In present day, Madame Leontine Grogrande the scientist had a visit from a seven year old boy with a strange request.
“I’m John Dough,” said the boy, “And I want to go bun-gy jumping. Can you turn me into bread like a bun, so it’s not so dangerous when I jump off the cliff?”
Madame Grogande applied herself to the task, and had soon perfected a machine that would transform a meat person into a bread person and vice versa. It was built in the shape of an oven. So she bade the boy to get inside it, and then turned it on. In time he could still feel his limbs, but they felt soft and malleable like gingerbread, because they were gingerbread.
“Oh well, it’s not a bun,” said Madame Grogande, “but you should still be able to go off that cliff more gingerly now.”
John Dough thanked her kindly, promising to return for the reverse treatment, after he had enjoyed his bun-gy jumping experience. He had to walk through a picnic area to get to the edge of the cliff. As it was the middle of the week, the place was largely deserted. Yet John saw a woman sitting at a table staring at him with mingled surprise and interest.
“Good morning, Madam,” said he.
“Why he’s really alive!” gasped the woman.
“Is a live person so very unusual?” asked John curiously.
“Surely when he’s made of cake!” answered the woman, still staring as if she could not believe her eyes.
“Pardon me. I am not cake, but gingerbread,” he answered in a rather dignified way.
“It’s all the same,” she answered, “You haven’t any right to be alive. There’s no excuse for it.”
“But how can I help it?” he asked, somewhat puzzled by this remark.
“Oh I don’t suppose it is your fault. But it isn’t right, you know. Who made you?”
“Madam Grogande the scientist,” he said.
“I always knew that scientists were mostly mad,” she declared, “Are you done?”
Before he could reply, she had drawn a large spoon from her plate and stuck it into his side.
“Don’t do that!” he cried indignantly, as she drew out the spoon again.
“I was only trying you,” she remarked, “You’re done to a turn, and you ought to make good eating while you’re fresh.”
John Dough gazed at her in surprise!
“Good eating!” he cried, “Woman, would you destroy me?”
“I can’t say it would be exactly destroying,” she replied, looking at him hungrily.
“To finish me off is destruction,” he said sternly.
“But to finish off gingerbread isn’t such a bad thing,” she rejoined, “And I can’t see that it’s cannibalism to eat a boy if he happens to be made of gingerbread and fresh baked. And that frosting looks good. Come, climb up on the table, while I whet my appetite.”
He tried to run, but the strong woman grabbed him by the arm, and soon had a firm hold on both of his arms, and heaved him up onto the table, where he saw that she had a large empty dish beside a picnic basket which was still packed.
She placed him on the dish and then took firm hold of one of his legs.
“I dare say you won’t be trying to run away again, once your leg is in my tummy,” she said, and bit into his leg.
He felt a tingling, as she bit off his foot. There was no pain, but his foot was being chewed up in her mouth, even as he watched. It would do him no good to be turned back into a meat boy now. The meat foot would surely be missing, just as the gingerbread foot was gone.
“Please stop eating me!” he cried, as she swallowed his foot in stages and leaned down and bit into his shoulder.
“Your half baked ideas about escaping won’t do you any good now,” she said, and began to bite mouthful after mouthful from his arms, his legs, and then his body, until only his head was left.
“Most of me is in your tummy!” he said, “You’ve no idea what it feels like to lose so much of oneself!”
“Maybe I don’t, but if you think I’m going to quit while you’re ahead, I’m afraid you’re wrong,” she said, and began biting from his cheek.
When she reached his last eye, he actually saw its journey into her mouth and down into her dark throat.
“A very well bred young man he was too,” she thought happily, and carried her obsolete picnic provisions home in the basket.