Her throat would be too high, and probably too slippery to climb back up out of, and he could never get her to open her mouth. She would merely draw him back into her throat and swallow him again. How sweet and exciting at the same time were the sights of her tongue each time she put it out for the next mouthful of salad.

Judith ate mixtures of smoked salmon, capsicum, lettuce and onion enthusiastically, with Kim looking on in secret admiration at every movement of her hand, tongue, lips or neck. He eagerly awaited his turn to be fed into that beautiful mouth, but it did not come until she had eaten all of the salmon salad around him first. Then at last, he saw her place the last handful into her mouth, and looked around at the otherwise empty bowl.

To his exhilaration, Judith looked directly at him and brought her fingers towards him. She closed them around him, and brought him up towards her mouth. He kept a close eye on her mouth, knowing that he’d only have a short time to see her tongue when it approached. After that he would be inside her mouth, only able to enjoy the feeling of her tongue in the darkness. He would have a better and slightly longer view than he had had, when he was looking up at the salad approaching her tongue, because the tongue would be visible to him longer than it had been when the salad had moved to cover it. However, this advantage would only be momentary. He had to make the most of it while he could.

Judith’s mouth opened in front of him, and he saw her sparkling pink tongue coming out.

“It’s even bigger than my whole body!” he thought in excitement, “I’ll be touching it any second now.”

As he looked at the tongue, Judith seemed to have held it in the extended position for several seconds longer than she had done with the salad. He wondered when she would move him onto it. It was only two inches away, but still unreachable. He wondered why she was delaying, and looked up at her eyes. Judith stared at him.

“Kim! Now I can recognise your face!” she said, “I had no idea that it was my little friend from next door. How did you come to be so small?”

He told her about the shrinking water from the pool.

“Maybe I haven’t found any little folk yet after all,” she said.

“You had proof, you said,” replied Kim.

“Have any boys gone missing from your school, apart from you?” she asked.

“Yes, only Devonport, Hambert, Ronnie and Chip,” said Kim, “Nobody knows what happened to them.”

“I think I know what happened to three of them,” said Judith, unaware that Miss Lamb had eaten Ronnie, “I’d say they must have drunk from the same shrinking water. You’re the first one I brought here for a picnic. I found each of the others and picked them straight up, put them in my mouth and swallowed them down without giving them a chance to tell me that they weren’t little folk. They wouldn’t have even known that I’d made the mistake of thinking that they were little folk. I almost ate you up too. Do you still love me, little Kim?”