Mrs Long walked out into her garden and bent down and looked into the drain.

“Hello Toby,” she said, “I thought you might like to talk. I bought some dolls house tea cups and made some tea. Would you like some?”

“Thank you,” he said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll fill a tiny cup and stand it just in front of the grate. You can reach through and take it, when I move back a little and sit down.”

“It’s nice to be able to do this with you,” he said.

“So tell me Toby, if you did succeed in getting your size back, would you go off and marry someone from your own world eventually?”

“I don’t think so. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, and I love you so strongly.”

“But I’m the only woman you see each day now. If you could walk the town freely again, and return to your job, you’d met plenty of other girls.”

“I had the opportunity to do that, from the moment I fled the giant school and stopped seeing you, until the day I met you in the food mall.”

“You know, I do believe you’re absolutely devoted to me, Toby. If it makes you feel any better, I’m quite set on you in my own way too.”

“As dangerous as that is, it’s also very arousing,” he said.

“I’m flattered, really, but I’m amazed that you can keep living like this, hiding out in a drain all day, and sneaking around at night, if you’re even game to keep doing that. What keeps your spirits up?”

“Moments like these last few minutes we’ve been having now,” he said.

He could swear she was blushing. For all her warnings and determination, she still felt fond of him. She would just never act on it, because she was very keen on eating Toby.

“In the future, Toby, when you’re lying in my mouth, waiting for the gulp that will take you down to my stomach forever, and you think about this moment … and you will … be mindful of this one immutable fact (which changes nothing of the predicament you’re in, by the way): I love you, little Toby.”

Toby had savoured what little he could from the conversations with Mrs Long at the entrance to the drain which protected him from her. She had shrunken her daughter, and then him, so that she retained the same size advantage on earth in the house she had been given by Miss Cartwright.

He knew that Mrs Long would never let him search the house for long enough to find the growth pills to restore his size. He had only one option left.

Early one morning, half an hour before sunrise, he snuck into the house, and waited until the first rays of sunshine shone. Then he walked over to Mrs Long’s handbag, which rested on the floor. He climbed into the open flap, managed to pull out her notepad and a pencil, and sat on the floor and wrote:

“Dear Mrs Long,

I don’t need to remind you how completely in love with you I am. I would have given anything for our romantic interlude in your world to have led to marriage.

However, we both know that you now have all the advantages, and if I keep trying to find the pills and restore my size, you will eventually catch me and eat me forever.

So the most I can hope for is to build a new life at tiny size, but a life far away from the dangerous woman with whom I have fallen in love. I did not want to flee from you, but you have often reminded me yourself, that you expect to catch me and eat me one day. That is something I cannot risk. Goodbye my darling. I actually wish you a happy life. What a shame it is, that you will not be spending it with me.

All my love always,

Toby.”

He put the note and the pencil and the pad back in her handbag, and walked away.

Later that morning, when her daughter had left, Mrs Long found the note in her handbag. She ran out to check the drain and found that Toby was not there. She ran to the fence, and peered over into the next door neighbour’s property. She saw no sign of him. She tried the same with the back door neighbour, and the neighbour on the other side.

He could have headed in any direction, even out the front and across the road before the traffic started.

“I’ve lost him,” she thought, “The one I loved the most, the one I most wanted to eat, and he’s gotten away.”

She went out to console herself.

Toby stepped out from behind a cupboard. This was the moment he had waited for. He had tricked Mrs Long into going out for the whole day. He began a far more comprehensive search of the house, engaging in a lot of strenuous climbing. He eventually came to a chest of drawers. The second from the top was partly open. He had a time climbing it, and then jumped into the drawer. It was lit by the sunlight at the front, but the rear three quarters of its contents were in darkness. He didn’t see how he could get the other drawers open, but this one had to be searched. Maybe he could sneak back on other days, when she had left them open.

He rummaged around in the drawer, and had no success in finding the pills at the front. Then, to his surprise, he heard Mrs Long coming into the house.

“She had only gone out until lunch time, and now the lunch could be me!” he thought.

Several items of her make-up were beside him. He had no chance to get out of the drawer and sneak out of the house, as he heard her walking towards the very room he was in.

He ran to the back of the drawer, and felt about. There was a pencil case zipper beside him. He quietly opened it enough, to allow him to get into the pencil case. He slid in, and began to pull the zipper closed from the inside. He couldn’t quite close it all the way, as the handle was on the outside. He peeked out, and saw Mrs Long’s lovely hand reach into the drawer.

Her finger and thumb closed around a lipstick, and she lifted it from the drawer. Then he saw her hand come back, and reach towards the back of the drawer.

“If she takes this pencil case, she’s got me,” he thought.

She grasped a small hairbrush near the pencil case and took it out. Then he felt the whole drawer opening as far as it would go. Peeking out, he watched her tidying up the contents of the drawer. He wondered what was in the pencil case, and whether it was something she was likely to want at this time. He felt about gently, and found something which felt very much like a pill!

“I may have just found them!” he thought. He ate the pill as quietly as he could, but the crunching sound was unavoidable. He hoped she hadn’t heard it.

Nothing happened to his size. He felt about again, and felt several pills. Yet what use were they, if they could not restore his size?

Then his efforts (to move quietly in the dark) failed completely, as he disturbed a pile of pills, causing them to rattle against each other. He felt the pencil case being lifted out of the drawer, and then saw Mrs Long’s face appear, as she opened the case.

“You’ve been very clever this time,” she said, “If I hadn’t come back to freshen up before going out for lunch, I wouldn’t have caught you here. You’re a young genius, Toby. What better way to make me leave you here unguarded, than by convincing me you’d already fled the premises forever? It looks like we’re finally going to have that  meal arrangement I promised you.”

“I’m already jealous that you weren’t freshening up for me,” he said.

He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m sure I can do that, if you like,” she said.

“You looks lovely,” he said, “Can I watch you doing your freshening up?”

“Certainly. She sat him on top of the chest of drawers, and sat on a stool in front of it. He watched her lovely hand stroking and brushing her hair. He loved the way it bobbed back against her white cheeks, when she released it.

Then she applied her lipstick. As she parted her lips in a suitable pout, he looked in at her tongue in wonder. It was so beautiful. At least he’d be able to touch it again soon, just before …. Before the end, he realised.

“How do I look?” she asked at last.

“More beautiful than ever,” he said, “At least I won’t go unstimulated.”

She took him to the kitchen, placed him on a plate, and took him to the dining room table.

“You’ve had too many escapes for me to leave anything to chance, Toby. This is going to be it for you.”

“I understand, darling. I still wish it could be different.”

“Isn’t it ironic, that I did nothing to catch you? The one time I actually caught you happened when I gave up, and when you tried a sneaky trick. Little did I know what a mouth watering lunch I would be freshening up for.”

She licked her prize a few times, and then held him above her tilting head. She opened her mouth right below him and spoke, showing him a view of her lips and tongue which combined with the words to arouse Toby as he had never been aroused in his life before, not even by his previous encounters with Mrs Long:

“And now, little Toby, and I have chosen these words according to your old fondness for them: I am going to gobble you all up!”

Toby’s heart went wild, as he looked down into her mouth. When she had finished speaking, her mouth opened wider still. Her tongue was like a thrilling wet carpet below him.

Then he suddenly grew back to normal size, falling out of her hand and back onto the table.

“I thought I’d caught you in time,” she said, “You must have taken one of those pills after all.”

“I thought it was the wrong pill, when nothing happened. It must have taken a while.”

“Well you’ve been tiny for a long time. Your body would have been used to its reduced size. It took a while for the pills to take effect.”

“And here I am sitting on your table, with no clothes on.”

“I’ll get you a pair of my husband’s old pants,” she said.

She gave him a shirt and trousers. He put them on, and then she put her arms around him for a long time. It was the hug that their friendship demanded.

“I’ll never accept food or drink from you again,” he said.

“I do still love you, Toby, but you’ve escaped my plans yet again.