Ned is the main protagonist of the children's book, Slime.
Biography[]
Ned lives on the Isle of Mulch, owned by his rich aunt, Greta Greed. Born paraplegic, Ned gets around in a wheelchair. His parents work in a fish shop and are away all day, so he is left alone with his older sister, Jemima, who resents him for getting all the attention and is constantly playing nasty tricks on him. Their Aunt Greta hates children (them included) and is always rewarding the adults who antagonize children.
On Ned's birthday, Jemima collects a bunch of gross things to give Ned a nasty surprise on his yearly bath. She fills the bathtub with gunk to make him scream. However, Ned knows about this and attempts to give Jemima a nasty surprise of her own. Instead, he creates Slime.
Slime introduces itself to Ned and shows its shapeshifting abilities. However, Jemima wakes up and tries to barge into the bathroom. Slime quickly turns into a boot, boots Jemima, turns into a pair of wings, flies Ned to the window, turns into a slide, and slides Ned out.
Slime turns into a ball and bounces Ned all over the place. After some more fun, Ned decides to start enacting justice in Mulch on the adults who wronged him and the other children. He starts by going to Mulch's School for Revolting Children, where the headmaster, Walter Wrath, expels children for the slightest of infractions, having expelled Ned simply for laughing. Slime flies him to a bench and attracts the attention of a good number of teachers. Upon seeing Ned and Slime, Mr. Wrath demands to know what Ned is doing here. He tries to whack Ned with his ruler, but Slime turns into an octopus, grabs Mr. Wrath, and (under Ned's orders) spins the man around before releasing him. Mr. Wrath flies through the atmosphere and into the sea, where he nearly drown until Slime rescues him. Everyone laughs at his exposed bottom, and Ned and Slime leave, while Mr. Lust, the deputy head, who has long wanted the job of headmaster, implores them to return and finish Mr. Wrath off.
Next, they go to the toyshop, Envy's Emporium, which is owned by twin brothers, Edmund and Edmond Envy. The brothers have argued so much that they hate each other almost as much as they hate children. The toys in their shop are designed to hurt children. Ned once tried to buy a clockwork robot from them, but Edmond popped a paper bag, causing Ned to drop the robot. The twins denied doing anything and refused to give Ned's money back to him.
At the toyshop, a girl is running out in tears. Slime turns into a motorbike and speeds Ned down to the shop. The twins try to scare him again, but Ned stands his ground and summons Slime, who floods the toyshop and turns into many little children who take the twins' toys and hand them to other children. Ned shouts, "Boo!" at the twins before leaving.
Afterwards, Ned and Slime go to Mulch Park, where Captain Pride, the parkkeeper (and a former soldier in the army), forbids anyone to enter. He also once popped Ned's basketball when it bounced into the park. When he sees Slime, he shrieks and is then hoist by the ankles by his invention, Pride's Tackle. He is further horrified when Slime, in the form of a pterodactyl, lands on the grass. After a little bit of banter, Slime turns into sweet wrappers and starts flying all over the park. After that, it turns into basketballs and starts bouncing around. Finally, it turns into pigeons and starts pooping all over the place, including on Captain Pride.
Ned and Slime fly to the mansion of Ned's piano teacher, Madame Solenzio Sloth. Madame Sloth is a lazy woman who takes children's money and goes to sleep, but not before she puts on a recording of her giving a piano lesson. Actually, she does not know how to play the piano. She often punishes children if they try to stand up to her, and once farted in Ned's face when he said that he was never coming to her "lessons" again.
At Madame Sloth's house, Ned orders Slime to transform into an orchestra and then starts conducting. The resultant noise sends Madame Sloth shooting into the sky and onto the piano.
While continuing their crusade for justice, Ned and Slime see some children from the Isle of Twaddle at Mulch's Medieval Fort. They are crying, and when Ned asks why, they say that ice cream sellers stole all of their money. Ned realizes that the ice cream sellers are Glen and Glenda Glutton, who own Glutton's Glaces. The pair steal money from children without giving them any ice cream, instead eating it themselves. Ned, having gone through this experience once, flies with Slime to the Gluttons' van and taps on the window. Glen sees the sight and slams on the brakes, sending the ice cream that he was eating splattering all over the window. Glenda goes upside-down, and while trying to help her, Glen accidentally turns the ice cream pump on, flooding the van with Mr. Whippy. Ned flies up to the van, but the Gluttons don't remember him. They try to drive away, but because the windshield is still covered in ice cream, Glen can't see where he is going. When he wipes off the ice cream, he sees Slime transformed into a giant Mr. Whippy. Glen tries to drive away, but slams too hard on the brake, causing the van to somersault and land upside-down in the field. Slime goes through a gap in the window and explodes the van. Ned and Slime take the Gluttons' ice cream machine and use it to give the children of Twaddle an ice cream party.
Finally, Ned and Slime go to the castle of Greta Greed to wrap up their adventure. Greta's cats, all named Tiddles, waylay the pair, but Slime eventually scares them off by turning into a tidal wave. Greta then shows up, holding her biggest cat, Gigantic Tiddles. She is not amused by her nephew's presence, and tells him to leave or she will send Tiddles on him. As she rants at him to leave, Ned tells Slime to slather itself all over Greta. Greta's cats surround Ned and Slime, and Slime goes up to the ceiling, pulling Ned up. However, Greta is not ready to give up, and tells her cats to eat her nephew.
The cats form a ladder, and in its efforts to escape, Slime gets tangled up in the chandelier. While struggling, it accidentally swings Ned toward Gigantic Tiddles, who then bites his ear. The rest of the cats fall onto Greta, but Gigantic Tiddles still hangs on. Ned and Slime tickle Gigantic Tickles to get it to let go, causing it to fall on Greta. Now that she is at his mercy, Ned orders his aunt to ship off the adults who are constantly terrorizing the children. Upon promising to be nicer to the children, Greta Greed is invited by Ned to be a part of the family again.
When he and Slime go home, however, Ned does not see Jemima. He and Slime eventually find her weeping on his wheelchair, but when they approach her, she boots them into the sky, with Slime too far up to get to Ned. Fortunately, Jemima catches Ned and promises to be nicer to him from now on. Slime flies the two of them over Mulch, where children are now having fun. They also see the adults being sent away from Mulch in a prison ship. Slime turns into thousands of little blobs and leaves Mulch.