CHAPTER THREE
"Valerie, please don't!"
"You look cute, when you're scared," she said happily.
She suddenly coughed.
Barry adjusted his vision focus, to see that Betty's hands were around Valerie's throat.
"Let him go!" said Betty.
Betty was taller and stronger than Valerie, and had the advantage of having surprised Valerie from behind. She had to release Barry.
Valerie put Barry on the picnic blanket. Betty released her grip, and then pulled Valerie away by her arm. She slapped Valerie. Barry had never seen Betty act anything other than sweetly. He was in awe of the rescue she had just performed, and also still surprised by Valerie's plans. He would be inside her stomach by now, had Betty not presumably read his note and come out to join them.
"I can't believe even you would do this, Val! For the sake of all the adventures and rescues we've shared together, and for Mark, I won't tell what you almost did today. But if you ever come near Barry again, I'll…"
Valerie stood up, and walked back to Mrs Farrer's, leaving them there.
"You poor boy, are you alright?" asked Betty.
"I only went with her to pass the time. I didn't know she would do that."
Betty folded the blanket up and placed it in the basket and took him back to the house.
The others had finished repairing the ship. Steve and Dan took it for a test flight around the room. It was fuelled to full capacity and performing as though it had just come out of the workshop.
They all slept off the night, and then the Betty and Mrs Farrer's children took their reducing formulae and prepared to board the ship.
Betty held onto a supply of the growth formula, in case Valerie had any more cannibal tendancies to be revealed. Valerie had still not returned. Would she come back in time to leave, or was she plotting a second attempt to eat Barry, or even one of the others?
Valerie soon burst into the house and put he handbag on the floor.
"I revisited some old haunts, places the real giants wouldn't expect me to know about. Look what I found," she said.
Valerie opened her handbag and took out The Lost Ones and Marna Whalan.
"Well Captain, have we got room for five more?"
"Sure. There were several free seats, when we took off. We only had 8 passengers, counting Chipper," said Steve.
Valerie took the antidote and shrank down in the next room, and put on the familiar yellow outfit she had worn in the months leading up to the vote against Steve's leadership.
All of the passengers and crew entered the ship.
"I left the window open, as you asked," said Mrs Farrer, "But wouldn't you have a more effective takeoff from the back lawn?"
"It'd be too risky. We could be seen reducing those who had to shrink first. We could be seen firing up and taking off. We could be caught. This way, we just head out the window, and we're out of reach before anyone can grab us."
The sun was setting.
Steve began firing up the ship's engines, with Dan at his side.
"You brought your husband's only other girlfriend," said Betty quietly to Valerie.
"It's the least I can do, I guess. Besides, haven't you seen the way Nick and Marna have been looking at each other? I don't know what came over me with Barry."
"I haven't told the others," said Betty, "But I'd rather not see you again, once we're back on earth."
"I understand. But I have to apologize to Barry."
Valerie walked quietly away from Betty and took Barry aside.
"I don't know what got into me," she said, "Are we still friends?"
"I guess so. Would you have really eaten me, if Betty hadn't stopped you?"
"I can't deny it. But I don't think I would, if I had another chance. I guess we'll never know. Some mysteries never get solved, do they?"
Steve and Dan flew the ship in a tight orbit until they came to an unmistakable glowing warp in space.
They let it draw them into it, and found themselves approaching the familiar planet earth.
They landed at L.A. Airport, and the Spindrift crew showed their evidence to their superiors.
"It's incredible," said the Commander.
"Captain Burton, Mr Ericcson, I almost filed a report on you two over two years ago. It was a formal refusal to obey reasonable orders. Does it have anything to do with this giant world? I tore it up when you finally agreed to fly. You said you knew the flight was never going to reach London, and that I wouldn't believe your reasons."
"I don't know how I could have known in advance," said Steve, "I don't remember that incident now, except that Dan and I both had memory lapses we couldn't account for, just before we found ourselves alone in the Spindrift, with a panel opened."
"Well you were right. You've been gone for over two years. We must take these giant photographs to the military authorities."
"I hope we do," said Dan, "Because there's still an active space warp up there, with the potential of drawing anything into it. We have to chart its movements and keep all sky and space traffic away from it. The giants are a very real threat."
Steve and Mark and Dan had all agreed to keep the Farrers' giant origin a secret, passing them off as actual earthlings, to keep them from prying government eyes.
Steve and Mrs Farrer dated for a number of months, and eventually got engaged too. Her children understood the size changing and the move to another planet. They were finally able to form a proper step fatherly attachment to the man who had helped to get them out of the shaft into which they had once fallen. Mrs Farrer had sufficiently disconnected her grief from the earthlings, to be ready to move on into a new future with Steve.
Mark and Valerie enjoyed their life together. Valerie kept her cannibal interlude with Barry from Mark, for fear that she might lose his love, if he found out.
Mark gave Fitzhugh a comfortable desk job in one of his plants, and the Wilsons' combined wealth enabled all of the original seven to live in comfort for the rest of their lives. Betty wondered if Valerie had been simply trying to buy back a broken friendship, but kept her own counsel about the incident in the giant land.
Marna and Nick eventually realised that they were not suited to each other. Marna was gentle, and growing used to the tranquillity of her home planet, having been under the conditioning of the giants for so long. Nick was aggressive by nature, and unable to fit in with the simple peaceful existence Marna had embraced. So they went their separate ways, still glad to share the common joy at being rescued from the giant world.
* * * *
"Put me down, Sergeant! I'm Inspector Kobick! I run SID!"
"I don't know how you Little People thought disguising yourself to look like my boss, but it won't do you a bit of good. You're still Little People. You'll meet your larger doppelganger shortly."
A forest ranger had found Inspector Kobick wandering the forest naked, and taken him to SID headquarters, and handed him over to the desk Sergeant, who was now taking him to his own office.
The Sergeant found the door open, entered the office and saw other officers there. They had been discussing Kobick's disappearance. Kobick had never guessed that the formulae had been invented by a young boy scientist. Nothing he could speculate would ever lead the SID to Jody. Mrs Farrer's involvement was known only to the earthlings. For Kobick, even if he ever got his men to believe him, the trail had gone cold.
