Swayna peeked in the window, to see that Jerro was not in sight. She hoped Brooke hadn’t eaten him yet, but at least she could enter the classroom still ostensibly unaware that her sister had captured Jerro.

She put Roman down, and let him start running.

Swayna quickly made her way to the classroom, walked in and said, “Hi. I just saw one of those little boys in the garden outside. I didn’t want to keep him though. He’s too young to go out with. He’s only in elementary school, I’d say.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Mrs Middlehyde, “He’s not too young to eat! Which way did he go?”

Swayna took her sister out and pointed in the direction Roman had gone.

“Thank you, Sis. I’m surprised you didn’t want to save him.”

“Well I don’t think you’ll catch him now anyway. I should get back to my homework,” said Swayna, and pretended to walk off.

As soon as Mrs Middlehyde was in the garden on all fours, Swayna went into the classroom and called for Jerro, not too loudly. He heard her and called back. He was in a shelf on the side of the classroom. Swayna got him out of the classroom quickly and ran back to her dormitory with him. They enjoyed their time together and then she took him to a Trans-D tube and let him go safely back home for now.

Roman was running frantically through the garden. He could hear Mrs Middlehyde crawling behind him, but then he reached the end of the flowerbed. There was open lawn in front of him again. Still, if he went back into the flowerbed, he would be headed straight towards Mrs Middlehyde. He had no choice but to try to run across the huge expanse of lawn, before she emerged at the very spot he was standing in now.

He sprinted, and sprinted.

“There you are!” he heard behind him.

He was less than halfway there.

He turned around and stood still. He was exhausted anyway, and he would never outrun her now. He watched her walk briskly over to him and stoop down and pick him up.

“I was a little surprised when my sister told me there was a little boy like you here. I’ve already caught a teenager for dinner, but you’ll make a nice treat tomorrow night. Then my housemistress on duty roster week will be over, and I can go home to my daughters, who are staying with my mother at the moment.”

She took him to the classroom and opened the same shelf, and found Jerro gone.

“It would seem I’ve been decoyed,” she said aloud, and instantly saw through all of Swayna’s schemes, “It looks like your 24 hour reprieve is lost now, little boy.”

Mrs Middlehyde sat at her desk and held him gently in her finger and thumb. To her, he felt like a small crayfish waiting to disappear down her throat.

“I’ll bet you’re just waiting to have your little legs washed down,” she said, and began licking him.

It was the most thrilling and frightening thing that could be happening to a boy.

When she had finished tasting him, she put him into her mouth and enjoyed him for several moments longer, and then gulped him away.

She made a point of sitting next to her sister during boarders dinner that evening.

“It seems we both know who your boyfriend is now, Sis. I will try to get him back. Ten points for giving up the younger boy as a decoy though. He was nice,” said Brooke.

“Jerro and I had better be more careful then,” said Swayna.

The next day, Toby once again snuck into the school, this time during lunch break. He saw Mrs Long and another teacher named Miss Cartwright sitting on the seat, having lunch together and talking.

“How are things going between you and Dirk?” asked Mrs Long.

“You won’t believe what we did recently. I handcuffed my hands together behind my back, and met him near the Trans-D tube near my science classroom, and –“

“Near your science classroom. I thought it was on the other side of the school buildings,” said Mrs Long.

“There must be more of them then,” said Miss Cartwright, “This is a new one I’ve found recently. There seem to be more than one of them. Who knows how many are in the school?”

She didn’t know that their own experimental attempt to enlarge the first one they’d found had created all the others.

“Anyway, I interrupted you,” said Mrs Long, “What happened next?”

“Well I was in the garden, lying on my side, handcuffed. As we’d arranged over the internet, he walked right up to my face, and I licked him, and then he arranged for me to recover the key to the handcuffs, after he’d gone to safety,” said Miss Cartwright.

“It’s quite an accomplishment for you both to have maintained this situation between you all this time. I was after Willy for so long, but with Jenny no longer in the school, I suspect she’s taken him away from here forever. I won’t get another chance to catch him and eat him,” said Mrs Long.

Toby was analysing everything she said. So it seemed she had been pursuing another boy for quite some time, and now he was her next potential quarry. If she ever learned he’d been willing to come back, she’d not let up until she caught him. Then he remembered a boy in his year in prep school called Willy, and knew who her would be victim had been.

“So are there any other boy meal prospects for you?” asked Miss Cartwright.

“I caught a boy named Toby not long ago. He looked very young and delicious, but he got away. I would have said I doubt he’d be back, but he did tell me he was in love with me. I’ve learned from your time with Dirk, that these little boys are very impressionable and will risk anything to come back and see us again,” said Mrs Long, “I think he’s the first one I’ve wanted more than Willy. I wish I could catch Tiny Toby and gobble him whole!”

Toby thought she might be getting a little too close to the truth. He ran back to the tube and dived through. His lunch hour was almost up anyway, and he still had to run through the forest.

After the close shave with Toby, Mrs Long decided to wrap up her song ‘The Thin Edible Shrinking Student’. She had based the daughter Ellen on her own imagination of Kirsty growing up and dating and marrying some day. To that end, she finally wrote two more verses to conclude the story, having worked out what Ellen’s response to Stefan would be in the concluding verses. She hoped that Casey would like the ending:

She licked his young cheeks and said, "You taste delicious, and opened her mouth, with a yawn.

She placed him inside it, and closed it, which left him defeated, contained and forlorn.

"She's just like her mother," he thought, "This is it." Then she put him back onto her palm,

And said, "Did you think I would swallow you? I was just teasing. Relax and be calm."

She helped him recover his size, the next morning, but first he slept close to her face;

And when he was full-sized again, she was ready and willing to fondly embrace

The boy. So her mother accepted that he would not enter her stomach at all.

He did enlarge Ellen, from five foot to six-three:- Bride groweth before wedding ball.

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

Swayna met Jerro after school and took him straight to the boarding house. This time there had been no sign of Brooke, but they had used a different Tube outlet. She put him on her desk, while she did her homework. Jerro took his homework and pens out of his backpack and did his too.

“When I get home, I’ll say I stayed back and did my homework. They can assume I did it in the school library on my earth,” said Jerro.

“My sister’s not going to give up looking for you,” said Swayna, and carefully omitted mentioning the cost at which she had obtained Jerro’s freedom from her sister.

“I wasn’t sure, whether I would end up in her stomach or not, when she caught me,” said Jerro, “I knew you were expecting me, and hoped you’d seen her catch me. Then I waited for so long in the classroom. How did you get her out of there?”

“I sent her on a wild boy chase,” said Swayna, “I told her I’d seen another boy in the gardens outside. She ran after the prospect of catching a second meal, and I came in and got you out. The point is that she knows you’re my boyfriend, and that I plotted your escape. She’ll never stop trying to catch you. She probably guessed that you’re in here with me sometimes. She’ll keep waiting for a chance to intercept you on your way here or home. We’ll have to be very arbitrary about our choice of which Tube to use each time.”

She lay down and felt him lying against her cheek. It made her feel great warmth. She admired this boy, and felt very special to him, for him to be so willing to keep risking her sister’s attacks in order to see her. She had no regrets about sacrificing Roman. Of course she would have preferred to avoid his untimely demise. However, she had clearly explained to the boy that he was needed in order to preserve her relationship with Jerro. Roman had made his way to Brooke’s tummy for the good of both Swayna and another boy his own size.

“Swayna, do you see us being together for always?” asked Jerro.

“It’s something I’m sure I’d like,” said Swayna.

“So would I,” said Jerro, “But it will be difficult for us to plan a marriage and interact with your family, with your sister constantly out to eat me. We might avoid it for years, and then one day she could catch me.”