Allie's adventure in the land of wonder.

Chapter 3
Change me? Change you!

Chapter Description: Just add water and voila!

 At midday, in the hot summer sun, the mushroom wilted. Its colors faded and the caterpillar, despite summoning an umbrella, some sunglasses, and a tall cool drink, seemed to be wilting with the heat.

Allie saw the dilapidated mushroom, its occupant sweltering, and felt a pang of sympathy. She pulled out a garden hose and a rotary sprinkler.

Grandma, now back to her normal age and well aware of the dangers of imbibing magic mushrooms asked Allie what she was doing.

“Oh, grammy! The mushroom needs to be cooled down or it’ll die!” said Allie as she turned the spigot that sent water through the sprinkler and into the air. The droplets landed on the mushroom and it seemed to immediately look better.

“Be careful not to over-water the mushroom, Allie. They don’t require a lot of moisture,” cautioned grandma.

“Okay, grammy!” said Allie as she waited for a few moments and turned off the tap.

The mushroom’s colors, while still polka-dot, turned into a red with a yellow motif. The caterpillar changed from blue to pink with a strip of cloth across its chest.

“Whoa! What was in that water, chile?” exclaimed the caterpillar, “My junk done changed!”

“It’s just city water. The only thing it has is clor, um, cloreem! Yeah, that’s it! Cloreem!”

“I think you mean ‘chlorine’, Allie,” prompted grandma.

“Oh! Chlorine! Okay!”

“Well, that chlorine made me female. I think the mushroom changed as well. Hold on a moment,” the caterpillar closed its eyes in concentration. “Yep! Now instead of getting younger and older, something new has been added!”

“What would that be?” Grandma asked.

“I’d tell you all, but that’d spoil the surprise,” the caterpillar said with a sly grin.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out!” said Allie as she went to the mushroom's backside and plucked off a piece. She ate it faster than her grandma could protest.

She aged up to around 20 years or so. The snaps on her jumper popped as she grew and her sneakers ripped open with the rapid changes. Her jumper was big and loose to allow for future wear and now was very tight around the waist and threatened to cut off the circulation to a pair of well-muscled legs.

“So, what’s the surprise?” asked Allie, “Whoa! My voice has gotten deeper! I sound like a dude.”

“Surprise, chile! You’re now a man! And you’re quite the looker as well!”

“I’m a dude! Wow, that’s seriously f*cked! Oops!” said Allie as she casually swore in front of grandma, “Sorry, Grammy!”

“Hold on! I think the chlorine is evaporating!” said the caterpillar.

The mushroom changed back to its normal polka-dot colors and the caterpillar went back to blue.

“Nooo!” Yelled Allie, “I don’t want to be a guy!”

He ran to the front and ate a piece of the mushroom. The change was immediate and he shrank back down to age 8.

“Did I do it in time?” asked young Allie.

“It’s hard to tell a boy from a girl at your age,” said grandma, “You look like your old self, to me.”

“Well, how else can we -” said Allie as her damaged jumper fell down.

Grandma took a look and said, “You’re still a boy, Allie.”

Allie was upset at being an icky boy for a few moments, but as he played with the Tonka toys in the sandbox, he realized that it was the girls that were icky and they had cooties. As the afternoon went on, Allie became more masculine.

As masculine as a young boy could be, anyway.

With a new denim jumper, one with pastille flowers embroidered on it, he jumped on his bike and went for a spin around the block. He rode aggressively, jumping potholes that as a girl, would have gone around.

After tiring himself out, he went back to grandma’s house and drank some water to slake his thirst.

“Lunch is ready!” said grandma as she put together a toasted cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup on the table for him.

He ate the meal with gusto. Grandma didn't tell him that the soup was made with fresh mushroom.

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A small baby woke up from its nap. The fresh diaper that was put on him before was soaked. He made whimpering noises that attracted no attention. Grabbing the top bar of his crib, he pulled himself up.

There was no one around and this made him sad. He started to whimper again and then broke out into a loud cry.

Grandma came into the nursery and picked the bawling baby up. She shushed and cooed at it until it realized that it wasn’t alone.

Putting the infant on a changing table, she tended to its needs, and soon the baby was wearing a fresh diaper and a blue onesie.

This made the baby happy. He gurgled and cooed at grandma and gave her a big smile. This warmed her heart with joy, she brought the toddler to the living room and put it in a playpen with toys, then turned on the TV before going outside for a few moments.

“Any ideas on how to change him back?” asked grandma of the caterpillar, “He was being a typical rambunctious boy, and I didn’t want him to hurt himself.”

“Well, that chlorine stuff changed my junk, baby. So maybe -” shrugged the caterpillar. He took a long drag off his expensive vape and exhaled. Technicolor bubbles flowed from his mouth as he did so.

“Good idea!” said grandma as she grabbed the hose and drenched the mushroom and caterpillar equally.

Allie had worked off the snaps on his onesie and then succeeded in pulling it off of him with great difficulty. He was working on the tabs to his diaper when Grandma came back.

She offered a piece of mushroom to the baby. Being curious, the baby took the mushroom and put it in his mouth. The effect was instantaneous; Allie was now age 8, female again, and the tabs on her diaper slowly began to pop open.

Her diaper fell off.

“Well, that solves that problem!” Said grandma with a grin, “You might want to go change into some more appropriate clothing, Allie!”

It took her a second to realize that she was naked, she ran to her bedroom with a bright red look of embarrassment on her face.

Fully clothed, she went to visit the backyard and the caterpillar. Nothing was said between her and grandma about the “baby incident”.

“Chile, you look like there’s something on your mind,” said the female caterpillar. She popped a bar of fancy chocolate from an assortment box next to her in her mouth.

Allie didn’t know how to feel about what happened. It came out in the form of anger at the caterpillar.

“You shouldn’t eat so much chocolate!” she said meanly, “You’re getting fat!”

The caterpillar wasn’t stupid. She knew that Allie was hurt and vulnerable at the moment.

“Now, now, chile! It’s okay! You’re you now, after all, aren’t you?”

“I dunno,” said Allie, “I just feel that what grandma did was wrong, somehow, you know?”

“Chile, chile! She just did what she thought was right,” said the caterpillar as the chlorine finished its evaporation and the mushroom’s occupant went male again.

“You wanna play a trick on her, baby? I got a good idea how!”

After a quick pow-wow with the caterpillar. Allie found out that it wasn’t the mushroom that had any effect on a person, it was the magic in the mushroom.

After several attempts to explain distillation, the caterpillar ended up giving her a small vial of pure magic that he magically distilled from the mushroom.

“Careful with that stuff! There’s a lot in there!”

Allie went off to do her mischief and the caterpillar grinned devilishly at her parting.

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At the dinner table, a small baby fussed over the oatmeal that was being offered to her. She didn’t like the bland flavor of it and had the little girl attempting to feed it to her, put a few raisins in it, the baby wouldn’t have been so fussy.

But an eight-year-old can’t know everything there is about baby care, now can she?

“I hope you like being in diapers, grandma, you’re gonna be in them for at least a few more days!”

Allie finally stopped trying to feed her after grandma upended the bowl and pushed it to the floor. Allie ended up filling a bottle with milk and that worked well enough.

Until grandma got gas from eating all the milk.