Content
HNTBL: Other Tails
(a “How Not To Become Lunch” spinoff)
Chapter 12:
The Garfeline Challenge
Ender entered detention, hoodie up, doing as much as he could to look completely invisible. He was nothing, a fly on the wall. The issue was, there was a toad in the room. He saw the toad he had saved Olly from, sitting in the back corner. She had cleaned herself up and was chatting idly with a few other predators, evidently also in detention. There was also a smattering of humans. Their demeanors could be summed up as, “scared out of their minds.”
Ender found a desk in the middle, not at the front near the simply enormous Ms. Garfeline. She wasn’t just big, but ate children and predators alike. Ender was pretty sure she could drop him down her throat without him touching her tongue. He hoped Slee would arrive soon, or not at all. Ms. Garfeline was one of the rare predators that would also eat other predators. He set his homework down neatly at the front left edge of the desk, waiting for the oversized neko to explain the details of detention, once the struggling figure in her cheeks was swallowed that is.
Ms. Garfeline idly rolled her poor victim around her mouth, savoring the taste of the human boy. Then with practiced ease she simply allowed his body to fall down her wet throat.
Slee was a little late, confident that this detention thing would just be like any other period of the day: boring and without any danger. Being an enormous naga, she really didn’t think that the infamous Ms. Garfeline could actually devour her. She slithered through the large door and spotted Ender, taking the seat next to him. Her long tail curled around her desk and chair, while also slightly ‘invading’ Ender’s territory.
“Hey.” She waved at him, glancing around the room. “That’s a ton of predators… Eh, I’ll manage.” The tip of her tail gripped Ender’s chair, just in case. To quite a few students, that looked more like a way to reserve him as a meal for herself.
Ender watched Slee’s tail curl around his desk. Maybe Slee wasn’t horrified at him for… losing it. He looked at her and quietly said, “So… lunch time… was… pretty dumb.” He’d helped Ethan eat two humans not 24 hours ago, why couldn’t he watch Olly die? He fidgeted a little. Really, how the hell was he getting out of here alive with Slee? The frightened kids in his class had told him, “Ms. Garfeline eats preds too, it will be a miracle if you get out alive.” Ender resolved at that moment, that he would be belly fat before that big orange cat lady ever touched Slee.
“I don’t think so. You were trying to help your friend, and you uh, you managed to save her. Even if you’re here now, I don’t think what you did was wrong or, you know, dumb.” Slee put a hand on Ender’s shoulder. “Don’t even for a second think that you deserve to be here.” She was arguably more of a jerk for having ruined the lunch of at least a dozen kids.
Candace the toad had seen the young, tough human enter, her face still bruised from the lunch tray he’d attached to her retracting tongue. That was supposed to have him on the end, not a human lunchtray!! She was eating this kid, melting him down, and laughing at him the whole time, she resolved. Why had Slee claimed him? What had he done to her?
Ms. Garfeline looked over the class, a human who’d arrived early still struggling in her jiggling belly. Her eyes fell on the delectable young human sitting in the center. He was the opposite of her in every way. Slowly, saliva pooled in her mouth; she’d like to have him very much. She looked on in annoyance as the young red naga wrapped her tail around his desk. Apparently she would also like to have him. Ms. Garfeline smirked; she could have them both.
Slee noticed the detention lady’s hungry gaze and curled her long tail even tighter. She was not gonna let anyone take Ender, not even the always-starving fatass that was in control. But there was someone else that the naga hadn’t paid mind to yet, however: Candace. Still, how could the frog take Ender without the snake getting in the way?
On the other side of the room, a few human students had noticed Ender’s presence and began to stare, muttering amongst each other. If the ‘tough boy’ were to look around and notice them, he would surely recognise that they were a part of The Jess Clique. Detention seemed like the perfect opportunity to avenge their friend, they just had to wait for the chaos to begin.
A few predators were already on it, pouncing on random humans or fellow preds and starting to fill their guts. This hour-or-so of time was only really a punishment for the weaker students, the others basically just had a buffet upon them. Thankfully though, nobody had taken even a step towards Ender yet.
Well if everyone else had started eating, she would too. Candace’s tongue shot out: SPLAT. It struck Ender dead center in the back. The toad smiled, this was going to be good, she’d eat this boy and hold it over Slee that she was a better predator.
Ender felt the horrible impact on his back, the sticky tongue holding fast to his hoodie. Luckily, Slee had him secured to the desk with her tail.
“Well,” he thought, “That’s another hoodie gone.”
He arched his back, extending his arms over his head giving him a brief upside-down view of the toad’s hungry mouth enveloping his hoodie in one wet Gulp. Ender had stayed at his desk though, which meant he hadn’t given Ms. Garfeline an easy excuse, not that she needed one. Ender didn’t look at Candace, didn’t speak up, he just went right back to silently, invisibly doing his homework. The only tell-tale sign was a sidelong glance at Slee as Ender thought, “Thank you SLEE!” as loudly as he could.
Ms. Garfeline giggled at the events in her classroom, watching Candace’s inept attempt on the boy, whose roll call entry said he was ‘Andrew M. Drake’. “That was poorly done, Candace,” Ms. Garfeline admonished the toad.
Slee lazily looked behind her and spotted the toad girl right as she swallowed the hoodie. The naga tightened her grip around Ender and hissed, “He’s MY human.” Then she turned to her friend. “Uh, you okay? We gotta be more careful. You should probably watch your back.” Hopefully Candace wouldn’t try to get him yet another time.
A few other preds watched the scene as well and considered this a challenge. Who would manage to pry that naga off and snatch the hoodie-less human? Guess we’ll find out.
THUD “Not a chance!” A mage pred tried to quietly approach a random neko, though his attempt was unveiled. The cat student shoved a furred hand against the back of his head and pushed down, the impact against the floor probably gave the human mage a bloody nose. To make matters worse, when he rose the cat’s jaws met his head. The neko’s cheeks bulged with it for a moment before the mage began to slide into the throat of the feline predator, easily with a SCHLRK.
The other predatory students took note, that was not how you sneak up on someone. You have to be even more careful, more unassuming, and maybe try to avoid creeping directly behind the target.
Ender’s previous experience with detention at school was that you did homework. This was nothing like his old school and staying out of a hungry belly became the “HOW to get home… work”.
“I can’t just wait for someone to out-smart Slee, I have to take action myself,” he decided. He stood up and looked at Slee meaningfully. “I need to move two desks forward and one desk to the left.” The unspoken message: Slee you have to trust me and let me go. Ender had a plan, for Candace at least.
Slee looked down at him and raised an eyebrow. She didn’t want to let him go, but he sounded very confident, so she slowly moved her coils off of him. “Don’t get yourself in trouble,” she quietly commented as the final segment of her tail slid away from his body.
Ender moved up, under Mrs. Garfeline’s watchful eye. He now sat just in front of her desk. “The angle isn’t quite right yet,” he decided. He looked back at the toad, apparently named Candace. “I’m going to hell for this.” He watched Candace’s flexible mouth work, probably coating her tongue in more of her sticky stuff; he made his best guess on timing, turning around as the toad began to take aim.
He stood up on his desk chair, facing away from the ominous Ms. Garfeline. “What’s the matter, frog face? Need a third try?”
Ms. Garfeline was perplexed, the now absolutely scrumptious looking young boy had moved close, and given her the excuse of standing on his chair and insulting that useless toad girl. The only thing that could make her want to eat him more right now was if he was marked like a few other students. Unable to resist any longer, she extended a massive chubby paw, preparing to grab Ender. “Mr. Drake, allow me to introduce you to…”
Ender heard the large cat proclaiming his execution sentence. He challenged Candace loudly: “Make your move, greedy guts.”
She did, and Ender jumped down.
Candace’s sticky tongue impacted directly on Mrs. Garfeline’s big kitty nose.
There were certain things you just didn’t do… Ms. Garfeline grabbed the tongue firmly, and began to drag Candace towards her. “I don’t usually eat toad, but for this disrespect I will make an exception.”
Ender moved seats again sitting behind Slee, as the toad was dragged screaming across the floor to the massive, gluttonous teacher’s hungry mouth.
“Holy shit that was close,” he whispered to Slee. There was a horrible scream as cat jaws started to close on Candace the toad.
GLRK
Ms. Garfeline swallowed her quickly to rid herself of the taste. Candace was added to the doomed struggling in Ms. Garfelines merciless guts.
“That… was pretty clever,” Slee responded, impressed by the dangerous but ultimately successful plan. She gladly wrapped her body around Ender again once he sat down next to her. That was one less predator to worry about. “Just uh, maybe you shouldn’t do something like that again. You got real close to becoming cat food.” Her tone went from amazed to scolding, but that was understandable.
The other kids in the room were admittedly surprised as well, but that only meant more challenge for some of them. Claiming such an elusive meal would be incredibly satisfying, after all.
There was ‘silence’, the noises of background chatter and occasionally muffled screams were pleasant to some. Slowly adding to the quiet choir were the gurgles and groans of predator bellies. More and more were being filled by the minute. But thankfully, nobody had apparently targeted Ender again. Until…
Slee suddenly giggled. Her tail contorted. She slowly moved her coils away from Ender while still giggling like crazy. “S- hah- Something is- hehe- tickling me!” But when she finally checked her tail, everything seemed to be normal. Maybe Ender would notice the very small figure of a human hopping off of the scarlet scales. A shrunken student, probably the one who bothered Slee. Wait, shrunk? That must be the work of a--
“Got you!” A tall, slender vampire approached, grabbed Ender’s shoulder and dragged him out of his seat, ready to bite, and then consume him. Ender grimaced as his shirt was stretched.
“These aren’t easy to find, you jerk,” Ender thought bitterly. He looked strangely at this creature trying to bite him. He wedged his forearm under the chin of the vampire, then clenched his fist, balling up the slender pred’s shirt. He met the vampire’s eyes. “Go find someone else,” he said simply. He didn’t start punching the kid’s face till it was pulp, he didn’t hurt him, he just looked at him, then down at the shrunken human who’d had the luxury of running all over Slee… Rage detonated inside him… “It looks like you already have a meal anyway.”
If the vampire so much as moved, Ender didn’t plan to hit him, as it appeared. He was just going to throw him at Slee. He was relatively sure she wasn’t impressed by the tiny scampering of a human she didn’t know all over her body.
Slee immediately turned her head to the other pred and hissed, though she did not need to take action. Ender had already stood up for himself, again! That was unexpected, but for sure a welcome surprise. Maybe he was really learning to defend himself. That’s when the naga also noticed the tiny human. He tried to evade her, but the red tail quickly squeezed him and lifted him up, letting his shrunken body dangle near her serpentine mouth
“Sorry, you’ll have to go find someone else,” she told the vampire, loosening her tail and dropping the small human into her maw, sealing his fate with a single GULP.
“NO! Ugh-- Fine. You got lucky this time.” The vampire gave up, trying to free himself from Ender. He could probably fight the human, but with the naga being there as well he had no chances at all. “I’ll go, quit it!” he shouted at Ender.
Ms. Garfeline watched in amazement, the naga and the Drake boy were working together. This was one of the most interesting and tasty detentions.
“Miss Thering, and Mr. Drake come here NOW!” Ms. Garfeline demanded.
Ender heard the large neko speak. You couldn’t just run away from detention, and you couldn’t fight anything that big, what the hell was he going to do? He approached the massively chubby cat, hoping Slee would do the same.
The red naga couldn’t just say no either. She looked down at Ender and sighed, slithering up to the teacher’s desk.
Ms. Garfeline bent down in front of him, her massive maw filling his vision. She sniffed him, then let out a low “Mmmmmm,” purring loudly from her chest. “If you survive detention, I’d almost suggest you play in the hunting grounds Mr. Drake, you and Miss Thering work together extraordinarily well.” The massive mouth opened and her tongue spilled out, tasting Ender, the fine hairs seeming to gently encourage him to enter. Hot breath washed over him, pulsating with the rhythmic purring coming from the large neko’s chest.
Slee tried her best to hold off the suicidal urge to hurt that overweight cat.
“I’m not going to do what I REALLY want to do and gobble both of you up.” The teacher smiled cruelly. “Unless I don’t get two meals delivered here in 15 minutes.” Ms. Garfeline glanced at the clock, 15 minutes remained of detention.
Not one; they had to catch two students for her. Could they manage to do that within 15 minutes? Slee had her doubts. She gulped and glanced at Ender again, almost as if asking ‘Do you think we can do this?’ Slee had already begun glancing around the room, eyeing a group of humans. “Do you have any ideas Endy?” She asked, wanting to form some kind of crazy plan with him.
Ender considered. “Think of Ms. Garfeline as a goal,” he said to Slee, “with arms and legs, that’s really hungry.” He looked up at her. “We just have to get them near the goal.” He nodded to the group of would-be human predators. “You thinking what I’m thinking? I’m not ever going to see someone eat you, Slee.” Ender wasn’t even thinking about himself.
Behind them Ms. Garfeline’s body jiggled with evil laughter and the struggles of her victims.
“Right. Got it.” She nodded and smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be too hard either. She kept her gaze fixed on the girls and started to slither towards them. “Do what you have to do,” she said to Ender. She really didn’t have much of a plan herself, aside from the targets.
To Ender’s thinking the girls would run from Slee. What he really needed to do was herd them, scare them around to the outskirts of the room, then Slee could just chase them around the outside of the room till they were close to Ms. Garfeline’s desk. He assumed she’d handle her… gruesome business from there. It seemed like most of the preds in the room had eaten, so they were languidly digesting. The first step would be convincing them the outside of the room was the safe zone. “Slee, I think you should chase them, I’ll try to control the middle of the room, unless it all goes bad, just run them towards Mrs. Garfeline.”
“Right, that I can do.” Slee nodded again and slithered towards the group. She wasn’t even trying to be unassuming, her gaze fixed on them. Once they noticed, she was already quite close. The girls gasped and stood up from their seats. Their wands were pointed, but that didn’t matter much; they were too nervous to act. Slee managed to flick the sticks out of their hands with her tail.
“Wait! You can’t just eat us all, we’re too much!!”
“Oh, underestimating me now?” She smirked and got ready to chase. These girls were, well, quite frightened. Slee became their main focus, and Ender’s efforts to funnel the scared students towards Ms. Garfeline fell to the background.
She managed to chase them out of the corner, though forcing them towards the cat’s desk would probably take some time.
Ender started moving school desks, creating a single avenue of retreat from Slee. As he understood, any girl Slee actually caught was a goner, and if they got too close to Ms. Garfeline, they were similarly kitty chow. He did recognize one of the brunettes who had joined with his sister in executing some of their petty cruelties.
One of the fearful students had apparently decided to try and jump over the desks. As she took her running start, Ender cast “Propero.” He didn’t have to use a lot of power. He clipped her rear ankle and down she went. Slee was moving too quickly and just kind of slithered right over the top of the poor girl, pinning her. The remaining girls now found themselves closing on Ms. Garfeline’s desk, her feline face smiling.
Slee yelped and stopped as she felt the girl squirming underneath her lower coils. That hadn’t gone as planned, but as she soon noticed, the others had gotten a little too close to the detention lady’s desk. Perhaps Ender and Slee succeeded in the end! For sure there were more than just 2 kids near the gigantic cat now. Slee slowly rolled off of the girl she had train wrecked into and smirked. “I already ate someone, but I guess I have room for dessert.” The naga began to gulp her down quickly.
The disoriented girl felt her body entering the hot depths of Slee’s interior and could do nothing to stop it.
Ms. Garfeline gathered up the two running girls back to back in one meaty fist. Ender looked away, which only showed him Slee, mid meal. Slee met Ender’s eyes and shrugged as if to say, “What was I supposed to do?” Then she gulped powerfully and the girl was very near joining the struggling lumps in her tail.
Suddenly a massive paw hoisted Ender off the ground. Up became down, and looking below his head he found himself dangling directly above Ms. Garfelines mouth. The fat feline lowered the screaming girls inside, her throat accepted them easily and with a wet GULP they were gone. Ender hung helplessly above the abyss of that sticky tunnel still echoing with the screams of its victims.
“What do you say, Miss Thering, should I take him too?” A thunderous burp bathed Ender in hot cat breath.
Slee finished up her meal within seconds, running her forked tongue along her lips to savor the taste a little more. Though, that predatory bliss was halted quite abruptly when the naga saw what was happening to her friend. A wave of fear came, quickly followed by anger. “W-What?” “We had a different deal, you obese cat!” “No! Uh-- Let him go.” She adjusted her tone, Slee didn’t want to sound too desperate or demanding. Her eyes were wide and staring directly at the dangling boy.
Ms. Garfeline smiled widely. Her jaws began to part further. Then the clock struck the hour.
Ender’s world tilted horribly and he was lowered to the ground near Slee.
“I wouldn’t end up here again, Andrew.” He received a soft pat on the head from Garfeline’s massive paw. “Take good care of your human, Miss Thering.” The mirthy contralto chuckled.
“…I will,” Slee replied, giving Ms. Garfeline a rather unamused glance. Ender jumped up and ran to her.
“That was close, no more fighting at lunch for me.” He looked at her face to see if she was okay, and she looked down at him. She reacted on instinct and put her hands on his shoulders and pulled him close for a soft hug
“Yeah, good idea, Endy.” She was very glad that they’d both made it through the hour. “Now, how about we finally leave this school for today?” She put on a smile, and then-- urp. “Uh, sorry about that.” She did recently eat two whole humans after all, and the shrunken one had finally grown back to his normal size.
Ender felt himself wrapped in Slee’s arms and pulled to her. “This is where I want to be,” he thought, “close to Slee.”
He walked home with her, as she slithered beside him, in accordance with her nature.