Copyright

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2020 Published in this ebook edition in 2020 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk Text copyright © David Walliams 2020 Illustrations copyright © Tony Ross 2020 Cover lettering of author’s name copyright © Quentin Blake 2010 Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020 David Walliams and Tony Ross assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work respectively. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008342586 Ebook Edition © April 2020 ISBN: 9780008349158 Version: 2020-03-27

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Thank-yous

These are the characters in the story…

Map

Prologue

Chapter 1: Mulch

Chapter 2: A Beastly Girl

Chapter 3: Gunk

Chapter 4: Bogeys Under the Bed

Chapter 5: The Bath of Doom

Chapter 6: Gunk Monster

Chapter 7: Blobby Blob

Chapter 8: A Particularly Noisy Poo

Chapter 9: Slimeball

Chapter 10: Wrath’s Rules

Chapter 11: Blazing Bottom

Chapter 12: Cold Hearts

Chapter 13: Clockwork Robot

Chapter 14: The Most Revolting Toys in the World

Chapter 15: Giant Jelly Babies

Chapter 16: The Perfect Shade of Green

Chapter 17: The Book of Park Occurrences

Chapter 18: Bottom Banger

Chapter 19: Dance to the Music of Slime

Chapter 20: Gruesome Twosome

Chapter 21: Peeved Cow

Chapter 22: Ice-cream Party

Chapter 23: Flying Saucer

Chapter 24: Kitty Litter Castle

Chapter 25: A Swarming Sea of Cats

Chapter 26: Eaten Alive

Chapter 27: A Cat as Big as a Bear

Chapter 28: A Mountain of Moggies

Chapter 29: Setting Sun

Chapter 30: Forever

Chapter 31: Final Flight

Epilogue

More from the World of David Walliams

Also by David Walliams

About the Publisher

For Dante, the coolest kid on wheels

This story is set on the Isle of Mulch. The little island is home to some big characters...

Meet NED. Ned is a bright and funny boy of eleven. Because his legs haven’t worked since he was a baby, Ned uses a wheelchair to whizz around Mulch.

JEMIMA is Ned’s older sister. Jemima likes nothing more than playing the most horrid tricks on her little brother.

NED’S PARENTS: Dad spends all day on his fishing boat out at sea. Mum spends all day at the island’s market selling the fish he catches.

SIR WALTER WRATH is the headmaster of Ned’s old school, Mulch School for Revolting Children. It is the boy’s old school because Sir Walter expelled Ned in one of his notorious volcanic rages.

MR LUST is the deputy head of Mulch School for Revolting Children. Day and night he lusts after the top job, that of headmaster.

EDMUND and EDMOND ENVY run the only toyshop on the island, named Envy’s Emporium. The terrible twins loathe children for the simple crime of being young, and send the poor mites fleeing from their shop in floods of tears.

MADAME SOLENZIO SLOTH is the world’s laziest piano teacher. The lady is paid good money to give piano lessons to children. However, all she does is snooze on the sofa as she blows off. THUNDEROUSLY.

CAPTAIN PRIDE is the island’s park keeper. The public park is the ex-army officer’s pride and joy. So much so that absolutely no one is ever allowed to set foot inside it. Especially not nasty little children who will trample his precious grass.

GLEN and GLENDA GLUTTON own the only ice-cream van on the island, Glutton’s Glaces. That is because they have rammed all their rival ice-cream vans off the road. The married couple are thieves who snatch children’s pocket money, and then speed off without giving them their ice creams. Instead, the evil pair scoff all the ice cream themselves.

AUNT GRETA GREED is Ned and Jemima’s mega-rich auntie. She owns the Isle of Mulch. The grand old lady lives alone in a castle high on a hill that overlooks the entire island. All she has to keep her company are more than a hundred cats, all called Tiddles.

GIGANTIC TIDDLES is Aunt Greta’s heftiest cat. It is the size and weight of a bear, and infinitely more fearsome.

And last but not least, SLIME.

Oh yes, Slime is very much alive. It is a creature with powers to change shape or “trans-slime” into ANYTHING and EVERYTHING.

But is Slime a force for

GOOD or EVIL?

You must read on…

RAJ the newsagent does not live on Mulch.

SLIME is one of the greatest mysteries of the world. If not the greatest. It beats the creation of Stonehenge, laughs in the face of the power of the pyramids and takes a giant slimy plop on the Loch Ness Monster.

Slime.

What is it?

Where is it?

Who is it?

How is it?

And why

is it?

Children demand to know where slime came from. And grown-ups are desperate to know if it is ever going back.

For the first time in history, the legend of slime can finally be told. All will be revealed in this book, which might be the most important book ever writtened.*

Some experts believe that slime dates back billions of years.

Their theory is that when the Earth was created it was nothing more than a sea of SLIME. Out of that SLIME came more SLIME. And out of that SLIME came more SLIME. Then, of course, out of that SLIME came even more SLIME. It remained buried under the Earth for billions of years. Until now...

Others suppose that at the dawn of time a giant meteor of SLIME crash-landed into the Earth. On impact, billions of gallons of SLIME exploded into the air, covering every living thing in thick SLIME. This explains why the dinosaurs died out. They got SLIMED.

There is another theory that many years ago SLIME-based aliens from a SLIME-based planet (the planet SLIME) flew in a SLIME-based spaceship to the Earth. Once on Earth they taught ancient civilisations all about SLIME.

How to construct buildings out of SLIME.

The best recipes to cook with SLIME.

And, most importantly, how to make socks out of SLIME.

Then the SLIME-based aliens got in their SLIME-based spaceship and whizzed back to their SLIME-based planet, the planet SLIME. And they never came again. But they left the secret of SLIME with the human race, so children could torment grown-ups with it forever.

The truth is rather different.

SLIME was actually created more than fifty years ago on a remote island. The Isle of Mulch, to be precise. It is situated in the middle of the Great Northeastsouthwestern Sea, between the islands of Twaddle and Stench.

How do I know all this?

Because I just made it up.

* A real word you will find in your Walliamsictionary, the world’s number-one dictionary.

The little ISLE OF MULCH was home to less than a thousand people, 999 to be precise. I told you it was less than a thousand.

One of these 999 people was a boy named Ned. “Ned” wasn’t short for anything – he was just called Ned. Ned was eleven years old. He’d been born on Mulch and, like most islanders, had never left.

To say Ned was just an ordinary boy would be wrong. He wasn’t ORDINARY – he was extraordinary. Ned had been born with legs that didn’t work. He couldn’t walk at all, so was found a battered old rusty wheelchair and he learned to use it. The boy could often be seen whizzing around the island, doing stunts and wheelies to delight his friends.

“I got the ZOOMIES!” he would cry as he whizzed past.

Home for Ned was a tiny weather-beaten old cottage. The cottage perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the raging sea that surrounded the island.

From dawn until dusk, Ned’s mother and father were out of the house at work. Dad was a fisherman, so was away at sea all day on his fishing boat. Mum sold the fish Dad caught at the island’s market. The only fish you could catch around the Isle of Mulch were called shoe fish. They were fish shaped like shoes.

They tasted like shoes too. The overriding flavour was foot sweat. But the locals became used to the taste, disgusting though it was. They had no choice.

Needless to say, both Ned’s parents absolutely STANK of fish. But Ned didn’t see or even smell much of them as the pair were always working.

Instead, the boy was left home alone with his older sister. Jemima resented Ned deeply. She might have been the older one, but it was her younger brother who got all the attention.

The girl wore pretty little flowery dresses, with huge STEEL-CAPPED boots, and she wasn’t afraid to use them.

Ned’s aunt owned the Isle of Mulch. She was his mother’s much older sister, and her name was Greta Greed. High on a hill overlooking the whole island squatted KITTY LITTER CASTLE – a huge medieval fortress that the lady called home. It was a world away from the tiny cottage that Ned shared with his family.

Greed lived there alone, which is how she liked it. Her only company was her 101 cats. These cats were fearsome beasts… She had them to scare nasty little children away.

The lady loathed children, especially her poor nephew, Ned. Aunt Greta never, ever did a thing to help him. For her, children ruined her Isle of Mulch with their games, their chatter and, worst of all, their stench. Aunt Greta should be the last person to complain about a smell as she stank of cat pee.

Because Aunt Greta owned the entire island, she had power over all those who lived there. The lady rewarded those grown-ups on Mulch who detested children almost as much as she did.

One such man was Sir Walter Wrath. He was a nasty old wretch whom Greed had made headmaster of the only school on the island, MULCH SCHOOL FOR REVOLTING CHILDREN. The only thing that gave Wrath pleasure was expelling children from his school. Like so many others, Ned had suffered that fate.

There was one toyshop on the island. Greed had given care of it to twin brothers. Edmund and Edmond Envy had named the shop ENVY’S EMPORIUM, but it was nothing more than a front for terrorising children. Ned had had a particularly nasty time when he’d last visited.

Another resident of Mulch was Madame Solenzio Sloth. The lady was supposed to be a piano teacher, but she was too lazy to teach children anything. Sloth was a virtuoso of cruelty. Ned had the misfortune of being one of her pupils, and when he’d dared to complain all hell broke loose.

Captain Pride was an uptight ex-soldier whom Greed had appointed Mulch’s park keeper. The captain ensured no one could ever enjoy the island’s only public park, especially not little people like Ned.

Ice-cream sellers Glen and Glenda Glutton made sure children never got to enjoy an ice cream, ever. The married couple zoomed around the island in their van, looking for children to rob. They took their pocket money, and then sped off without giving them their ice cream. If the Gluttons had lived anywhere else in the world, other than Mulch, they would have been locked up in prison and the key thrown away. However, Greed delighted in their scam, and ensured the pair were never brought to justice, even when they stole from her own nephew, Ned.

So this little island was home to a large number of horrible grown-ups. But there was a child on the island who was probably as bad.

Poor Ned was related to her.

It was his sister.

Ned’s sister, Jemima, liked nothing more than playing horrid tricks on her little brother. Tricks that made the girl snigger to herself all day and all night.

“TEE! HEE! HEE!”

It wasn’t a nice snigger. It was a nasty snigger, as if she knew she was beastly.

The tricks were all absolutely foul:

Dropping wiggly-waggly worms down the back of her little brother’s pyjamas.

“YIKES!”

Replacing Ned’s toothpaste with glue so his teeth stuck together.

“MMM!”

Emptying the jar of his favourite marmalade and replacing it with mashed-up wasps.

“YUCK!”

Painting everything in her little brother’s room bright purple – the walls, the floor, the ceiling, his toys and clothes, even his pet gerbil.

“NOOOO!”

Hiding a big furry spider at the end of his bed so it nibbled his toes.

“ARGH!”

“YOW!”

Dusting the toilet seat with chilli powder so the boy’s botty was too, too hotty.

Swapping Ned’s favourite chocolate-coated raisins with gerbil droppings.

“EURGH!”

Breaking wind into an old wooden box for a week. Then opening it in Ned’s bedroom so he would suffer the PONGTASMAGORIA.*

“POOOOOOOOOOOO!”

However, all this was nothing compared to the nightmarish trick Jemima was planning for her little brother.

* Another real word you will find with ease in your Walliamsictionary.

Jemima was a child who revelled in all things YUCKY. Not just spiders and worms, but Gooey things too. All around the little cottage where the family lived, the girl had hidden gunk in jars.

Things you found under rocks. Things you found at the bottom of ponds. Things you found lurking down the plughole.

Jemima would scoop up anything nasty and deposit it in a jar. Over time, she had collected hundreds and hundreds of jars of all different kinds of gunk. Every single one had a label on it so Jemima could remember what was what. One shudders to think how the girl collected some of these revolting things. You would not want to touch this stuff with your bare hands!

At the bottom of every wardrobe, at the back of every cupboard, under the floorboards, there were jars and jars and more jars. Jemima was stockpiling them in the family cottage, as she wanted to play the most HUMONGOUS trick on her little brother.

A trick that would make him scream the house down.

“AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!”

A scream that would echo all over the Isle of Mulch forever.

Jemima would snigger herself to sleep thinking about her devilish plan.

“TEE! HEE! HEE!”

There was just one problem.

Her little brother was on to her.

Ned found the jars. Just one jar at first. In a deep sleep, Ned had rolled off his bed in the dead of night.

THUD!

“OUCH!”

The fall woke him up. Just as he was about to haul himself back up, Ned noticed something glinting in the darkness under his bed.

He reached out and found it was a jar. The label – in his sister’s scrawled handwriting – read simply BOGEYS. On closer inspection, he discovered it really was a jar bursting with bogeys. They looked very much like Jemima’s. She had picked, licked and flicked so many at Ned over the years that he could recognise them in any line-up in an instant. Hers were always a brownish shade of green.

At once Ned knew his wicked sister was up to something.

But why had she hidden her own bogeys in a jar under his bed?

Lifting up the sheets, he saw that this was just one of what must have been a hundred jars under there… each containing something more disgusting than the last. Ned’s eyes bulged as he read the labels.

One by one, Ned pulled all the jars out from under his bed. He was careful not to clink them together. The sound would wake up his wicked sister, who was sleeping in her room next door.

Then Ned hoisted himself up on to his battered old wheelchair so he could go hunting for more jars.

One good thing about getting around on wheels is that you can glide silently and undetected.

As long as you don’t bump into the furniture.

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 scream, 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?”

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