It was the greatest feeling he’d ever experienced.

“Was that okay?” she asked.

“Yes thank you very much. Your tongue feels so nice, Mrs Thomas. Can I touch it with my hands?”

“If you like,” she said, and opened her mouth and let the tip of her tongue rest on her lower lip.

He reached in and ran his hand over it, and then the other hand. After a while he undid his shirt buttons and asked her to lick his chest and his neck. Mrs Thomas complied in an amicable way. Alexander took the shirt off and finally had Mrs Thomas lick all of his upper body in a series of thrilling movements.

“This is such an easy way to make someone happy,” she said, and went on talking about her surprise at all of these developments.

Alexander looked in at her tongue while she talked, and then he raised the most challenging question of all.

“Mrs Thomas, there is one more thing which would make me happier than ever,” he said, “Would you please let me climb into your mouth and slide over your tongue and down your throat and into your tummy?”

“Are you asking me to EAT you?” she asked.

“Yes Mrs Thomas. I’d like it very much.”

“But you won’t be able to come back.”

“I know. Your mouth looks nice and your tummy looks soft and nice to go into and stay there forever. Please, please eat me all up, Mrs Thomas.”

“Well Alexander, it’s a unique honour to be asked to eat up one of my students, but I don’t think I’d like to have a little boy wiggling around in my tummy. All of this has been very unusual, and I don’t mind doing the licking, but I think it would be going a little far to eat you. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like the taste. You’re very delicious and very sweet. I hope you’re not upset with me.”

“No Mrs Thomas. I just wish you could do it. Thank you for the licking.”

For the next year or so, he would often meet her in her room at lunch time or after school, shrink to tiny size and hide from her. She would search the room until she found him and then give him lots of licks.

Towards the end of the following year, 1978, Mrs Thomas approached Alexander one day and said, “I’d like to talk to you in the forest. I might have some good news for you.”

He went into the forest with her after school, when nobody was around to see them. She led him all the way to a beanstalk, climbed up it with him and showed him the edge of the giant school garden.

“I’m changing to this school,” she said, “Mrs Long told me about it. She’s 35 now. She was walking in the forest one day, when she was 22. She found your Wonderland cake and this beanstalk and discovered that the cake had given her the ability to grow to giant size. She became a teacher here, and married a giant who lived up in the hills within giant walking distance from this giant school. Last year she became a widow, which is why we’ve become such close friends and why she told me about all this. I’ve been a widow for a while too. Anyway, Mrs Long decided to reduce her teaching schedule as a giantess, and to become a part time teacher at your school too at the beginning of this year. That’s why you don’t see her all week. She only teaches maths in both schools. She showed me the Wonderland hole and I tried the cake too and found that I could become a giant and shrink back to normal size.”

Mrs Thomas grew to giant size and demonstrated her size advantage, picking him up and sitting down on a nearby garden seat.

“That makes you as big as you look to me when I’m shrunken,” he said.

“What do you think about Mrs Long’s mouth?” asked Mrs Thomas.

Mrs Long had long dark brown hair and fuller lips than Mrs Thomas, and her tongue sparkled magnificently whenever Alexander looked into it during classes.

“It’s very nice,” said Alexander, “Would she eat me, if I asked her to?”

“You won’t need to ask her,” said Mrs Thomas, “Have you noticed Mrs Long taking an interest in you lately?”

“Yes, actually,” said Alexander.

“She tells me all her secrets, but she doesn’t know about my friendship with you. So she didn’t realise that I might warn you about this, in case you don’t want to be eaten by her. If you do, then all you have to do is accept her invitation. She’s going to ask you to meet her after school in the forest. Then she’ll take you to the beanstalk and up into this school garden and over to her own office  … until she’s ready to eat you. If you come here, you’ll have to be sure that you want her to do it, because she’ll never let you go. She’ll still be teaching in both schools next year, but if her plans go ahead, she’ll have eaten you before this year’s out.”