“Where is Peter Pan now?” inquired Woot.

“The cage is hanging up in my bedroom,” said Miss Yoop, eating some more of her supper.

Woot the Wanderer was now more uneasy and suspicious of the Giantess than before. If Peter Pan, who could fly, had been captured and imprisoned by this huge woman, what was liable to happen to Woot?

“Do you know, Madam, who I am?” asked Woot.

“Of course,” said she, “a small teenaged boy.”

“I am a nice friendly person,” said Woot.

“All the better,” she replied, “I shall enjoy your presence all the more on that account. For I mean to keep you here as long as I live, and I stopped aging years ago, in my thirties.”

Woot didn’t like this speech at all, and frowned in a way that made Miss Yoop smile.

“I have powerful friends who will soon come to rescue me,” said Woot.

“Let them come,” she returned, with an accent of scorn, “When they get here, they will find no boy, for tomorrow morning, I intend to cook you and eat you for my breakfast. Once inside me, you will not be found.”

This threat filled him with dismay. The good natured Giantess was more terrible than he had imagined. She could smile and wear pretty clothes and at the same time be even more cruel than she had been to Peter Pan.

Woot tried to think of some way to escape from the castle before morning, but she seemed to see his thoughts in his eyes and shook her head.

“Don’t worry your poor brain,” said she, “You can’t escape me, however hard you try. But why should you wish to escape? Be contented with your fate, for discontent leads to unhappiness and unhappiness in any form is the greatest trouble that can befall you.”

“What recipe do you intend to use me in?” asked Woot earnestly.

“I haven’t decided as yet. I’ll dream over it tonight. So in the morning, I shall have made up my mind how to cook you. Perhaps you’d prefer to choose your own recipe?”

“No,” said Woot, “I prefer to remain as I am.”

“That’s funny,” she retorted, “You are little and you’re weak; as you are, you’re not much account anyhow. The best thing about you is that you look tasty, for I shall be able to make of you some sort of delicious recipe which will be a great improvement on your current role in my castle as a trespasser.”

Miss Yoop stood up and bade him follow her into the next room. Woot looked back at the door and saw that it had not the room for him to slip under it. He had never seen a giantess before. She was neither old and ugly nor disagreeable in face or manner. Yet she frightened her prisoner in a way that nobody had ever done before.

“Please be seated,” she said to him, as she sat herself down in a great armchair and spread her beautiful embroidered dress for him to admire. But the chairs in the room were so high that he could not climb to the seat of any of them. Miss Yoop observed this, and beckoned him closer and lifted him up onto the seat of the soft armchair beside her own.

“Now tell me of your powerful friends,” said Miss Yoop.

“If Princess Ozma knew that you dared to eat a citizen of Oz, she would send General Jinjur’s all girl army out to deal with you severely.”

Miss Yoop stuck out her tongue in derision.

“And THAT for your Ozma!” exclaimed the giantess, “What do I care for a princess whom I have never seen and who has never seen me?”