Pandora picked one of the vegetables and took a bite. It had a very pleasant taste, albeit not familiar nor in any way like anything she’d ever tasted before. In fact the only taste she could recall enjoying more was Lennox.

She swallowed it, and then looked at the others.

“I don’t feel any different,” said Pandora.

“But you do look like you were five years ago,” said Bob.

He picked another blue vegetable and sampled it as well.

When they’d finished, Pandora had resumed the appearance of herself at age 35. Bob had stopped at three bites, and was now 37, at the request of Pandora, who dissuaded him from going down to 32. It was Moira who took the smallest number of bites, only two. Being in her forties, she would be content to join the other two in their thirties.

“What’s the worry for any of us?” asked Moira, “I can always bring us back here, and we can get even younger again if we want to. Or we can all wait another twenty or thirty years, and then come back here for another four or six bites each. And I can bring any partner I have back here to equalize our ages too.”

When they got back to the present, Pandora gave Lennox the biggest surprise he’d had since he’d learned about her impending gianthood and eating plans.

“I remember one episode, when you were wearing your hair up, with a short wig over it,” said Lennox, “You look a bit like that now. Your hair was usually long and down in the show.”

“Would you like me to grow it long again before we set the date for me to eat you?” she asked.

“Would you? I’d love it,” said Lennox.

“You remember when we were talking about Murray and Trudi,” said Pandora, “You also said that he got to be 14 again. I had a talk with Moira after Bob went home today. She already knows about you and our upcoming plans. She said she’d be happy to take you back to the Mountain of Youth with me, if you’d like to make yourself 14 again before I gobble you up.”

“Do you think I look too old, now that you’re 35 again?” he asked.

“It’s not that,” said Pandora, “I’m sure you’d be the nicest dinner I could have at any age. I was just thinking that when you saw my 35 year old self in the school holidays on TV, I was actually 50 in real life. If you make yourself almost 15 again with two bites, given that you’re almost 25 now, then for you, our ages would be exactly as you remember them the day you first saw me on one of those rerun episodes.”

“Oh yes, it sounds wonderful. Let’s do it, and thank Moira for me!” said Lennox.

“You can, when you meet her,” said Pandora.
Lennox realised that he had been too excited to think of the obvious.