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

  “Now?” asked the boy.

  BISH! BASH! BOSH!

  “Goody! Goody!” exclaimed Slime.

  BISH! BASH! BOSH!

  Splinters of wood exploded into the bathroom.

  “What should I be?” asked Slime.

  “A giant boot, perhaps! Boot her right back!”

  “Excellent!” replied Slime as it trans-slimed into a giant boot.

  BISH! BASH! BOSH!

  The bathroom door smashed off its hinges, taking some of the wall with it.

  The door smashed to the floor…

  THUD!

  …and dust exploded into the bathroom.

  At once, nobody could see a thing!

  “NED!” bellowed Jemima. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

  Ned kept silent as the Giant Slimy Boot (or “sloot”*) appeared out of the dust cloud.

  “What the…?” asked Jemima.

  The girl tried to boot the boot, but her foot got stuck in the slime.

  “ARGH!” she screamed.

  Ned couldn’t help but chuckle. “Ha! Ha!”

  “NED!” screamed Jemima. “I WILL BOOT YOU UP THE BOTTOM FOR THIS!”

  “No, no, no,” replied the sloot. “I WILL BOOT YOU UP THE BOTTOM!”

  With that, Slime let go of the girl’s boot. As Jemima tumbled to the floor, she swung her other boot up in the air, and landed on her hands and knees.

  “GOODBYE FOR NOW!” said the sloot.

  It swung back, then…

  BOOF!

  …the girl was given a blobtastic boot in the bottom.

  “ARGH!” she yelled as she bounced down the corridor…

  S W I S H !

  …before landing on the sofa in the living room.

  Instantly Jemima leaped from the sofa and began stomping down the corridor.

  STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

  “WAIT UNTIL I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, NED! I’LL BOOT YOU FROM HERE TO THE NEXT ISLAND!”

  “We need to get out of here, Slime!” exclaimed Ned. “And fast.”

  “But how?” asked Slime, now back to being a blob.

  Ned looked up at the tiny bathroom window just above the toilet. It was not much bigger than a cat flap. “That is the only way out of here,” he said, pointing. “But I’m never going to get my wheelchair through there!”

  “You won’t need it today! Let me be your wings!”

  “WINGS?!” The boy was flabbergasted.

  Slime trans-slimed into a pair of wings. They stuck themselves on to Ned’s shoulders and began to flap.

  FLAP! FLAP! FLAP!

  The boy felt himself being lifted out of his wheelchair and floating through the air.

  “WOW!” he exclaimed.

  The wings wouldn’t fit through the window, so, holding the boy, Slime trans-slimed into a slide.

  STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!

  Just before Jemima reached the bathroom, Ned whooshed down the slide and out of the window.

  screamed Jemima.

  But the boy was

  free!

  * One of billions of words you will find in your Walliamsictionary.

  Ned slid down the slide of slime at speed.

  WHOOSH!

  His family’s cottage stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.

  If the boy didn’t stop sliding, he was going to be hurled off the edge to meet his end on the rugged rocks below.

  Ned saw the bottom of the slide approaching fast, and screamed, “ARGH!”

  He shut his eyes tight. He couldn’t bear to watch what was about to happen.

  BUT… in the blink of an eye, the slide of slime became longer and longer and longer still. Then it arched and twisted and the boy found himself doing a loop-the-loop on his bottom.

  “ARGH!” he screamed again, but this time in pleasure!

  He’d never had so much FUN, FUN, FUN!

  The slide of slime arced away from the cliff edge and on to some fields near the cottage. It kept on getting fatter and fatter until it wasn’t a slide any longer.

  Oh no. It had turned into a slime rink.

  A slime rink is a lot like an ice rink, but instead of ice – you guessed it – slime! A “slink”.*

  The whole field was now covered with slime. Ned shot across it on his bottom.

  WHOOSH!

  “WHEEEEEE!” he exclaimed.

  Finally, he came to a halt.

  Then, at dizzying speed, Slime trans-slimed again. The edges of the slime rink curled up, and it closed in on itself.

  Now Slime had come together to form a giant ball!

  A SLIMEBALL!

  It rolled along the field…

  TRUNDLE! TRUNDLE!

  …with little Ned inside it!

  Then the slimeball began to bounce.

  It bounced and bounced and bounced.

  It bounced over a sheep.

  “BAAA!”

  DONK!

  It bounced over a hedge.

  RUSTLE!

  DONK!

  Now it was bouncing along the lane.

  Up ahead, Ned could hear a tractor approaching.

  CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

  The sound of the mighty vehicle was growing louder and louder.

  CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

  The tractor was heading straight for them.

  CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

  “LOOK OUT!” screamed Ned, not sure where Slime’s eyes might be at this precise moment, it being a giant bouncing ball and all that.

  DOOOOOONNNNNNKKKKK!

  Ned could feel the slimeball bouncing high up in the air.

  WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!

  He heard the tractor pass underneath him.

  CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!

  Just as Ned felt a wave of relief that he’d not been run over by a tractor, he felt a wave of panic. Panic because the slimeball he was inside was now high up in the sky. So high that it hit a flock of seagulls.

  “SQUAWK!”

  “SQUAWK!”

  “SQUAWK!”

  One of the seagulls pecked at the slimeball…

  PECK!

  …it BURST!

  POP!

  Instantly, Ned began tumbling through the air.

  “HHHEEELLLP!” he cried.

  But Slime acted fast. It whizzed down ahead of him and trans-slimed into a trampoline!

  A SLIMEoline!*

  Ned hit the SLIMEoline at speed and bounced high up into the air.

  BOING!

  And again. BOING!

  A smile spread across the boy’s face. He was alive! And, what’s more, he was bouncing!

  BOING! BOING! BOING!

  “YIPPEE!” he yelped in delight.

  He yelped too soon. Looking down, he saw the SLIMEoline disappear from beneath him.

  “NOOOO!” he cried.

  Falling rapidly, the boy looked all around. Try as he might, he couldn’t see Slime anywhere.

  This is the end, he thought.

  The road below was speeding towards him.

  Then…

  A giant eagle every colour of the rainbow swooped down under Ned. It swept him high into the air. Now he was flying. Flying high up above the sea, the cliff, the cottage.

  “You really can be anything!” cried the boy.

  “Anything!” exclaimed the bird of slime, or “slird”.*

  From all the way up here, the Isle of Mulch looked tiny. The houses looked small, the trees looked small, the people looked small. The people looked so small, in fact, that they were little more than ants. As for the ants, they looked really, really, really small.

  For the first time in his short life, Ned felt something he’d never felt before.

  POWER.

  The boy had created something that could change everything.

  The Isle of Mulch was full of horrid grown-ups. Grown-ups who made the lives of all children miserable. Now Ned could get his own back on all these nasty characters. Not just for him, but for all the children of the island.

  There was no better time

 
for Ned to start than…

  NOW!

  * A slink is one hundred per cent the correct word. See your Walliamsictionary.

  * Get smart. Get a Walliamsictionary.

  * Walliamsictionary under “S”.

  “This way!” exclaimed the boy as he flew through the sky. “LOOK! That’s my old school! I want to introduce you to my horrid headmaster!”

  “Goody! Goody!” replied Slime.

  The bird flapped its wings and began swooping off in the direction of a terrifying gothic building overlooking the sea.

  A huge sign outside read:

  A bell chimed.

  DING!

  It was the beginning of the school day. Things started indecently early at MULCH SCHOOL, at the break of dawn. That is how the headmaster liked it. The children having to get up in the middle of the night to be at school on time was all part of the torture.

  Ned smiled to himself at the thought of what naughtiness was to come as he began descending to the playground.

  Just as soon as the bird of slime’s feet touched down, it placed Ned on to a bench, and then trans-slimed back into a blob. The blob loomed behind the boy like a great slimy shadow.

  “Let’s give Mr Wrath something to be angry about,” began the boy.

  “Goody! Goody!”

  Not unsurprisingly, after seeing a giant bird of slime land in the playground, the teachers all hurried out of the old school building, pointing and shouting.

  “I DON’T BELIEVE IT!” shouted one.

  “I WON’T BELIEVE IT!” shouted another.

  “I WILL BELIEVE IT, BUT I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” shouted a third.

  The pupils of MULCH SCHOOL all pressed their faces up against the classroom windows to see. They were too frightened of the teachers to dare step outside into the playground without permission.

  Then a man with a long black gown draped over his shoulders stormed out of the building. He whisked the cloak around theatrically as if he were Count Dracula twirling his cape.

  SWISH!

  It was only his teacher’s gown, but it afforded him an air of evil that he relished.

  Mr Wrath, the headmaster, had a big bald head, so he looked like an egg – an egg with a little moustache drawn on it. This moustache would flare up whenever he exploded with rage. Which was often. So often, in fact, that Mr Wrath was in a rage more often than not.

  Take a look at this RAGEOMETER of Mr Wrath’s typical day.

  As you can see, his rage is literally off the scale. It is certainly off the page.

  Mr Wrath raged at all the children in MULCH SCHOOL. As it was the only school, that was all the children on the island. The lucky ones got whacked with a wooden ruler. The unlucky ones were whacked with a wooden ruler, and then EXPELLED.

  “Landing giant birds in the playground is strictly forbidden!” he raged at Ned as he marched towards him. Even though landing a giant slime bird in the playground was not covered in the school rules, the headmaster was confident he could invent one. Mr Wrath had invented a long list of his own rules over his thirty-year reign of terror at MULCH SCHOOL

  WRATH’S RULES

  i) NO comparing me to an egg. I do not look like an egg. Eggs do not have moustaches and I have a moustache so that is the end of it. Anyone who does compare me to an egg will be EXPELLED. Also, my head is a lot bigger than an egg. And I have ears and, last time I checked, eggs do not.

  ii) NO breaking wind on school premises without a letter of consent from the headmaster. Even if a bottom burp comes out by accident when you catch a cricket ball, you will be EXPELLED.

  iii) NO laughing at school. You have not come to school to laugh. Crying, sobbing or bawling of any kind is welcome, though. There is no better sound than a child blubbering. Anyone heard laughing will be struck with a wooden ruler and then EXPELLED.

  iv) NO excuses whatsoever for late homework. I don’t care if your house took off in a tornado or you were abducted by aliens. If your homework is so much as one second late, you will be EXPELLED.

  v) NO moaning about school dinners. Shoe fish are incredibly tasty and can be used in every single dish in the school canteen.

  Shoe-fish spread

  Shoe-fish pie

  Shoe-fish stew

  Shoe-fish curry

  Shoe-fish cake

  Shoe-fish blancmange

  Shoe-fish mousse

  Shoe-fish surprise (the surprise being it is made of shoe fish)

  Anyone overheard moaning about school dinners will be forced to finish their school dinner before being EXPELLED.

  vi) NO wearing your tie the wrong way round so the skinny part is on the outside and the wide part is on the inside. Anyone found with their school tie the wrong way round will be spun around by their tie and EXPELLED out of the window.

  vii) NO playing in the playground. At breaktime and lunchtime you are only permitted to stand around in the rain. There shall be no playing of games. Any child caught playing games will be forced to stand outside in the rain and then EXPELLED.

  viii) NO chocolate allowed on school premises. Any chocolate will be confiscated personally by me. I will then dispose of the chocolate by eating it. Anyone who refuses to hand over their chocolate to me will not be EXPELLED. They will be held upside down by their ankles and dangled out of the window until they hand over their chocolate. After I have eaten their chocolate, then, and only then, will they be EXPELLED.

  ix) NO sneezing during lessons. It is disruptive to work. If you do feel a tickle in your nose telling you that a sneeze is coming on, then for goodness’ sake wait until you return home and then sneeze. Anyone heard sneezing in school will be EXPELLED just as a sneeze expels snot from your nose. A handy metaphor, as children equal SNOT.

  x) NO complaining about how many rules there are in the school. Anyone found complaining will not be EXPELLED as that is what they would want. Instead, they will be put down a year every year and be forced to stay at the school FOREVER. Just ask Old Man Giles. He is ninety-two and has been at Mulch School all his life!

  Ned was one of the hundreds of children who had been expelled from the school over the years. The headmaster had expelled so many that there were now more teachers than there were children at the school, as this handy graph shows.

  But now Ned was back,

  and he was ready for

  Mr Wrath had been careful not to expel ALL the children at his school. If he did, there would be no children left to expel. And he loved expelling children. Once, a child on their very first day at the school was expelled for skipping through the school gates. It was a new record for Mr Wrath, expelling a child who’d been at the school for less than three seconds.

  As for Ned, the boy was expelled for the simple crime of laughing.

  “HA! HA! HA!”

  In fairness to Mr Wrath, the boy was laughing because in Art class the pupils were charged with decorating an egg for Easter, and Ned had painted his egg to look exactly like Mr Wrath. This was much to his and everyone else’s amusement.

  “HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!”

  “You, boy!” bellowed the headmaster. “What are you doing back in my school? You are expelled!”

  “Hello again, sir,” chirped Ned. He didn’t sound too bothered. It is impossible to be expelled when you have already been expelled.

  “And what on earth is this monstrosity you have brought with you?” spat Wrath.

  “What a dreadful little man,” murmured Slime. “Whatever shall we do to him?”

  Ned thought for a moment. “We need to teach the headmaster a lesson. Us kids have suffered his rages for long enough. Wrath is always in a rage about nothing. Let’s finally give him something to be really, really, really angry about.”

  “Splendid! Now, let me think…”

  “TOO LATE, BLOBBY!” shouted Mr Wrath. “I am going to punish this boy severely. Did you hear me? SEVERELY!”

  With that, the headmaster whipped out the
long wooden ruler he’d been concealing under his cloak. Wrath lunged at the boy, ready to strike.

  THWUCK! THWUCK! THWUCK!

  went the ruler as it chopped through the air.

  Just as Mr Wrath was about to cause Ned excruciating pain, Slime shape-shifted into a giant octopus. A “sloctopus”.*

  One of the sloctopus’s arms wrestled the ruler from the headmaster, while another looped round the man’s ankle.

  Before Mr Wrath could shout “EXPELLED”, the sloctopus lifted him high into the air.

  Ned laughed as he looked up to see his old headmaster upside down above him.

  “HA! HA! HA!”

  “I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS, BOY!” screamed Mr Wrath.

  “I’m not sure you will,” replied the boy.

  “LET HIM GO!” shouted the teachers gathered in the playground.

  “Actually, I don’t mind if you keep him,” muttered the bearded deputy head. Mr Lust had long been lusting after the top job at the school.

  “What now, my young friend?” asked the sloctopus.

  “Spin Mr Wrath round like he spins round that ruler of his,” replied the boy.

  “I don’t mind if I do.”

  So the sloctopus spun the headmaster faster and faster and faster still. It was as if Mr Wrath were on a particularly puketastic* fairground ride.

  “Let go… NOW!” commanded Ned.

  The sloctopus released its grip, and Mr Wrath went flying off through the air.

  WHIZZ!

  “ARGH!” he cried as he zoomed up above the clouds.

  There was an eerie silence for a moment when it looked as if Mr Wrath might be heading for outer space.

  A sound of whistling cut through the quiet. All eyes in the playground searched the sky.

  “THERE!” shouted Ned.

  “What a shame,” muttered Mr Lust, stroking his beard.

  There was a tiny glow of red light high in the morning sky. As it began to descend, Ned exclaimed, “It’s Mr Wrath’s bottom burning up as he re-enters the atmosphere!”