WORMGATE

Something is rotten in the home of the Bedfords.

Figuratively and literally.

You see, Bedford decided some months ago that he wanted a womery.

"A what?" I asked.

"A womery. It'll be marvellous," insisted Bedford. "We'll be like George and Lennie. Livin' off the fatta the lan'. The dream!"

"Does it involve worms?"

"Err, yes."

"Making compost? Chewing up our leftovers?"

"Yeah! Amazing, eh?"

"And then pooing it out?"

"Yeah!"

"No way."

And that was it. I drew my line in the sand. However, my zero-tolerance anti-worm stance lasted all of...oo, ten minutes. You see, Bedders made some promises. Here's promise number one. Ready?

"Laura, you will never have to see the worms."

OK, this sounded fine. We have a cellar, you see. And in this cellar there's a separate little room. I call it the Man Cupboard. There are mysterious things in there like puncture kits and those two types of screwdriver I can never remember the difference between. It has a latch on it which I find nigh-on impossible to open. Pathetic upper-body strength.

He claimed the worms would live in there. They would be happy and content. They would munch away all day and I'd never even know they were there.

Second persuasive tactic. They would live in a lovely little house. No ordinary wormery for us, oh no! Bedders wanted the Porsche of composters. Being a farmy type, he'd come across Wiggy Wigglers. Behold, the Worm Cafe!

Ooooo.

Sturdy, says the website. That sounds good, I thought.

But I was fooled, you see. Fooled by the clever branding! Worm Cafe? I had visions of them ordering a Diet Coke and meeting other worms for a date. But no! These are WORMS, people! They DON'T ORDER DIET COKES OR GO ON DATES!

Sounds obvious, I know. But I was sucked in.

Anyway, the worms moved in. They bedded down and settled in to a life of chomping and reproducing. Sounds great, eh?

I wasn't exactly fond of them, as such. But I quite liked the thought of them down there. You know. They were kind of like pets. Hairless ugly pets with no legs.

But tonight I went down into the cellar. I was putting a wash on, you see. I know, these crazy Monday nights are gonna kill me.

And this is what I saw.

Oo, what are those swirly patterns on your otherwise-grey-and-lifeless concrete cellar floor, Laura?

Gosh, I don't know reader, let me take a closer look...

I gasped. Gagged. One of them was still writhing.

THE CARCASSES OF WORMS!

With the exception of the still-writhing one. Obv.

Maybe the worms, grown fat and disorientated from the leftovers Bedders lavishes on them, fell out. Maybe there's some disillusioned teenage worms in there who've listened to too much Placebo. Maybe they've all joined a cult where flinging yourself to an untimely death from the third storey of the Worm Cafe is all the rage.

Eiither that or he hasn't put the bloody lid back on properly.

Look at this one! It's perished mid-way under the door of the Man Cupboard! Caught on the threshold between a dark former coal store and the relative pastoral idyll of the utility room!

Oh wormy, what were your final thoughts? What final cry broke the air as you met your doom? "Damn you, Bedders, and your incessant coffee granules! I'm so jittery on Taylor's Lazy Sunday blend I just fell out of the bloody thing!"

I have sent a text. It reads, "Sort it out."

Excuse me while I go and try not to have nightmares about giant worms slithering up the stairs and eating my face off as I sleep.