Little Bertha Plumpbubble loved mushrooms. Wild, smelly, tasty, foul, pungent, acidic, ugly and even artistic mushrooms. Every mushroom, both good and bad was near and dear to he heart. She ate them with salt, with pepper, with vinegar and with mustard. She especially liked them with mayonnaise, syrup, peanut butter, or sweetened cranberries and even Snot Sauce was not off limits. No, Berthas grotesque gluttony for wild Wormwood Mushrooms never ceased, and there was no ingredient to foul, to smelly or to pungent for her to exclude from her disgusting little delicacy. Wormwood mushrooms were indeed Bertha's favorite.
Bertha, however, was a greedy, mean, and all-together unpleasant little girl. And in fact, there wasn't very much that was considered "little" about Bertha at all. She was only in the Third grade and was the already the tallest most brutish girl in her class. She would often sit by herself at recess under one of the many old Wormwood Trees just on the outskirts of the playground, digging frantically beneath rotted tree stumps and tangled Bloody-Knuckle Weed in an effort to dig up a small fungal snack. Thus, it was quite common for Bertha's desk to be covered with dirt and mud and even the occasional insect that got in under her long dirty fingernails. Bertha's Teacher, Mrs. Cornelia Quatlebaum, always knew which paper was Bertha's, as they were characteristically smeared with bits of brown and of course, fragments of old mushrooms.
Now Bertha's one-track dietary delights presented a bit of a problem, as both Mr. and Mrs. Plumpbubble loved wild Wormwood Mushrooms as well, but not quite as passionately or fervently as Bertha. Even Bertha's older Sister Wormina and her even older and less more social brother, Germ, partook of the family favorite. But none came close to having the same passion for the wild Wormwood Mushrooms as Bertha did. Wormina preferred beat roots and of course, anything with slimy, wet worm-related ingredients. She had an almost equal passion for Worms as her little sister did for Mushrooms. Wormina was the masterful creator of Wormwood's largest official Wormwood Flesh-easting Worm Farm, taking up the vats majority of the Plumpbubble home and sadly, being the cause for many a local pet disappearing without a trace. Wormina would never think her little fiends capable of such mischief however.
Bertha's older brother Germ, who was mostly interested in science and specifically, microbiology and the history of Wormwood's participation in creating Germ Warfare Agents during the great War. His entire room served as a virtual museum of Biological warfare and doubled as a lab where, for a modest fee, he could serve up a cold, the flu, chicken pox or just about any other communicable disease that one desired to obtain to avoid that pesky test, appointment or day at work. Germ was currently deeply involved in studying the toxic and noxious effects of Wormwood Stink Beetle Milk and was cultivating and breeding Wormwood Stink beetles right there in his room. This was not something Mrs. Plumpbubble cared for at all and their home was famous for it's wide array of strong odors.
But Bertha cared only for one thing, Mushrooms. As a result of Bertha's one-track mind, she had grown somewhat larger than other girls her age. Her overeating, what with a complete and utter lack of healthy diet or exercise, had only contributed to Bertha's robust figure. It fit well, however, with her bullying persona and her other, more curious features. You see, it is often said that "you are what you eat." And that of course, made Birtha, a mushroom.
Bertha looked like a mushroom, smelled like a mushroom, and some say, that she even walked like a mushroom. Many wondered if she were some adopted half breed of the mythical and legendary Wormwood Mushroom people that were said to once roam the darkest parts of the Wormwood underground realm, but none of them had been seen in decades. they were known for being horribly ill-tempered and had a large mouth of slender, pointed teeth that could pierce through solid steel. They also had the reputation for being quite the eaters themselves, and it was not uncommon to hear of ancient tales of great battles between warring tribes of Mushroom people feasting on their enemies, and frying them up in great giant saucepans of butter and mixed greens. Bertha's most notable feature was certainly her hair. Her sandy brown top had become so shaped like a mushroom in fact, that many were not entirely sure just where her head stopped and her hair began. it looped delicately and methodically like the tiny veins of a succulent giant mushroom in a smooth curl, ending in the dark shadowy overhang of her bobbed neck-length hair. It was quite well known that she kept a good supply of emergency mushroom snacks deep in the curls of her overhanging hair, just in case she needed an emergency morsel at the most inconvenient time.
And one such time occurred every week. Sunday morning church.
Church was a torture for Bertha. Not only was Bertha required to dress up (and none of her Sunday clothes had enough pocket's to hide her required sustenance for the entire length of a typical Sunday service) but she was forced to act somewhat civilized, which for Bertha, seemed increasingly difficult to do. Bertha only found pleasure in pestering the fellow parishioners. From making strange and threatening faces to grabbing their feet from under the benches, she had become somewhat famous for her constant array of crazed antics and generally atrocious behavior. Mrs. Plumpbubble would bring pencils, papers and books to keep her occupied, but what she really wanted was Mushrooms. This is precisely why she began hiding small bits of the mushrooms in her hair, ears, and even her nose!
It wasn't as preferred as the entire fungus of course, but it would have to do. Desperate times she felt, called for desperate measures. She had taken to crawling along the floor beneath her family's church pew, usually the third from the front, far left, and when reaching down to recover a "dropped Pencil" she would sneak a snack from one of her cleverly disguised hiding spots.
It was here, during a typically dry Sunday sermon, that Bertha developed an idea. an idea, sadly, that would ultimately, lead to her current state of appearance.
She realized, if she could somehow, dig right through the very floor of the church, she could plant her own secret stash of mushrooms, right there beneath her seat! She went right to work, each sunday bringing a small trowel and a pick, just quiet enough to peck away at the rotting wood floors of the old church. Soon enough, Bertha had reached the dirt below the church floor, her fat little hand just barely able to reach the ground beneath. Soft, supple, moist rotting dirt! He nose squished as her increasingly pointed teeth began to smirk in a disgusting little grin, he tongue flicking her mushroom encrusted lips in anticipation as her eyes squinted in a mischievous little glare at the rest of the congregation. No more would she be without her beloved fungal fantasy.
Well as Bertha began to eat her way through Sunday's as well, her appearance seemed to, change. While Bertha always appeared a bit "mushroom-like" she never really took on the appearance of the foul fungi until she partook of the mushrooms she planted, right beneath the church. Some say it was the buried dead, cursing her for bad behavior during the sermons. Others said it was the old religions of the Wormwood Valley and the haunting ghosts, coming back to curse the very soil that the church was built upon. Still others said it was simply the potency of the soil itself, hidden beneath the rotting wood floors and crumbling old pews for more years than anyone cared to remember. But it was on one Sunday in particular, when Bertha dug a little too deep, that she really began to change.
The Congregation was deeply entrenched in the second verse of "Oh Hallelujah" (an old Wormwood sea song praising God's safe delivery of the Pirate founding fathers to the shores of Wormwood) when Bertha began her weekly slip under the third pew from the front, far left. None gave it much thought, until she squealed in annoyance as she fell right through the floor and disappeared into the darkness of the wet dirty foundation below. Her pudgy little hand, gripped precariously to the rotting floor, her fingers clinging to the splintered wooden floor like filthy little sausages, just visible from beneath the wooden bench. If it wasn't for her last minute clasp onto the shoe of Sir Finneus McShrinks, seated directly behind the Plumpbubble family (much to his regret, having arrived somewhat late to the mornings service) she would have likely fallen right through the dirt and into the dark undergrowth below Wormwood. She had found of course, a deep hole right beneath the church, and filled with the most curious and strangely colored mushrooms she had ever seen. As they peeled Bertha somewhat unwillingly from the hole in the floor, her gasps seemed somewhat less audible. And to no one's surprise, Bertha of course emerged from her hole, mouth, and hair, full of these new Mushrooms.
The Minister quickly repaired the floor, and yet still every sunday, One can see Bertha, peering below her seat, watching for a free moment when she can slip away for a strange snack, her ever-expanding mushroom-like-hairdo twitching with anticipation as she attempts to quietly slip under the third row from the front, far left.
Reporting from deep below Wormwood Square,
Inkly Tolew the Third Esq.
Manager, Operator, Owner
Wormwood Valley Information Operations Publication
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