After that, Pixi forgot his desire to be eaten, and enjoyed his cuddles with Mrs Parkin. Later on that year, Mrs Smith learned that her youngest daughter had run up some expensive debts. Mrs Smith had to spend a lot of money to pay off the debts, and could no longer afford a governess for Pixi. She gave Mrs Parkin a week’s notice, and enrolled Pixi to start at the village school the following week. Mrs Parkin and Pixi shared a sad goodbye with each other on the last day, and Pixi prepared to spend the last few months of the year at a school.

His teacher Miss Louise Marion-Kynde was a beautiful woman who had just turned 23. Like Mrs Parkin, she had long dark brown hair. Yet there was something different about her beauty. Miss Louise had much fuller lips than Mrs Parkin. For the first time, Pixi noticed the attractiveness of a lady’s lips. He began to dream of asking Miss Louise for a kiss, but she had an air of detachment and strictness, unlike Mrs Parkin. She spent lunch times away from the students, talking to another teacher named Mrs Helensborough. In time, it became obvious to Pixi, from his observations from a distance, that Miss Louise and Mrs Helensborough were friends.

One day he approached Mrs Helensborough, when she was alone, and said, “Can I ask you about something?”

“If I can help,” said the teacher.

“Well I don’t know if I should tell a lady that I love her.”

“At your age?” said Mrs Helensborough.

“I’m very advanced for my age,” said Pixi.

“Do you think that this lady feels any love for you?” asked the teacher.

“I don’t know. That’s why I don’t know if I should tell her.”

“Well women like to feel needed and appreciated. Maybe it would help to think of a way to let her know that she has that effect on you,” said Mrs Helensborough.

“Thank you,” said Pixi, “I’ll think about it.”

There were still a few weeks of school term left. How could he prove his need for Miss Louise? Being a student wasn’t enough. It would hardly enable him to stand out from the other students. If anything, being so clever, he hardly ever needed to ask for Miss Louise’s help in class, unlike the other students.

Then he thought of a way to present himself as a boy very much in need of Miss Louise. He waited until school finished that day, and noticed, that Miss Louise was in the habit of working at her desk for half an hour after the students left for their homes. Pixi hid out in the garden until the students had gone out of the schoolyard altogether. Then he shrank down to tiny size and went back into Miss Louise’s classroom. He looked up at her in awe.

“Miss Louise!” he called up to her.

She turned her head and looked down at him.

“Pixi?” she said, picking him up and putting him on the table, “What happened to you?”

He looked at her mouth as she spoke those words, and it occurred to him that a kiss from her lips would now be a very special experience indeed.

“I suppose I shrank,” he said, “It happened in the garden just outside.”

“You’re very small,” said Miss Louise, “I don’t see how you’ll be able to continue on in class tomorrow at that size.”

“I know,” said Pixi, “Miss Louise, would you like to take me home and look after me? I really need your help so much now, and I have been in love with you all this time.”

“Have you?” she laughed, “I will be taking a year away from teaching, once this term is over. Early next year I am going to be married. You can still stay with me for the rest of the term, and the first week or so of the holidays. Then one night, instead of going out with my fiancé, I shall stay home and gobble you all up for my dinner. You’re so small now, that I’ll certainly look forward to gulping you all down whole. It’s a very different outcome from the one you asked for, but then you’re not in any position to argue about it, are you?”

“No, Miss Louise,” said Pixi.

“We should be on our way then,” said Miss Louise. 

She carried him out to the street, where her horses and cart were secured, climbed aboard the cart, let him rest in the lap of her dress, and held the reigns firmly to start the cart moving. The horses responded, but he was not looking at them, nor at the scenery. Pixi looked up in admiration at Miss Louise. His desire to be eaten had instantly returned, the moment she had made her intentions known.

Pixi could see the haughty confident set of her full lips and the proud look in her eyes, which occasionally glanced down at him before returning to watch the road ahead. He felt glad that Mrs Parkin had declined his requests to eat him. Miss Louise not only had an attractive tongue, which he had seen from time to time when she spoke. She also had very attractive lips.

He was just about to tell her how much he’d always wanted to be eaten, when it occurred to him that there was another reason that Miss Louise excited him somewhat more than Mrs Parkin had done. It wasn’t just her lips or her tongue. 

It was the fact that Miss Louise wanted to eat him. Even more than that, it was the fact that she had decided to do so, without consulting him, and pronounced her intentions, heedless of his potential reaction. In fact, it went even further than that. Completely unaware of his fondness for being eaten, she had assumed he would like to have prevented his fate, and seemed to enjoy the fact that she had him in her clutches. 

Even as he looked at her now, he could see that her grand victorious facial expression, though usually not looking in his direction, clearly continued to echo those words she had spoken at her desk: “It’s a very different outcome from the one you asked for, but then you’re not in any position to argue about it, are you?”

In that moment, he resolved to spend the next few weeks, secretly looking forward to what lay in store for him, never letting Miss Louise know how he felt. She would enjoy the situation more, if she thought she was compelling him to be her holiday dinner, and he would like it more that way too.

She stopped the cart before she got out of the village, slipped Pixi into the top of her dress on her shoulder, and told him to keep lying down out of sight.

Miss Louise walked into a toy store, and spoke to the lady who owned it.

“I’d like to look at your largest and best furnished dolls house,” said Miss Louise.

“How kind of her!” he thought, “She’s willing to buy me a small home within her home, even though she’ll only have me for a few weeks.”

Miss Louise soon bought the most expensive dolls house in the shop and carried it out to the horse and cart. She put him back in her lap and rode on.

“I hope you like it,” she said.

“I think it’s very generous of you,” said Pixi.

“Well just don’t get too settled in it. You still have one dinner date to keep with me.”

“I couldn’t forget that,” said Pixi.

He noticed the trace of a satisfied smile forming on Miss Louise’s lovely big lips, as she continued the journey until she reached her home. She put him into the dolls house, and then carried it into the house and set it down on the floor in her bedroom. 

“Come on out now, Pixi,” she said, and he walked out and looked up at the beautiful towering teacher, as she stood there in her dress.

“This will be your home until the night I’ll have you for dinner,” she said.

“I’ll be on my best behaviour,” said Pixi.

“I appreciate that, but don’t think it will change my holiday dinner plans,” said Miss Louise.

She soon put him on the dinner table and served their meal. As he looked up at the sight of Miss Louise eating, he was even more excited than he had been when he had first watched Mrs Parkin’s tongue making contact with the salad.

For the first week, he slept each night in the dolls house. Then one night, Miss Louise lit the candle in her bedside lamp and called down to him after they’d only been in bed for half an hour:

“Are you still awake, Pixi?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you climb up onto the bed and join me on my pillow?”

Pixi obeyed.

“Are you still in love with me?” she asked.

“Oh yes, Miss Louise.”

“But I’m going to eat you, Pixi. How can you feel the way you do, knowing what I’m going to do?”

“I just do,” said Pixi, “I think your lips look wonderful, and it would be so lovely to have a kiss from you.”

Miss Louise smiled, and raised her head, moved it just above him and lowered her lips down onto his face and shoulders and chest. It felt lovely, and the sight of those lips approaching and then withdrawing after a minute of kissing was truly inspirational.

Then she lay back on the pillow again.

“That was lovely. Miss Louise, I think you’re the most beautiful woman of all.”

“You won’t win me over!” she laughed, “In three weeks or so, you’ll be down in my tummy, and I’ll be enjoying the rest of my holidays without a care.”

“I know, but I still love you.”

“What’s a lady to do?” she mused, “Why don’t you snuggle up to my cheek and we’ll sleep this way from now on.”

On the last day of school, Miss Louise came home with Mrs Helensborough.

“Mrs Helensborough is my best friend at the school,” said Miss Louise. I’ve told her all about you. She’s going to mind you for the weekend. My fiancé has invited me to stay the weekend at his holiday house. I’ll be back on Sunday evening. Then you’ll have one day left. I’m looking forward to it.”

Miss Louise packed her bag and took off in her horse drawn cart, while Mrs Helensborough cooked and served their dinner.

“I must say, that when you told me of your lady, I had no idea that it was Miss Louise,” said Mrs Helensborough.”

“I knew you were her friend. I hoped you could give me some good advice, but …”

“You didn’t know if you could trust me to keep your secret from my friend?”

“Yes.”

“Well you can. What she tells me in confidence is kept from you, and what you tell me in confidence is kept from her. You can trust me with anything you’d like to talk about.”

“Thank you.”

He thought about that for a while, and then told her all about his desire to be eaten, about the disappointments with Mrs Parkin’s reluctance, and her inevitable departure from his life, and the birth of his feelings for Miss Louise, and the complete elation that he felt at her declaration of dinner plans.

“I had no idea,” said Mrs Helensborough, “It looks as though things have worked out very well for you.”

“And Miss Louise will be very happy about it as well.”

“She is, although she did say she expected you to make an attempt to escape at some point. She hinted that she felt a little disappointed that you hadn’t tried. She said it would be fun to recapture you.”

He remembered that advice and considered the ease with which he could have escaped successfully at any time, merely by enlarging to normal size. Yet she must never know that he had the ability to do that!

On the Sunday evening, she returned, had dinner with Pixi and Mrs Helensborough, bade her friend farewell until she returned  to teaching a year later, and then took Pixi to her pillow once more.

“You’d better make the most of it now. This is your last night outside my tummy, little boy.”

He knew he could not make a convincing escape at tiny size, while he was shut in that room. He would have to do it some time the next day, in another part of the house.

On the Monday morning, he awoke just before Miss Louise, and rubbed his face against her lip.

“What an interesting thing to wake up to,” said Miss Louise, “You’ll become a lot more involved with my mouth tonight.”

They enjoyed most of the day together, with Miss Louise making several references to the depletion of his remaining hours and also to her eager anticipation of the meal, and of how tasty and mouth watering he looked.

As the afternoon came to an end, Miss Louise took him to the kitchen and placed him beside the stove. She walked over to the other side of the room to search the cupboard for a baking dish. Now she had her back to him. It was now or never, to play the role of escapee.

He grew back to full size, silently eased himself down off the bench, and then shrank back to tiny size on the floor. He was under two inches tall, and noticed that there were around three inches of height in the legs of the stove. Then he looked back and saw that Miss Louise was turning around.

She saw him, put the dish on the table and ran towards him, as he darted under the stove.

“I don’t know how you got down there, but I’ll soon fetch you back and warm you up in my oven!” she roared, and got down on all fours and stared in at him.

Thrilled beyond belief at her reaction, he made a show of backing away, while Miss Louise’s hand and arm reached under the stove and softly grabbed him.

“No doubt you thought you could run away and hide your little form for the rest of your life,” she said, rising to her feet again, “But there’s no escape for you, little boy. I’ll soon be ready to eat you all up.”

She washed him in the sink, dried him on a towel, placed him into the baking dish and lit the oven fire, put him into the oven and sat and watched him warming up. Then she took him to the dining table, sat down and prepared herself.

“When you first started school, I’m sure you never imagined it would come to this,” she said, “But you came to me when you shrank, because of your special feelings. I suppose that deserves one last reward.”

She lifted him to her lips and gave him a final kiss.

“Thank you so much, for all the kisses you’ve given me, Miss Louise.”

“You’re welcome, little boy, and now it’s time I enjoyed eating you for my dinner.”

Then he saw her tongue come out of her mouth and begin a series of marvellous licks which were both a thrill in themselves and a glimpse of what was still to come. 

“You’re every bit as scrumptious as you look,” she said, “I might as well finish up now. Welcome to my mouth, little Pixi.”

She opened wide, put Pixi into her mouth and retained her hold on his legs for a while, using her finger and thumb to rotate him, so that he rolled over and over on her tongue. Then she released him.

He was in her mouth. This was not Mrs Parkin acting out a play with no awareness of his having a yearning she could not reciprocate. This was Miss Louise really eating him, with no awareness that she was granting a yearning he had kept from her knowledge.

Very slowly, he noticed, her tongue was lifting at an angle in her mouth. Soon he began to slide towards her throat. He slipped in and stopped about an inch from the top. Then he felt Miss Louise begin to swallow him, and he moved downwards. He was enjoying the sensation too much to feel awkward about being upside down. Little by little, she swallowed him further down, until he reached her tummy.

At last, he thought, a beautiful lady had eaten him. He had memorized the images of her evening movements after dinner in the weeks that he’d lived in her dolls house. Now he could visualise her going about them as usual, but with the pleasure of having just eaten him also permeating her thoughts. Soon he felt her tingling tummy absorbing him, like a dozen tickles at once, and then he seemed to fall asleep.

In Brobdingnag, Mrs Grimble’s daughter Serena continued to date the Pied Pipe Eddy for decades. When the couple were in their mid to late 30s, the Pied Pipe Eddy discovered by accident, that playing a certain combination of notes would enlarge him to giant size for just one hour, along with his pipe. Using this to their advantage, Pipe Eddy and Serena were able to have a baby daughter named Dorinda, which made Mrs Grimble a grandmother. As the girl was growing up, Mrs Grimble would tell her stories of how she had caught little boys and even had the pleasure of eating some of them.

Although Serena had no interest in eating boys, thanks to her grandmother’s influence, Dorinda grew up willing to capture and eat little boys too. She made sure that her daughter was raised to do the same thing. Over the centuries, the Grimble house was passed down through the generations, until it was still owned by one of their Mrs Grimble’s descendants, namely Megarre, in the year 1954.

Down in the woods near the bottom of Jack’s beanstalk, Carlo Comet was thinking of walking to the village and buying something to add to his book collection. However, he would not do it that day, because he was about to be collected himself. Carlo was 10, and he ran into two of his friends in the woods: 14 year old Stephen Jones and 6 year old Poppet Hess. They all stopped and sat down on a log to talk.

In Brobdingnag, Megarre’s second daughter Jumbeelia was 14, and had heard the stories from her mother and grandmother about the little boys that would sometimes come to Brobdingnag. When she had been little, she had learned that nobody had ever chased a little boy down the beanstalk, as it would not support the weight of a Brobdingnag girl. However, Jumbeelia determined to test this for herself. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to just try stepping onto the beanstalk, since it was still a nice easy safe jump from the edge of her garden.

Thank goodness her big sister Ann was away at boarding school. Ann was 16. Jumbeelia reached the edge and saw the mist, and yes. Surely there was something looming out of the mist.

‘The Beanstalk,” she murmered, full of wonder. Jumbeelia reached out and touched the damp cool floppy leaf, and then found her hand curling around a thick firm stalk.

It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen or felt.

So it was true. Then her feet followed her hands. Down she climbed, down, down down through the clouds. Her mother Megarre had not guessed that, over the centuries, the beanstalk had grown wider and stronger and more dense. It could now support the weight of a Brobdingnag giantess without any difficulty.

When she was out of the clouds, Jumbeelia could see spread out below her, a patchwork of green fields with darker green blobs which must be woods, and threads of cotton (or so they appeared to a giant girl) which were in fact paths and roads. When she reached the bottom, she noticed something much more wonderful. Peeking down into the woods, she saw some small creatures the size of … well they were very small.

“Little boys!” she realised.

Jumbeelia took her collecting bag off her back and reached in with her giant pink fingers. She clasped them around Stephen Jones, and lifted him up and put him into the bag. Then she did the same with Carlo Comet.

“Where are we?” Stephen’s voice sounded shaky, and his face was white.

Carlo looked around at the blue canvas walls of their prison. He shuddered, remembering the huge pink fingers that had put him there.

“I think we’re in a giant girl’s bag,” he whispered back.

“Don’t talk rubbish. Giant’s don’t exist,” said Stephen.

But the next second they saw the giant hand above them, with Poppet Hess in its grip. Poppet was laughing.

“Big girl, do it again,” he said, as the giant hand released him. He seemed to think that this was some new kind of glorious fairground ride.

“It’s not a girl. It’s a giantess, silly,” Stephen snapped at her, “She’s probably going to eat us.”

Poppet didn’t seem to be worried. Then the canvas ceiling came down.

“All dark,” complained Poppet.

Carlo felt sick with fear, but he managed to find his voice and shouted, “Stop! Let us out. Let us out!”

A tremendous jolt threw them up into the air and down again. As the three of them rolled helplessly about on the soft canvas bag floor, Poppet giggled again. Carlo and Stephen were silent. They both knew what was happening. The giantess was on the move. After a sudden swoop and a bump, the jolting stopped. Their dark ceiling was off again, and light streamed in.

“Maybe she’s going to put us back,” said Carlo.

“Maybe she’s hungry,” said Stephen.

“Maybe we’re supper and Poppet is breakfast,” said Carlo.

Stephen started picking away at a loose corner of the bag as they jolted along.

“What are you doing?” asked Carlo.

“I can feel a little hole here, where the stitching has come loose. If I can make it bigger, maybe we can escape.”

“But we’d get killed jumping.”

“She might put the bag down again,” said Stephen, still tugging away, “There, it’s big enough to look through at least.”

He lay on his tummy and put his eye to the hole.

“Oh no,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Carlo.

“You’d better have a look.”

So Carlo looked through the hole and was overcome with dizziness and fear.

“Is it what I think it is?” she said.

“Yes. We’re going up a beanstalk.”

After a long time, they heard a door open.

“I think we’ve arrived,” said Stephen.

Then they heard a second voice. It was the giant girl’s mother.

“Maybe she wants to know what her little girl has collected for supper,” said Stephen.

At last the boys found themselves on the move again, and the mother hadn’t looked into the bag. They heard the opening and closing of another door, and then the ceiling came off the bag again.

Poppet stretched out his arms, as the enormous fingers curled around her and lifted her towards the giant Jumbeelia’s mouth. Her mouth was touching Poppet now. Soon it would be opening.

But it didn’t open. Instead, a sort of sucking smacking noise came from it.

“All wet,” said Poppet.

“That was a kiss,” said Stephen.

Before Carlo could speak, it was his turn. He was lifted up and brought towards the shining pink lips. The next second he felt a dampness all over his cheek. He dared to open his eyes, which he had momentarily closed. Then he was lowered into a dolls house on the giant girl’s floor. Then Stephen was thrust towards the giant lips and given a big wet kiss as well.

“Thank you,” said Stephen to the giantess, “We thought that you were going to eat us.”

“Oh no,” said Jumbeelia, “I want to play with you.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” said Carlo.

“Thank you,” said Jumbeelia, “And I won’t eat any of you for a few days yet.”

The next second they heard Jumbeelia’s mother come into the room.

“I’m glad you’ve caught them,” she said, “But I’ve already done some cooking for you today. So don’t eat them now, or you’ll spoil your meal.”

The girl waited for her mother to leave, and then said, “Don’t tell mother I went down the beanstalk. She mustn’t know that I caught you that way, or I’ll be in trouble for breaking her rules.”

The boys nodded their heads. Even Poppet seemed to understand that the giant woman was more of a threat than the girl.

“I’ve had an idea,” said Stephen, as soon as the girl had gone out of the room, “Do you see those plastic railway tracks of Jumbeelia’s? We can unclip one section of track and use it as a slide to get from one stair to another, down the house and out to escape.”

Jumbeelia’s mother Megarre was pottering about in her bedroom. Inside her, the baby kicked. She was glad that Jumbeelia had caught the little boys, but was not able to eat one herself while she was expecting a baby. Megarre sat down on the bed and began thinking again about names. Woozly would be a nice name for a girl. It meant cuddly.

Her other daughters had lived up to her expectations, she reflected proudly, Ann had been the first to develop her mother’s natural interest in gobbling little boys. As for Jumbeelia, she was inclined to play with her captives first, and get around to eating them when it suited her. Megarre eventually lay down for a rest.

The next day, in the middle of the morning, it seemed that Jumbeelia and Megarre had gone out. Fortunately Jumbeelia’s bedroom door was open. The boys dragged a section of railway track out on to the landing. As Stephen had thought, it was just the right length to make a slide from the top stair to the one below. The giant house was very quiet.

“Poppet went down the slide first, followed by Carlo and then Stephen. Repositioning the railway track slide for every step, they went down in stages, and rounded the bend in the stairs. This gave them a view of the hall below. So very far below Carlo felt suddenly tired. Would this never end?

He had just reached the next stair, when he heard a door open. He turned around and froze. On the step above him, Stephen and Poppet froze too. Someone was coming down the stairs towards them. There was nowhere to hide. Now an enormous girl was standing above them … bending down … picking them up, not gently the way Jumbeelia did, but grabbing them roughly, Stephen and Poppet in one hand and Carlo in the other.

It was Ann. She had come home from boarding school the day before, and had now surprised the boys. She had them blinded by the grip of her hands, while she carried them somewhere, and then they fell into a sticky mess. They heard a noise starting up, and suddenly they were whirled around and around, forced to the outermost part of whatever they were in. Looking inwards, Stephen took stock of the whirling object that could not reach them, because they were kept at bay by centrifugal force.

“We’re in a blender, and this smells like cake mix,” said Stephen.

Finally the huge whirling device was switched off, and they saw Ann at the top, with a giant wooden ladle.

“Well children, I’m glad I found you,” she said, “This is one cake I’m not going to share.”

The more distressed the boys looked, the more Ann smiled. She ladled the cake mix into a cooking tray, and took particular delight in ladling the three boys in, one by one. Carlo held onto the edge of the spoon to steady his balance, still feeling a little giddy after their ordeal in the mixing bowl. The giantess Ann laughed. Carlo looked into her mouth until it closed again.

Ann put the finished cake mix tray into the oven and turned it on and closed the door.

“She’s really going to eat us,” said Carlo.

“At least Jumbeelia wanted to be friends with us long enough for us to try to escape,” said Stephen, “It would have worked for us, if Ann hadn’t been home to surprise us.”

The cake mix began to harden around them, and below the, as their feet didn’t reach the bottom. Finally Ann took the dish out of the oven and was taking it to the table, when Jumbeelia returned.

“Put them down! They’re mine!” she said, and snatched at the tray.

“Not any more,” said Ann, “I found them on the stairs, and finders eaters.”

“I found them first in their land?” said Jumbeelia.

“Their land? Do you want me to tell mother you went down the beanstalk? That’s the only way you could have gone to their land.”

“No, you won’t!” said Jumbeelia, and fought with her sister for the dish, which caused Ann to accidentally drop it.

The three boys were not hurt, as the cake had absorbed all of the impact of the fall. They struggled their way out of the cake, all except for Stephen. Being the eldest and hence the largest, he stuck too tightly to the cake. Above them, the girls were still fighting over who would eat them.

“Just get away,” said Stephen quietly, “If they look down, they’ll recapture all three of us.”

Carlo and Poppet were too scared to argue. They ran out into the garden, while Stephen looked on at the two sisters. Ann was taller, and always would be, even when they were both adults. Yet Jumbeelia was spurred on with anger at having lost her captives to her big sister, who always seemed to get the best of everything.

Carlo and Poppet made it to the garden and halfway to the top of the beanstalk, and then heard a shout from within the kitchen.

“The other two are getting away!” yelled Jumbeelia.

“Then stop fighting, and let’s catch them,” said Ann.

“I’ll lead them away from the beanstalk, while you run for it under the cover of flowers,” said Carlo.

“But you get caught,” said Poppet.

“Maybe, maybe not. I might have a chance to sneak back in and free Stephen, while they’re looking for us. If you do get to the bottom, find a way to get rid of the beanstalk! It’s the only way to stop them coming down after you.”

“But I never see you again.”

“You won’t anyway, if they catch us and eat us,” said Carlo, “Now hurry.”

Poppet ran downhill, while Carlo ran to the side, using whatever cover he could find, with both of the giant girls in hot pursuit. Poppet ducked under every flower he could, until he reached the beanstalk.

“Got you!” said Ann.

Poppet looked back to see that Ann had caught Carlo first, with her longer legs. Outrunning Carlo had never been the issue. It had been outrunning Jumbeelia, that she had had to ensure.

Poppet went down the beanstalk as fast as he could, and hoped the giant girls had assumed that he had gone in he same direction as Carlo. He could not think of any way to destroy the beanstalk, and he admitted to himself that his heart was not in such a course of action. He was determined to sneak back up there and rescue his friends, even if it meant disobeying them.

Meanwhile, in the giant garden, Ann and Jumbeelia had reached an understanding. Ann would never tell their mother that Jumbeelia had gone down the beanstalk, if Jumbeelia agreed to make no more trouble about an even share in the gobbling of the two boys. 16 year old Ann gave the 10 year old Carlo back to 14 year old Jumbeelia to eat, while Ann would eat 14 year old Stephen herself. Both of them also agreed never to venture down the beanstalk again, lest their mother be angry with them.

Ann retrieved her cake and took it up to her room and ate around Stephen, before gently but confidently eating him with great pleasure. Jumbeelia took Carlo up to her own room and gave him another kiss.

“What was that for?” asked Carlo.

“Because I like you,” said Jumbeelia.

“Then why must you eat me?” asked Carlo.

“Because you taste so nice,” said Jumbeelia.

It was amazing. Her moist mouth could be responsible for both affection and consumption. She put Carlo in her mouth and swished him around and then sent him down her throat. To her the incongruity of her actions was nothing unusual at all.

Just before sunset, Poppet climbed back up the beanstalk, and reached the garden by nightfall. There was light on in the kitchen in the distance, and he felt sure that it was the place he had to reach if he were ever to save Carlo and Stephen. He began walking through the garden, until he heard another voice say “hello” above him.

It did not sound like Jumbeelia or Ann. He looked up to see that it was Megarre, the girls’ mother. She picked him up in the moonlight.

“I thought you’d have been long gone down the beanstalk by now,” she said, “What’s your name, little boy?”

“Me Poppet. I come save friends.”

“But you can’t save them,” she said, “My daughters have already eaten them, and one of those girls will surely eat you two. I wonder, which one should I give you to?”

“I don’t know. Both want eat me,” said Poppet.

“Well why don’t I tell you a little secret story? That might help you to decide. You see, eight years ago, two small children came to explore the valley from a house with a special dolls house in it. They had both come from a place called Looking-Glass Land, after the two of them had run away from an orphanage and gone to a place called Wonderland. While in Wonderland, the girl had eaten some cake, and the boy had drunk some liquid. The boy had then been able to shrink to tiny size, which made him like an ant compared to me. The girl had been able to grow to my size.”

(In Alice’s time, she and Robert had assumed that the ‘EAT ME’ cake had caused shrinking and regrowth, while the ‘DRINK ME’ water of Wonderland had caused enlargement and reduction to normal size. In fact, the two items had the same properties. Either one enabled girls to become giants and boys to become tiny).

“Boy get smaller?” asked Poppet.

“Yes, he could. Anyway, I found them and decided to eat the boy and raise the girl as an adopted big sister for Jumbeelia. Ann was that girl, and she’s made me so proud. She’s taken to eating little boys from her own land as surely as if she’d been a natural born girl of Brobdingnag. Ann was always a little conscious, because she was adopted. I suppose I have overcompensated for this, by spoiling Ann and not Jumbeelia. It was too late, that I saw how resentful this made Jumbeelia. The two of them have fought so often. So which one of them should eat you, little boy? A girl from your land or a girl from mine?”

Poppet didn’t really know why, but he chose Ann.

Late that evening, when Jumbeelia and her father had gone to sleep, Megarre knocked softly on Ann’s door and took Poppet into the room.

“Look what I found in the garden,” she said, “Just have him for supper in here, and let Jumbeelia think he got away today.”

“Thank you, Mother,” said Ann, smiling gratefully, “I’m so thankful that you chose to give him to me.”

“I didn’t,” said Megarre, “HE did. Enjoy your supper. Goodnight, Poppet.”

“So why did you choose me?” asked Ann, after her mother had gone.

“You and me from down there,” said Poppet, “Me the same as you.”

“Not really,” teased Ann, “You will be eaten. I get to do the gobbling, and here I go.”

She put Poppet into her mouth and swallowed him.

Megarre had other things on her mind, and needed more sleep that night, for only a few days later, her third daughter Woozly was born.

After eating Poppet, Ann lay awake in bed, thinking about what he had said. Before she had gone to sleep, she knew that she wanted to reconnect with the land she’d left behind eight years earlier, to walk amongst the people who held her former size, enjoying the secret memory of having eaten two of them. She thought of ways to make those memories live more in her mind, and then had an idea.

For the next two years, as she finished school, Ann spent some of the holiday times at home reading the diaries of all the women in her family who had lived in that house throughout the centuries. The most significant woman to write about was Mrs Grimble, the one who had started the practice of giant women eating little boys.

In 1956, when Ann finished school, she walked to the Beanstalk one day, reduced herself to her original size, climbed down the beanstalk with enough gold to set herself up in the village, and then wrote a children’s play, which adapted Jack’s encounter with Mrs Grimble. She called it ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’.

She changed the ending that she’d remembered from the diary a little, so that Mrs Grimble caught Jack, just before he reached the beanstalk at the end of his first visit, and took him inside and ate him. She set up a stall in the village on market day, and began to sell copies of the book, which she had gotten published soon after writing it.

As everyone who’d been to the giant world had either fallen in love and stayed there, or been eaten by a giantess and never returned, there was nobody at the markets who didn’t find the story very original and imaginative. The book sold out quickly, and Ann had more copies printed. Word of its success spread like wildfire throughout the country, and many people bought copies. A highly successful movie was made in 1960, starring Gobbly Withers as Mrs Grimble, Joanna Lovely as Serena, and Slimathlete Dalton as Jack. Ann payed a brief visit back to her home in Brobdingnag, to tell her family of the success of the play, and learned that her parents had gone to live in a retirement village. Woozly had started boarding school, and would go and live with her parents in the holidays. When she was old enough, it was decided in advance, she would eventually be able to stay with her two big sisters.

In 1965, for a special presentation, Ann hired two local people from a casting agency to play Serena and Jack in a pantomime on the stage at the markets, and cast herself in the role of Serena.

Hundreds of years earlier, Mrs Grimble had detailed her first encounter with Jack very accurately, recalling all the dialogue that had taken place between them. When she had written her play in 1956, Ann had put all of Mrs Grimble’s and Jack’s speeches into the story, and channelled her own happy memories of eating Stephen and Poppet into her portrayal of Mrs Grimble.

Watching in the audience was a young boy named Humphrey. He was seven years old. A few months earlier, Humphrey had dreamt that he had met a giantess who had wanted him to pay her a coin. She had opened her mouth and asked him to put the coin onto her tongue. He had reached into her mouth and looked at her sparkling tongue and enjoyed making the payment and watching her swallow the coin. The dream had never made any sense to him, when he’d retro-analysed it while awake. Yet now he seemed to be particularly enjoying the way the pretty 27 year old Ann delivered some of Mrs Grimble’s lines.

Some of the original memoirs had been altered in the play, to make it more suitable for children, but now Humphrey watched and heard the scene where Jack said he loved Mrs Grimble. Humphrey was aroused beyond words, at the tender young age of seven, when he beheld the sight of the adorable Ann mouthing the words:

“In a way I love you too, Jack, but it won’t be long now before I really love eating you. I’ll just go and let Serena know I’ve caught another little boy and ask her to leave us in privacy. I’ll see you soon, you delicious little darling.”

Humphrey could not remove that combination of words and visual recollection from his mind. He remembered the dream he’d had about paying the giantess with a coin. Now he wished and wished that Ann could really be a giantess, and be saying these things to him, and then eat him. He’d read stories about people being able to fly, and entertained some thoughts of flying himself. Yet never until now had he so fervently wished for the impossible to be possible. 

Yet it couldn’t, as far as he knew. He wanted to at least tell Ann how he felt, yet he expected that she was just acting a role, and would have no actual desire to eat a little boy as a giantess. Somehow, the sight of a very pretty lady pronouncing the fate of being eaten had made it immeasurably appealing to Humphrey and Humphrey alone. The only other person who might have responded the same way was Pixi Smith, and he had shrunken himself by eating Wonderland cake and then been eaten by his teacher Louise hundreds of years earlier. As Louise had never been found out, and had gone on to live a private but very enjoyable life, there was no way that Humphrey would ever have learned about Pixi.

From then on, Humphrey’s daydreams and fantasies were all to do with being eaten. He began to notice ladies’ mouths in ways that had never caught his attention before. A few months later, he went walking in the woods one day and came to a field and found an actual beanstalk. He had no idea that Jack had actually planted one of Willie Tinkerer’s Wonder Beans hundreds of years earlier and brought this beanstalk into being. All he knew was that this looked like a beanstalk, and there might just be a giantess at the top. He wondered if he might actually meet one as pretty as Ann. If he told such a woman about Ann, and the longings that Ann’s pantomime performance had stirred in him, maybe just maybe she would be prepared to play out the role herself and eat him.

Suddenly it was something to hope for. Humphrey began the long climb up the beanstalk. It seemed to encapsulate everything he’d envisioned after seeing the pantomime. He’d never seen the movie, but the sights of his own land growing smaller far below him, and the look of things in the clouds above made him come to an incredible realisation.

“Maybe Ann found the beanstalk first, climbed it and then made up a story about a giant lady eating a little boy. That would explain how the beanstalk could be so real. But sadly it means that there won’t be any giants up there,” he thought, “Well I’ve come this far, and I can still imagine there are giants up there. I might as well finish the adventure and see how high this beanstalk goes. If only there really was a land of giant ladies at the top. Ann is so clever to think of all that.”

Humphrey soon came to the clouds, which obscured the rest of the beanstalk, and continued to climb until he came to a sight which surprised him again: He stepped off the beanstalk onto a beautiful garden plateau, and in the distance, although not that far away by giant standards, he saw a picturesque giant sized castle.

“There really must be giants up here after all,” he thought, “Ann didn’t make that part up either… Maybe she didn’t make any of it up. Maybe there really is a Mrs Grimble up here. If it’s all true, then the real Mrs Grimble must have really eaten Jack, and that means she’ll want to have me for dinner too. I can’t wait to meet her. I hope she’s as lovely as Ann.”

Humphrey made his way over to the castle and came to a very high step. It took him quite some time to climb it, and then he found himself in front of the towering door. There was simply no way that he could open the door, no way that he could knock on it audibly. He tried knocking, but the sound was negligible to whoever lived inside. He finally lay down on the step, convinced that all he could do was wait for someone to come out.

A little later in the morning, he heard giant footsteps approaching the door from the inside. Humphrey sat up in expectation and looked up, as the door opened inwardly, and then he had the surprise of his life.

In front of him, Humphrey saw two giant black shoes. He looked up a little more, and saw the lower portions of two giant legs. He could not see any knees, as he looked up further, to see a long dark skirt, and above that, a black jumper which made the giantess look more cuddly than ever. Finally, craning to look past her neck, he saw the stunning smiling face of Ann! She was now a giant.

Humphrey stepped to the back of the large stone step, so that he could look at her from a better angle.

“You can’t escape that way, little boy,” said Ann, with the same infectiously smiling face that he had seen in the pantomime, “I’m going to eat you all up.”

“Oh wow, Ann. You looked so good saying that in the pantomime. Now you really are a giant!”

“The pantomime? Were you in the audience?” she asked.

“Yes. I loved it so much. I’m so glad you’re going to eat me, Ann.”

Ann laughed.

“I don’t believe you, little boy, although I AM glad that I’m going to do it. I haven’t had a fan for dinner before.”

“Have you eaten anyone else?” he asked.

“You’ll be the third one,” she said.

“So how did you become a giant?” he asked.

“I’ll take you inside and tell you all about it,” she said.

Jumbeelia was away visiting her parents at the moment. Woozly was at boarding school. Ann carried him into a spacious living room and sat down on a couch and put him on the arm beside her.

“Should I call you Ann or Mrs Grimble?” he asked.

“Mrs Grimble was a relative of mine, but she died a long time ago,” said Ann, “I found another way into this land and the means to become a giant along the way. I shrank back and went to our old land for a while, to write the play. Now I’m a giant again, and you’re going to be a very delicious dinner for me.”

“Just like in the play,” said Humphrey, “The best bit is when you said: In a way I love you too, Jack, but it won’t be long now before I really love eating you. I’ll just go and let Serena know I’ve caught another little boy and ask her to leave us in privacy. I’ll see you soon, you delicious little darling.”

“How many times have you read that?” she asked.

“I don’t have the money to buy the book. I saw it at the play. It’s my favourite bit.”

“You won’t trick me into leaving you any opportunities to escape,” she said, “I’ve just decided that I won’t even wait for dinner. I’m going to take you into the dining room right now and have you for my lunch. You won’t have time to even think of any way to save yourself.”

When she said the words ‘have you for my lunch’, he was driven into an ecstatic frenzy that his young mind could not fully comprehend. It was all real. It was his special secret that Ann’s play had been based on fact, and that he would now be the sequel.

Now she was carrying him to the dining table. She put him down, turned the dining room light on and sat at the table, towing in front of him happily.

“I don’t want to save myself, Ann. This is what I’ve always wished you could do.”

Ann giggled and laughed and licked her lips.

“You never give up, do you, little boy. I’m going to gulp you down my throat! Yet there you are trying to fib me into believing that you want me to do it. You’re the sneakiest boy of the three, but you’ll soon be facing exactly the same slide down to my tummy that the other two went through.”

The way she was teasing and taunting him, with her own disbelief seemed to make it all the more enjoyable for him.

Ann picked him up and began licking him. When she stopped, he spoke up again.

“Thank you Ann. That was really nice. I love you wanting to eat me.”

“It’s a great act, for a boy your age. In fact you’re so talented, that I should have let you play Jack’s role in the pantomime; but let’s see how you cope with this. I’m going to put you into my mouth now and swallow you. Goodbye, little boy. I only wish I could see your act coming to an end, when you’re sliding off the back of my tongue,” said Ann in great amusement.

She slid the boy into her mouth and waited for him to admit that he had been acting. When no such admission came, she gobbled him into her throat and enjoyed the feel of him sliding down into her tummy.