“That’s very sweet of you,” she said, and picked him up and kissed him on his entire face, “Do you understand that you’ll dissolve in my tummy? It won’t hurt, but you’ll be all eaten up.”
“I still want you to…. Please eat me, Miss Jensen?”
“Alright,” she said, and took him in the fingers of her left hand, but why don’t you watch this first, just to be sure.”
She leaned down and picked a handful of grapes from a bunch that grew at the edge of the flowerbed. She used the tips of the fingers which held him to pluck grapes, one at a time, and place them into her mouth. He was able to see the grapes being put onto her tongue and eaten at point blank range. It was the most spectacular sight that he had ever beheld. Then she reached for a glass of water on the other side of the seat, not the one with the book, and drank it, washing her mouth thoroughly.
“The boy who made me a giant didn’t know I was going to swallow him,” said Miss Jensen, “I didn’t even know myself until I’d tasted him in my mouth for a few minutes. Miss Shields must have seen me gulping him down and then rushed you all indoors. Why don’t you slide over my lip and onto my tongue and lie in there for a while? I’ll leave my mouth open and you can look off the back of my tongue and down my throat. It’ll give you more to think about, before you tell me you’re really really sure. You have to be really sure, Jeremy. There’s no coming back from my tummy.”
“Thank you, Miss Jensen.”
He eased himself over her lower lip and onto her tongue. Unlike Flip he would enjoy the subsequent experience as much as this one. He lay there for a long time, until he felt her tongue extending out of her mouth and her hand clasping him again. He was turned to face her beaming eyes.
“You’re the tastiest of them all,” she said, “Do you still want me to gobble you down?”
“Oh yes please!” he said.
“You’re my most special student!”
“I love you Miss Jensen.”
“I love you too,” she said, and let him snuggle against her cheek and look out at the giant garden while they talked for a little longer.
“The sun will be going down soon,” she said, “Would you like me to do it now?”
“Yes,” said Jeremy.
“It might be nice for me to lean my head back a little and put out my tongue and lower you onto it. Would you like that?”
“It’ll be so exciting!” said Jeremy.
“Then goodbye, little darling,” said Miss Jensen.
She lifted him a little over the height of her mouth this time, and then arched her head back. He looked down at her outstretched neck with a recognition of the fact that it would soon be gulping him down.