“Well Pixi, it’s a unique honour I’ve never had before. You’re the first little boy who’s ever even wanted me to gobble him all down, let alone found the means to enable me to do it. I could put you back into my mouth if you like, but that’s as far as it would go. If I swallowed you, I would be without the job of teaching you. I would have to leave this nice house.”

“Well it would still be nice to go into your mouth sometimes.”

She kindly obliged him, and her mouth eventually opened to reveal that she had walked into the kitchen and prepared a treat for him to eat. They sat and talked for hours in the living room, and he explained every aspect of the way that she had affected him.

“You’re very sweet to think so much of me,” she said, “But my husband died young. So I never got the chance to have any children, when I was married. Having you with me five days a week has made up for that. I couldn’t see myself eating away such an opportunity.”

So they kept their secret together, and he sometimes enjoyed playing games with her and climbing into her mouth.

A few months later, on Mrs Parkin’s birthday, they went for a walk in the woods together, and came upon a very tall tree with a wide trunk, with doors in it. They climbed up until they saw an open door, and met a woman called Dame Washalot. She explained that this was the Faraway Tree, and that its uppermost branches led to whatever Land was up there at the time. For the next few Sundays, Pixi and Mrs Parkin made weekly visits to the Faraway Tree and explored the fascinating lands that they found at the top. The lands rotated or revolved (even Mrs Parkin wasn’t sure) around up there, so that a different one reached the top of the Faraway Tree each week. Apparantly the Lands moved about on Mondays, which meant that it was safe to visit them on Sundays without losing the opportunity to get back to the tree and being thus stranded.

One particular Sunday Pixi and Mrs Parkin were walking on in a Land for some time, and then they heard a noise like rolling thunder. They turned around in surprise and saw a curious sight. A giant ball, the size of a hot air balloon was rolling along the pathway near them.

“Goodness!” said Pixi, “Look at that! We must certainly be in a giant land.”

They were unaware that they had reached the Valley of Giantesses in Brobdingnag. Along with the Looking-Glass Land house discovered by Alice, Jack’s Beanstalk, Willie Tinkerer’s Beanstalk and the Swift Mist discovered by Gary Gulliver, the Faraway Tree had, at least until Monday, become a temporary link to Brobdingnag as well.

“If the giants see us, we will seem so tiny to them,” said Mrs Parkin, “Just as you did to me the day you asked me to eat you.”

That set Pixi thinking. He doubted that anyone else’s tongue would mean as much to him as Mrs Parkin’s, but maybe a giantess might be willing to undertake what she had declined to do.