“Thank you so much for telling me this. I love your licks, but it will be fantastic to be eaten by Mrs Long,” said Alexander.
“She thinks so too. She can’t wait to have you in her giant clutches. Will you give me a goodbye cuddle first?” asked Mrs Thomas, stepping back to the edge of the garden and resuming her normal size.
“Yes,” said Alexander.
They descended the beanstalk, and then had a long hug in the forest before walking back to the school.
A few days later, Mrs Long came to Alexander at lunch time.
“Would you please meet me down in the forest after school today, Alexander? I’ll have a surprise for you,” she said.
He met her on schedule and was taken up the beanstalk. Then Mrs Long grew to giant size and picked him up and took him to her office and sat down.
“Isn’t this a lot like Jack and the Beanstalk?” she asked.
“Yes it sure is,” said Alexander.
“I think that’s because it was really a true story, or something like it,” said Mrs Long, “Do you remember how the story ended?”
“Yes,” said Alexander, “Jack got away and was very rich.”
“Well you aren’t going to get away,” said Mrs Long, with an exciting look of amusement on her face, “I’m going to gobble you all up on Friday afternoon in the outer gardens at the gazebo.”
“Wow!” said Alexander.
“There’s nothing you can do,” said Mrs Long, “The others at our school down there don’t even know about the beanstalk. I’ll be looking forward to my afternoon tea.”
On the remaining days of the week, Mrs Long talked with him for a while each day after school before heading home. He was always able to look out her office window and see her moving about in the school gardens, until she left. On the Friday, she took him out to the distant gazebo and began to taste him with her tongue, which she continued to do until she was ready to gulp him down. She lifted him up and dangled him over her mouth. He looked down in at her laughing tongue and felt thrilled beyond words as she lowered him slowly towards it.
“Let that little boy go!” said a woman’s voice.
“Mrs Yeo!” said Mrs Long.
“Yes, and as long as I’m headmistress of this school, there will be none of the gobblings that went on back in the time when Louise Grande was headmistress. You are to let that boy come and go as he pleases, if he chooses to visit us, and never use your position as a teacher here to eat boys from the little places beyond.”
Mrs Long had no idea that his disappointment matched her own. The next year, 1979, when he was 11, he came back to the giant school after school one day, found Mrs Long and asked her if she would like to go out on a date with him, such as a picnic.
She was a little surprised, given the circumstances, but accepted and dated him until late the following year, 1980, keeping it secret from both schools. One day in 1980, she invited him home to her giant house, and carried him there after meeting him secretly outside the giant school.
When they got there, she put him down on the dining room table and had dinner with him. Then she took him to her bedroom and put him on the pillow beside her cheek, so that he could cuddle against her cheek.
“I’ve got another big surprise for you,” she said, “I’ve resigned from both schools. So I’m not answerable to the headmistress anymore. Tomorrow night, I’m going to cook you in my oven and then gobble you all up for my dinner.”
How he admired her forthright amusement as she announced this. He kept secret about his own desires and old talks he’d had with Mrs Thomas, and waited eagerly for the end of the day. When it came, Mrs Long warmed him up in the oven, while walking around the room in her loveliest dress. Eventually she took him out and into the dining room and sat towering in front of him, the greatest vision of beauty he’d ever seen.
She lifted him to her laughing mouth, licked him a number of times, and then slid him in onto her tongue for some time and then he heard a soft laugh coming up from her throat. He knew what was to come next. With that, she gulped him into her throat and kept on swallowing until he reached her giant stomach.