When the class shifted from reading to arithmetic, Mrs. Caras sanctioned the class into two halves. One half of the students went with her to work on a worksheet while the other half went over to Derek to work with him on problems which he came up with himself. When the group of kids Derek was instructing gathered around, it was evident early that he would struggle keeping their attention on the work. Instead, they were far more interested with the fact that he looked like a living doll. "Mr. Bates," one kid spoke, "how come you're so small? Were you born like that?" Derek did his best to avoid this question and get back to the task at hand. "Well, it's funny you mention that because if you look at this problem here, the solution might tell you a little bit about that." Working well with the kids, Derek did manage for the most part to keep their attention on the work and help them when necessary. Each time one of them asked about him during the lesson, Derek maneuvered around it. That was until the end of the arithmetic lesson, when the two groups were to converge and start over for the spelling part of class.
"Hello," one little girl said as she walked up to Derek. Derek looked up from his desk and smiled at her. "Why hello, can I help you?" he warmly asked. The girl blushed. "Um, well, I'm a little hungry. I did not get my snack this morning. Can you help me with that?" Derek was a little confused. "I'm sorry, but I don't have any snacks with me." The little blonde girl giggled. "That's okay, I thought you could be my snack. You're so small and I think you'd taste good." Derek was taken aback by the girl's direct and unusual thought. Suddenly, he shrunk. Now, instead of standing at six inches, Derek stood a mere two inches tall. "What- oh for crying out loud," he muttered. Derek recalled that a side effect of the experiment he participated in while in college was the fluctuation of his size when spoken down to. Apparently, this girl had done the trick. Her blue eyes glistened as she watched Derek shrink. "Yay! Thank you so much!" Without hesitation, the little girl plucked Derek off of his desk. "Stop! You are not allowed to do this!" Derek demanded. He wasn't entirely sure how else to communicate with the girl. She huffed. "All right class, all together now," Mrs. Caras called. The girl spun around quickly and hid Derek behind her back. She walked over to the head teacher while sneakily putting Derek in her pants pocket. While keeping him captive, the little girl held Derek against her leg to make sure he didn't move. The tiny assistant struggled against the little girl's powerful hand, but clearly wasn't going anywhere. When Mrs. Caras divided the class into two, the student Derek was with went with her. She soon sat down and slowly retrieved Derek from her pocket.
"MMPH!" Derek cried. His pleas for help were muffled by the little girl, who had covered his mouth inadvertently while bringing him out. She stared down at him with an innocent smiled and whispered "thank you" to him. Then, she opened her mouth and tossed Derek in quickly.
*SPLAT*
*SWISH*
"*choke* *sputter* Hey! Get me out of here, this is not funny!" Derek called, choking on the girl's saliva. She played with him with her tongue for a few moments and slammed him against her cheeks. But it wasn't long until the girl wanted her snack to be her snack. Swiftly, the little girl launched Derek to the back of her throat.
*GLUCK*
*SPLASH*
"*spit* Wha- no!" Derek was distraught as he suddenly found himself in the gurgling stomach of the elementary student. Bits and pieces of her breakfast lay around him. Derek climbed onto a mound of some sort of mush and laid down. He was in shock. "Please," he begged, "please let me get out of here." Thankfully, it didn't take long for Mrs. Caras to find out that Derek was missing.
What happens to Derek from here?