Slime: The new children’s book from No. 1 bestselling author David Walliams.

by David Walliams

  DONK!

  Or run over a cat.

  “MIAOW!”

  Ned rolled past his sister’s bedroom and headed into the living room. Now, thought Ned, where would be good hiding places?

  It turned out… everywhere!

  There were jars, jars and more jars of yucktastic* stuff hidden all over the room.

  Under the sofa

  Behind the curtains

  On top of the bookshelf

  In the sideboard

  Under the cushions

  Behind the plant pot

  Inside the lampshade

  Under the coffee table

  The same was true of the kitchen. And the hallway.

  Rolling past the boiler cupboard, Ned heard gurgling.

  GURGLE! FURGLE! DURGLE!

  On opening the door, he could see jars and jars with gunk oozing out of them. The heat from the boiler must have made the gunk expand. It was a wonder that one of the jars hadn’t exploded.

  Once again, all the jars were labelled, each full of something more puzzling than the last.

  What was all this stuff?

  And, more importantly, what was she planning to do with it all?

  The boy approached his mother and father’s room. He peeked through the gap in the door. Their bed was empty. It was the early hours of the morning and the pair were already at work. No doubt Dad was heading out to sea and Mum was setting up her market stall. A quick search by Ned of the back of their wardrobe revealed jars, jars and more jars.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered to himself.

  Then the boy rolled back into the hall, making his way towards his dreaded sister’s bedroom.

  TRUNDLE! TRUNDLE! TRUNDLE!

  Ned was sure somewhere in there would be the answer. He put his ear up against her door.

  “ZZZ! ZZZ! ZZZ!”

  Jemima was fast asleep, snoring like a steam train.

  The sign on her bedroom door read…

  Now was Ned’s chance. The boy took a deep breath. Then, as quietly as he could, he opened the door…

  CLICK!

  …and gently rolled himself inside.

  TRUNDLE!

  The boy hadn’t been allowed in his sister’s bedroom for years. No wonder she kept everyone out. Her room was full to bursting with jars and jars and more jars of gunk! There must have been thousands upon thousands of jars in there. All the way from the floor to the ceiling. No wonder Jemima had resorted to hiding the jars all over the house. There was no more room in her room! It was a miracle she could even get in or out!

  As Ned watched his sister sleep, noting that she wore her STEEL-CAPPED boots in bed, he scanned her bedroom for clues. There must be an answer somewhere to what she planned to do with all these jars of gunk.

  In a corner of the room were Jemima’s school exercise books. Ned knew that his sister never did a scrap of work at school, so was surprised to see how well thumbed the books looked. Upon opening them, Ned discovered that they weren’t full of schoolwork at all. Oh no.

  They were full of plans for the diabolical trick she was about to play on him…

  * Don’t delay. Buy your Walliamsictionary today.

  Ned’s eyes widened at the horror. The unspeakable horror.

  The words and pictures in her books told the story in gruesome detail.

  So this was what his wicked sister was planning!

  There were lists, calendars, graphs, diagrams and even a flick book of how it would all play out.

  It was called:

  And it was the boy’s birthday… TOMORROW!

  Once a year on his birthday, Ned had a bath.*

  In the family cottage there was only enough hot water for one bathful a day. Of course, Jemima always bagsied every drop of hot water for herself. No wonder her parents reeked of fish.

  The only exception to this rule was on her little brother’s birthday. On that special day, Jemima would be forced by her parents to relent and let little STINKY Ned have his yearly soak.

  So the plan was that tomorrow Jemima would fill the bath with all the gunk. Every last drop from every single jar would be emptied until the bath was full to the brim. Then she would squirt bubbles on top of the gunk, so Ned wouldn’t see the horror that was lurking underneath.

  The Bath of Doom.

  There was even a cut-away diagram in her exercise book showing the hidden layer of gunk.

  Jemima knew her little brother would suspect nothing. This was his birthday treat, after all! Ned would think it was a lovely bath full of warm water and lower himself into it. THEN…

  “EURGH!” he would scream as he was covered from head to toe in gunk.

  Ned dropped Jemima’s book in shock.

  THONK!

  The girl stirred.

  Ned held his breath.

  Then she turned over and went straight back to sleep.

  “ZZZ! ZZZZ! ZZZZZ!”

  Taking great care, the boy rolled himself back out of Jemima’s bedroom. He had to reverse his wheelchair, as with the mountains of jars there wasn’t room to turn round.

  TRUNDLE! TRUNDLE! TRUNDLE!

  Then… DISASTER!

  CLUNK! CLINK! CLANK!

  The footrest on his wheelchair just clipped one of the jars on the floor. There must have been fifty jars stacked on top of it.

  Ned reached out, but he was too late. The skyscraper of jars began toppling over.

  TIPPLE! TOPPLE! TUPPLE!

  The jar at the top was heading straight for Jemima!

  As it fell through the air, it was as if time sped up and slowed down all at once.

  SNATCH!

  Ned caught the jar just as it was a milli-milli-millimetre from THUNKING his sister on the head. As much as he may have wanted to see his sister thunked on the head with a jar of Grumblenosh (whatever that was), sadly now was not the time.

  It would spoil his surprise!

  Because just at that moment an idea came to him.

  D I N G !

  An idea so simple it was brilliant. Simply brilliant and brilliantly simple. BRIMPLE.*

  Ned would turn the tables on Jemima!

  The girl had a bath every single morning (apart from Ned’s birthday, keep up). So Ned would do to her EXACTLY what his sister was going to do to him. She would suffer the Bath of Doom herself!

  Ned silently collected up all the jars of gunk in the house, and brought them to the bathroom.

  Once safely inside, Ned locked the door.

  CLICK!

  He didn’t want Jemima bursting in on him before her Bath of Doom was ready.

  “Ha! Ha!” chuckled the boy to himself.

  Outside it was still dark, but dawn was breaking and the birds were bursting into song.

  “TWEET! TWEET! TWEET!”

  One by one, he opened the jars of gunk, and poured them into the bath.

  There was… BROWN gunk, yellow gunk, THICK gunk, black gunk, THIN gunk, bubbly gunk, purple gunk, fizzy gunk, hot gunk and cold gunk.

  Every kind of gunk you could imagine.

  Gallons and gallons of gunk.

  Eventually the bath was full.

  After what seemed like hours of fetching, carrying and unscrewing, the boy was exhausted. Catching his breath, Ned didn’t notice what was happening right behind him.

  GURGLE!

  Whatever was in that bath was

  coming to life…!

  * I know that doesn’t sound like many baths in one year. One. I, myself, like to wash at least twice a year. Unless I am already clean and there is no need. Sometimes I lick myself clean like a cat.

  * Consult your Walliamsictionary for a detailed definition.

  As all the different types of gunk swirled together, waves formed in the bath.

  SWISH!

  The waves swept up, up, up…

  SWASH!

  …and they swept down, down, down.

  S W U S H !

  Ned turned round. It was a horrifying sight. He opened his mouth to scre
am, but no sound came out.

  The bath was now a raging storm of gunk.

  SWISH! SWASH! SWOOSH!

  It splashed all over the bathroom, coating everything in gunk.

  SPLISH! SPLASH! SPLOSH!

  The sink, the toilet, even Ned – all were GUNKED!

  Then, just as soon as the gunk had coated everything, it peeled itself off and whooshed back together.

  WOOMPH!

  Then the gunk began to take shape.

  At first it became a giant egg. Like the kind of egg a dinosaur might have laid. The egg bounced up and down…

  BOING! BOING! BOING!

  …before smashing itself against the bathroom wall.

  CRACK!

  The outer layer cracked like a shell as the gunk inside oozed out.

  The oozing gunk then began to grow upwards and upwards, becoming a mountain.

  WHOOSH!

  No, it was a volcano!

  An erupting volcano!

  It didn’t shoot lava up into the sky, but, rather, gunk!

  KABOOM! SPLURT!

  It spurted itself all over the bathroom ceiling before oozing back down to the floor to become an elephant.

  “HOO!” it hooted.

  Then it became a shark!

  “CHOMP!”

  No, a bird!

  F L A P ! F L A P !

  This gunk monster was swimming and flying all at once.

  SWISH! FLAP! SWISH! FLAP!

  The boy gazed open-mouthed in awe.

  This was the greatest show on Earth!

  And it was all for him!

  Next the gunk monster exploded into thousands of pieces as it became fireworks.

  “Oh no!” exclaimed the boy. “What on earth

  have I done?”

  What the boy had done that day changed the course of history.

  In mixing together a thousand different jars of gunk, Ned had created a brand-new matter.

  The world would never be the same again.

  This was big. Bigger than big. Bigger than biggest. HUGE-A-MONGOUS!*

  As Ned stayed deadly still, the slime began spinning round and round him.

  WHIZZ!

  It was a tornado of slime.

  A

  SLIMEADO!*

  NO! thought Ned. I am going to be slimed to death.

  He shut his eyes tight, and cried, “ARGH!”

  Then the most amazing thing happened.

  The whirling tube of slime spun up over his head and slapped against the ceiling.

  SQUELCH!

  Then it began oozing downwards towards the boy.

  As it did, it began to take shape.

  Not human shape exactly.

  More like a blob on top of a blob on top of a blob.

  It is easier if I show you. It looked like this…

  A blobby blobulous* blob that was hanging down from the ceiling.

  A huge, slimy upside-down face was staring straight back at him.

  “Good morning!” it boomed.

  The boy’s eyes darted around the bathroom.

  There was no one else there.

  This thing was talking to him!

  “I said, ‘Good morning’!” it repeated.

  For something made of slime it had a surprisingly posh voice. As if it were royal. Which seemed highly unlikely. Last time I checked, the royal family did not have a member who was made entirely of slime.

  “Who are y-y-you?” stammered Ned. The boy was trembling with fear.

  “I am anything you want me to be,” replied the thing.

  With that, the blob of slime squelched upside down across the ceiling.

  Next, it made its way down the wall, its slimy bottom acting like a suction pad against it.

  Eventually the thing was standing on the floor of the bathroom, peering down at Ned.

  “Now, boy, tell me what you wish me to be.”

  “Is this like Aladdin?” asked Ned excitedly.

  “Is what like Aladdin?”

  “Like rubbing the lamp, and a genie coming out, and the genie giving you three wishes?”

  The slime looked lost in thought for a moment before replying, “No. There is no lamp. I am not a genie. And there aren’t three wishes.”

  “Oh,” replied Ned.

  “There are infinite wishes!”

  “That’s a lot, isn’t it?”

  “It’s infinite, so, yes, I suppose it is. Unless it was infinite and one, which would be silly.”

  “Cool!” exclaimed Ned.

  “So, boy, what do you wish me to be? I can be anything and everything!

  A hippopotamus! A swarm of bees! A giant pair of bloomers!”

  As it spoke, it shapeshifted into each thing. “Just think of something beginning with S! A sailing ship.

  A sphinx.

  A sausage as tall as a tree. A steamroller…”

  The boy looked on in wonder as it changed with dizzying speed.

  “A symphony!”

  With that, there was the sound of a huge drum being struck.

  BOOM!

  The slime shattered into what seemed like hundreds of tiny globules. They flew past Ned, and he realised that these weren’t just globules. They were musical notes! As the sound of a symphony echoed around the bathroom, these musical notes danced through the air like butterflies. The boy watched in awe as they swooped and twirled in time to the music.

  “W-w-wow!” he stammered.

  Then, just as soon as the symphony ended, the globules all merged together. This time they didn’t go back into being Slime’s blobulous self.

  Oh no.

  The globules merged back into the shape of a whale. The whale was so humongous it filled up the entire bathroom.

  It floated in the air, swishing its tail.

  SWISH! SWUSH! SWOSH!

  “Am I back to normal?” it asked. “Something feels fishy.”

  “No! You are not back to normal!” exclaimed Ned. “Unless it is normal for you to be a great big ginormous whale!”

  The whale of slime looked down, and then fell through the air.

  SPLAT!

  It landed like dropped jelly on the bathroom floor.

  S I L E N C E.

  Ned stared at it. Whatever this thing was, it looked to be no more. It was an ex-thing. Lying motionless next to the wheels of the boy’s wheelchair was nothing more than a puddle of gloop.

  “Slime!” called out Ned. He couldn’t think what else to call it, and “Slime” seemed appropriate. “Are you all right?”

  After a moment, the slime poured itself back together into the shape of a blob.

  “That’s better,” it said. “I felt all over the place.”

  “Thank goodness!” exclaimed Ned.

  “Is ‘Slime’ my name, then?” it asked.

  “I can’t think of a better one.”

  “Erm, Roger? Archibald? Brenda?” offered Slime. “I do feel like a Brenda.”

  “Mmm,” mused the boy. “I think you look more like a ‘Slime’.”

  “ ‘Slime’ it is!” said Slime. It gave the boy a funny look, as much as a blob of slime can give anyone a funny look. “So, did you create me?”

  “Um, well,” hesitated Ned, “I guess I did!”

  “FATHER!” exclaimed Slime.

  “No!”

  “MOTHER?”

  “NO!”

  “What, then?”

  “I guess we are… well –” Ned didn’t dare say it at first, but something in his heart told him he should – “friends.”

  “Friends,” repeated Slime. “Friends! I like that! Yes! We are friends!”

  The boy smiled and leaned over to hug his new friend, but all he got was a face full of slime.

  “You didn’t tell me your name,” remarked Slime.

  “Ned,” replied Ned.

  “I have a friend called Ned!” exclaimed Slime.

  “And, Slime?”

  “Yes, Ned?”

  “I want you to help me play a tric
k…”

  “Goody! Goody!” snorted Slime, rubbing his slimy hands together in glee.

  “…on someone who has played a million tricks on me!”

  Just then there was a pounding on the door.

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  “What on earth is going on in there?” a voice demanded. It was, of course, Jemima. “Come out right now, Ned! Or I will boot this door down!”

  “Is that them, perchance?” enquired Slime.

  “Now, how did you guess?” replied the boy with a cheeky smile.

  * It means “big”. You would know that if you owned a Walliamsictionary.

  * Open your Walliamsictionary under “S” for a detailed definition.

  * The Walliamsictionary definition is “something very, very, very, very, very, VERY blobby”.

  “I SAID, ‘WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING IN THERE?’!” came another shout from the other side of the bathroom door.

  “Nothing!” lied Ned.

  “NOTHING!” bawled Jemima. “I just heard a volcano! Then a load of music! Finally some kind of giant fish!”

  Slime looked as if it were about to say something. Maybe to correct the girl that technically a whale was not a fish but, in fact, a mammal.

  Ned turned to his friend and put his fingers up to his lips in the internationally recognised signal for silence.

  Amazingly, for something made of slime, Slime understood.

  “I was just doing a particularly noisy… poo,” spluttered Ned through the bathroom door.

  “Noisy?” she exclaimed. “More like thunderous! Now open this door! RIGHT NOW! OR I WILL BOOT IT DOWN.”

  BISH! BASH! BOSH!

  That was the sound of her STEEL-CAPPED boots kicking down the door.

  “Open it!” said Slime.

  “What?” exclaimed Ned.

  “Let’s play that trick on her!”