them,” said Mrs Parkin, “Just as you did to me the day you asked me to eat you.”

That set Pixi thinking. He doubted that anyone else’s tongue would mean as much to him as Mrs Parkin’s, but maybe a giantess might be willing to undertake what she had declined to do.

Soon something happened. Great blobs of water bigger than dinner plates fell around them.

“Whatever is it?” asked Pixi.

“It’s raining!” said Mrs Parkin, “Giant rain! How strange! Come under this big thistle, Pixi, until it stops.”

The thistle was a tall prickly plant with its spines as long as spears. The children had to be careful not to get pricked or cut. They crouched under the broad thistle leaves and heard the raindrops falling around them thickly. Soon, to their great dismay, a little stream of water appeared behind the thistle.

“Oh my! I hope a puddle isn’t going to come just here!” groaned Pixi.

The water spread around them. It was most unnerving. If only they had chosen another plant to shelter under, then they could have climbed up its stem and sat on a leaf. But the thistle was set with such long sharp prickles that it was impossible to climb.

Just as the puddle was closing around their feet, a large white thing came sailing by. Pixi and Mrs Parkin stared at it.

“It’s an enormous paper boat!” cried Mrs Parkin in surprise, “Some giant child must have made it and set it sailing in the rain puddles. It’s big enough for us to get into. Shall we stop it and climb inside?”

“Yes,” said Pixi, “The rain is stopping now, so we shan’t get very wet if we sail off in the boat.”

He caught hold of the paper side of the boat and held it still whilst Mary stepped into it. Then Pixi got in too. The boat swung around the prickly thistle and then rushed off down the stream of water, which was now as large as a river to them. Along they went, now rushing to one side and another.

“Pixi, I believe this boat is taking us to the village!” said Mrs Parkin in alarm.

“We’d better get out then,” said Pixi.

But by now the boat was going along far too fast. Sometimes it spun around and around and made them giddy. They wished they had never climbed into it.

Suddenly the stream of water ran under a sort of bridge and came out into the gutter of a roadway. Pixi and Mrs Parkin were in the village where the giants lived, just the place they had been trying to keep away from whilst it was daylight. Now here they were, tearing along in a paper boat for all the giants to see. It was dreadful.

One or two giantesses were walking down the wide street, holding great umbrellas to keep off the few drops of rain still falling. Nobody noticed them at first. Then a giant girl saw them and shouted in excitement.

“Look! Look! Two little dolls in a boat!” she called.

The giant mother looked. The giant girl ran to the gutter and picked up the boat with Pixi and Mrs Parkin still in it. She picked them up so carelessly, that Mrs Parkin nearly fell out.

“Be careful!” yelled Pixi, clutching hold of Mrs Parkin’s arm and helping her steady herself just in time, “You’ll make us fall, giant girl.”

The girl was so astonished to here Pixi’s voice that she nearly dropped the boat.

“Mother, they are not dolls! They are real!” she cried in surprise.

“Well I never!” boomed the mother giant in amazement, “Two little manikins! Wherever could they have come from? We’ll take them home, Grizel.”

“Put them in your market bag, Mother,” said Grizel the giant girl.

So into the mother’s net bag went Pixi and Mrs Parkin, among potatoes, cakes and a large cabbage whose thick leaves felt like leather. They were carried in the bag for a long way. At last they were taken into a great house and the giant girl emptied them out of the bag.

“They really are alive,” said the mother giant, “Put them in the cage, until I’m ready to cook them, Grizel. I’ll enjoy them better than the dinners we had when your father was alive.”

So into the cage went Pixi and Mrs Parkin. Grizel locked the cage and left it on the floor as she walked away.

“She’s going to eat us!” said Mrs Parkin, “I can’t imagine why you would have wanted me to do that. I suppose it’s different being a boy. I just wish we could get out of here.”

“You could get out, if I helped you,” said Pixi, and shrank to tiny size, “Just put me in the lock.”

“You’re still the Brainy Pixie alright,” said Mrs Parkin, and positioned him to go to work.

Within the lock, he had no trouble working its mechanism to release his governess from the giant mother’s cage.

“Thank you for saving us!” she said, and kissed him, “Now grow back to full size and let’s run back to the Faraway Tree.”

“I’m going to stay here,” he said, resuming his normal size.

“But she’ll eat you… Oh yes.”

Mrs Parkin looked hurt. Was she jealous of the giant mother? He could reassure her with one simple truth to spare her feelings.

“Her mouth is not quite as pretty as yours, but at last I’ll have my big chance to be eaten,” he said, “I don’t even have to shrink for it.”

“But I want you to come back with me,” she said.

“I would like you to do it instead, but you won’t,” said Pixi, “This is my one big chance.”

“Is it that important to you?” she asked, “Do you really want so much to be eaten?”

“I do if the lady eating me has a lovely tongue like yours.”

“Alright then. If you come back with me, we’ll talk about it.”

“If you don’t do it, the giant land will have moved away from the Faraway Tree, and Grizel’s mother won’t be able to. I’ll come with you if you promise to eat me.”

“Alright,” said Mrs Parkin going pale, “You do taste nice, and at least I’ll be the one to have you in my tummy. I couldn’t bear to think of you in the giant mother’s huge stomach instead.”

“Thank you so much!” said Pixi.

“Let’s just get away quickly,” said Mrs Parkin and led him into the garden.

No sooner had they reached the edge of the giant property, when they heard voices. They turned and looked back and saw the giant mother, now dressed in her best, searching the garden for them, with her daughter Grizel helping.

The two people ran for their lives. Pixi didn’t want to be caught by the giantess either, now that he had Mrs Parkin’s guarantee to eat him instead, and he had no desire to see her lost to Grizel’s mother either. Clearly, to her, being eaten would not be the special treat that it was to him.

They reached the Faraway Tree at last, and were never so fast before in the way that they descended to the wood below. They made their way back to Mrs Parkin’s house and his own.

They set the date for the following Sunday. Mrs Parkin greeted him at her back door that day and welcomed him into her dining room. Pixi sat on the edge of her table and shrank himself, watching his feet leave the floor.

He looked up at Mrs Parkin as she sat down in front of him.

“I’ve waited for this for so long,” he said.

“I don’t know if I should go ahead with this,” said Mrs Parkin.

“Why not?” asked Pixi.

“I’m supposed to look after you, to see that nothing bad can befall you,” said Mrs Parkin.

“Eating me won’t be a bad thing to me. It will be the nicest thing you’ve ever done for me.”

“I just can’t look at it that way,” she said.

“But you promised. You can’t break your promise,” said Pixi.

“Surely I could in a situation like this.”

“Then I don’t want to be friends with you anymore!” said Pixi, “I wish I’d stayed with Grizel’s mother. I know she would have eaten me! Now that land’s moved on, and I’ve lost my chance forever. It’s all your fault.”

“Please don’t say such horrid things about me,” said Mrs Parkin, “If you love my tongue that much, I’ll keep my promise then … I suppose I’ll have to now.”

“Oh thank you, Mrs Parkin. I love your neck and your tummy too!”

“Shall I lick you first?” she asked, stalling a little.

“Yes, thank you,” said Pixi, and enjoyed it for a while before saying, “Could you please put me in your mouth and gobble me down now?”

“If you say so,” said Mrs Parkin.

She opened her mouth and put the tip of her tongue out in front of her lips, so that he could easily use it to slide into her mouth. Pixi made his way in and waited for her to start gulping him down.

Then he felt her mouth shaking for some time, and then it opened, and she took him out.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I hope I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t mean to shake about so much.”

He saw that she was crying, and had been doing so for some time.

“What’s the matter, Mrs Parkin? Have I lost my nice taste?”

“No. You still taste as nice as ever,” she said, “I’m just so unhappy that I’m doing this. I don’t want to lose you down in my tummy. I’ve been your governess for so long, and I love you, Pixis. You’re such a sweet nice little boy. I don’t want to say goodbye to you.”

He’d never seen her like this before.

He grew back to his full size, and found himself sitting on her lap. He put his arms around her and said, “I’m so sorry I made you unhappy, Mrs Parkin. I love you too. I won’t go down your throat then, just into your mouth sometimes. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“Oh you dear darling boy!” she said, and hugged him tenderly for a long time, occasionally licking him with gratitude for releasing her from her promise.