Matilda Read online

  Matilda had enjoyed that. It was lovely doing it. It had felt as though sparks were going round and round inside her head and flashing out of her eyes. It had given her a sense of power that was almost ethereal. And how quick it had been this time! How simple!

  She crossed the bedroom and picked up the cigar and put it back on the table.

  Now for the difficult one, she thought. But if I have the power to push, then surely I also have the power to lift? It is vital I learn how to lift it. I must learn how to lift it right up into the air and keep it there. It is not a very heavy thing, a cigar.

  She sat on the end of the bed and started again. It was easy now to summon up the power behind her eyes. It was like pushing a trigger in the brain. 'Lift' she whispered. 'Lift! Lift!'

  At first the cigar started to roll away. But then, with Matilda concentrating fiercely, one end of it slowly lifted up about an inch off the table-top. With a colossal effort, she managed to hold it there for about ten seconds. Then it fell back again.

  'Phew!' she gasped. 'I'm getting it! I'm starting to do it!'

  For the next hour, Matilda kept practising, and in the end she had managed, by the sheer power of her eyes, to lift the whole cigar clear off the table about six inches into the air and hold it there for about a minute. Then suddenly she was so exhausted she fell back on the bed and went to sleep.

  That was how her mother found her later in the evening.

  'What's the matter with you?' the mother said, waking her up. 'Are you ill?'

  'Oh gosh,' Matilda said, sitting up and looking around. 'No. I'm all right. I was a bit tired, that's all.'

  From then on, every day after school, Matilda shut herself in her room and practised with the cigar. And soon it all began to come together in the most wonderful way. Six days later, by the following Wednesday evening, she was able not only to lift the cigar up into the air but also to move it around exactly as she wished. It was beautiful. 'I can do it!' she cried. 'I can really do it! I can pick the cigar up just with my eye-power and push it and pull it in the air any way I want!'

  All she had to do now was to put her great plan into action.

  The Third Miracle

  The next day was Thursday, and that, as the whole of Miss Honey's class knew, was the day on which the Headmistress would take charge of the first lesson after lunch.

  In the morning Miss Honey said to them, 'One or two of you did not particularly enjoy the last occasion when the Headmistress took the class, so let us all try to be especially careful and clever today. How are your ears, Eric, after your last encounter with Miss Trunchbull?'

  'She stretched them,' Eric said. 'My mother said she's positive they are bigger than they were.'

  'And Rupert,' Miss Honey said, 'I am glad to see you didn't lose any of your hair after last Thursday.'

  'My head was jolly sore afterwards,' Rupert said.

  'And you, Nigel,' Miss Honey said, 'do please try not to be smart-aleck with the Headmistress today. You were really quite cheeky to her last week.'

  'I hate her,' Nigel said.

  'Try not to make it so obvious,' Miss Honey said. 'It doesn't pay. She's a very strong woman. She has muscles like steel ropes.'

  'I wish I was grown up,' Nigel said. 'I'd knock her flat.'

  'I doubt you would,' Miss Honey said. 'No one has ever got the better of her yet.'

  'What will she be testing us on this afternoon?' a small girl asked.

  'Almost certainly the three-times table,' Miss Honey said. 'That's what you are all meant to have learnt this past week. Make sure you know it.'

  Lunch came and went.

  After lunch, the class reassembled. Miss Honey stood at one side of the room. They all sat silent, apprehensive, waiting. And then, like some giant of doom, the enormous Trunchbull strode into the room in her green breeches and cotton smock. She went straight to her jug of water and lifted it up by the handle and peered inside.

  'I am glad to see,' she said, 'that there are no slimy creatures in my drinking-water this time. If there had been, then something exceptionally unpleasant would have happened to every single member of this class. And that includes you, Miss Honey'

  The class remained silent and very tense. They had learnt a bit about this tigress by now and nobody was about to take any chances.

  'Very well,' boomed the Trunchbull. 'Let us see how well you know your three-times table. Or to put it another way, let us see how badly Miss Honey has taught you the three-times table,' The Trunchbull was standing in front of the class, legs apart, hands on hips, scowling at Miss Honey, who stood silent to one side.

  Matilda, sitting motionless at her desk in the second row, was watching things very closely

  'You!' the Trunchbull shouted, pointing a finger the size of a rolling-pin at a boy called Wilfred. Wilfred was on the extreme right of the front row. 'Stand up, you!' she shouted at him.

  Wilfred stood up.

  'Recite the three-times table backwards!' the Trunchbull barked.

  'Backwards?' stammered Wilfred. 'But I haven't learnt it backwards.'

  'There you are!' cried the Trunchbull, triumphant. 'She's taught you nothing! Miss Honey, why have you taught them absolutely nothing at all in the last week?'

  'That is not true, Headmistress' Miss Honey said. 'They have all learnt their three-times table. But I see no point in teaching it to them backwards. There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards. I venture to ask whether even you, for example, can spell a simple word like wrong backwards straight away. I very much doubt it.'

  'Don't you get impertinent with me, Miss Honey!' the Trunchbull snapped, then she turned back to the unfortunate Wilfred. 'Very well, boyy' she said. 'Answer me this. I have seven apples, seven oranges and seven bananas. How many pieces of fruit do I have altogether? Hurry up! Get on with it! Give me the answer!'

  'That's adding up!' Wilfred cried. 'That isn't the three-times table!'

  'You blithering idiot!' shouted the Trunchbull. 'You festering gumboil! You fleabitten fungus! That is the three-times table! You have three separate lots of fruit and each lot has seven pieces. Three sevens are twenty-one. Can't you see that, you stagnant cesspool! I'll give you one more chance. I have eight coconuts, eight monkey-nuts and eight nutty little idiots like you. How many nuts do I have altogether? Answer me quickly.'

  Poor Wilfred was properly flustered. 'Wait!' he cried. 'Please wait! I've got to add up eight coconuts and eight monkey-nuts ...' He started counting on his fingers.

  'You bursting blister!' yelled the Trunchbull. 'You moth-eaten maggot! This is not adding up! This is multiplication! The answer is three eights! Or is it eight threes? What is the difference between three eights and eight threes? Tell me that, you mangled little wurzel, and look sharp about it!'

  By now Wilfred was far too frightened and bewildered even to speak.

  In two strides the Trunchbull was beside him, and by some amazing gymnastic trick, it may have been judo or karate, she flipped the back of Wilfred's legs with one of her feet so that the boy shot up off the ground and turned a somersault in the air. But halfway through the somersault she caught him by an ankle and held him dangling upside-down like a plucked chicken in a shop-window.

  'Eight threes,' the Trunchbull shouted, swinging Wilfred from side to side by his ankle, 'eight threes is the same as three eights and three eights are twenty-four! Repeat that!'

  At exactly that moment Nigel, at the other end of the room, jumped to his feet and started pointing excitedly at the blackboard and screaming, 'The chalk! The chalk! Look at the chalk! It's moving all on its own!'

  So hysterical and shrill was Nigel's scream that everyone in the place, including the Trunchbull, looked up at the blackboard. And there, sure enough, a brand-new piece of chalk was hovering near the grey-black writing surface of the blackboard.

  'It's writing something!' screamed Nigel. 'The chalk is writing something!'

  And indeed it
was.

  'What the blazes is this?' yelled the Trunchbull. It had shaken her to see her own first name being written like that by an invisible hand. She dropped Wilfred on to the floor. Then she yelled at nobody in particular, 'Who's doing this? Who's writing it?'

  The chalk continued to write.

  Everyone in the place heard the gasp that came from the Trunchbull's throat. 'No!' she cried. 'It can't be! It can't be Magnus!'

  Miss Honey, at the side of the room glanced swiftly at Matilda. The child was sitting very straight at her desk, the head held high, the mouth compressed, the eyes glittering like two stars.

  For some reason everyone now looked at the Trunchbull. The woman's face had turned white as snow and her mouth was opening and shutting like a halibut out of water and giving out a series of strangled gasps.

  The chalk stopped writing. It hovered fora few moments, then suddenly it dropped tothe floor with a tinkle and broke in two.

  Wilfred, who had managed to resume his seat in the front row, screamed, 'Miss Trunchbull has fallen down! Miss Trunchbull is on the floor!'

  This was the most sensational bit of news of all and the entire class jumped up out of their seats to have a really good look. And there she was, the huge figure of the Headmistress, stretched full-length on her back across the floor, out for the count.

  Miss Honey ran forward and knelt beside the prostrate giant. 'She's fainted!' she cried. 'She's out cold! Someone go and fetch the matron at once.' Three children ran out of the room.

  Nigel, always ready for action, leapt up and seized the big jug of water. 'My father says cold water is the best way to wake up someone who's fainted,' he said, and with that he tipped the entire contents of the jug over the Trunchbull's head. No one, not even Miss Honey, protested.

  As for Matilda, she continued to sit motionless at her desk. She was feeling curiously elated. She felt as though she had touched something that was not quite of this world, the highest point of the heavens, the farthest star. She had felt most wonderfully the power surging up behind her eyes, gushing like a warm fluid inside her skull, and her eyes had become scorching hot, hotter than ever before, and things had come bursting out of her eye-sockets and then the piece of chalk had lifted itself up and had begun to write. It seemed as though she had hardly done anything, it had all been so simple.

  The school matron, followed by five teachers, three women and two men, came rushing into the room.

  'By golly, somebody's floored her at last!' cried one of the men, grinning. 'Congratulations, Miss Honey!'

  'Who threw the water over her?' asked the matron.

  'I did,' said Nigel proudly.

  'Good for you,' another teacher said. 'Shall we get some more?'

  'Stop that,' the matron said. 'We must carry her up to the sick-room.'

  It took all five teachers and the matron to lift the enormous woman and stagger with her out of the room.

  Miss Honey said to the class, 'I think you'd all better go out to the playground and amuse yourselves until the next lesson.' Then she turned and walked over to the blackboard and carefully wiped out all the chalk writing.

  The children began filing out of the classroom. Matilda started to go with them, but as she passed Miss Honey she paused and her twinkling eyes met the teacher's eyes and Miss Honey ran forward and gave the tiny child a great big hug and a kiss.

  A New Home

  Later that day, the news began to spread that the Headmistress had recovered from her fainting-fit and had then marched out of the school building tight-lipped and white in the face.

  The next morning she did not turn up at school. At lunchtime, Mr Trilby, the Deputy Head, telephoned her house to enquire if she was feeling unwell. There was no answer to the phone.

  When school was over, Mr Trilby decided to investigate further, so he walked to the house where Miss Trunchbull lived on the edge of the village, the lovely small red brick Georgian building known as The Red House, tucked away in the woods behind the hills.

  He rang the bell. No answer.

  He knocked loudly. No answer.

  He called out, 'Is anybody at home?' No answer.

  He tried the door and to his surprise found it unlocked. He went in.

  The house was silent and there was no one in it, and yet all the furniture was still in place. Mr Trilby went upstairs to the main bedroom. Here also everything seemed to be normal until he started opening drawers and looking into cupboards. There were no clothes or underclothes or shoes anywhere. They had all gone.

  She's done a bunk, Mr Trilby said to himself, and he went away to inform the School Governors that the Headmistress had apparently vanished.

  On the second morning, Miss Honey received by registered post a letter from a firm of local solicitors informing her that the last will and testament of her late father, Dr Honey, had suddenly and mysteriously turned up. This document revealed that ever since her father's death, Miss Honey had in fact been the rightful owner of a property on the edge of the village known as The Red House, which until recently had been occupied by a Miss Agatha Trunchbull. The will also showed that her father's lifetime savings, which fortunately were still safely in the bank, had also been left to her. The solicitor's letter added that if Miss Honey would kindly call in to the office as soon as possible, then the property and the money could be transferred into her name very rapidly.

  Miss Honey did just that, and within a couple of weeks she had moved into The Red House, the very place in which she had been brought up and where luckily all the family furniture and pictures were still around. From then on, Matilda was a welcome visitor to The Red House every single evening after school, and a very close friendship began to develop between the teacher and the small child.

  Back at school, great changes were also taking place. As soon as it became clear that Miss Trunchbull had completely disappeared from the scene, the excellent Mr Trilby was appointed Head Teacher in her place. And very soon after that, Matilda was moved up into the top form, where Miss Plimsoll quickly discovered that this amazing child was every bit as bright as Miss Honey had said.

  One evening a few weeks later, Matilda was having tea with Miss Honey in the kitchen of The Red House after school as they always did, when Matilda said suddenly, 'Something strange has happened to me, Miss Honey.'

  'Tell me about it,' Miss Honey said.

  'This morning,' Matilda said, 'just for fun I tried to push something over with my eyes and I couldn't do it. Nothing moved. I didn't even feel the hotness building up behind my eyeballs. The power had gone. I think I've lost it completely.'

  Miss Honey carefully buttered a slice of brown bread and put a little strawberry jam on it. 'I've been expecting something like that to happen,' she said.

  'You have? Why?' Matilda asked.

  'Well,' Miss Honey said, 'it's only a guess, but here's what I think. While you were in my class you had nothing to do, nothing to make you struggle. Your fairly enormous brain was going crazy with frustration. It was bubbling and boiling away like mad inside your head. There was tremendous energy bottled up in there with nowhere to go, and somehow or other you were able to shoot that energy out through your eyes and make objects move. But now things are different. You are in the top form competing against children more than twice your age and all that mental energy is being used up in class. Your brain is for the first time having to struggle and strive and keep really busy, which is great. That's only a theory, mind you, and it may be a silly one, but I don't think it's far off the mark.'

  'I m glad it's happened,' Matilda said. 'I wouldn't want to go through life as a miracle-worker.'

  'You've done enough,' Miss Honey said. 'I can still hardly believe you made all this happen for me.'

  Matilda, who was perched on a tall stool at the kitchen table, ate her bread and jam slowly. She did so love these afternoons with Miss Honey. She felt completely comfortable in her presence, and the two of them talked to each other more or less as equals.

  'Did you
know,' Matilda said suddenly, 'that the heart of a mouse beats at the rate of six hundred and fifty times a minute? '

  'I did not,' Miss Honey said smiling. 'How absolutely fascinating. Where did you read that?'

  'In a book from the library,' Matilda said. 'And that means it goes so fast you can't even hear the separate beats. It must sound just like a buzz.'

  'It must,' Miss Honey said.

  'And how fast do you think a hedgehog's heart beats?' Matilda asked.

  'Tell me,' Miss Honey said, smiling again.

  'It's not as fast as a mouse,' Matilda said. 'It's three hundred times a minute. But even so, you wouldn't have thought it went as fast as that in a creature that moves so slowly, would you, Miss Honey?'

  'I certainly wouldn't,' Miss Honey said. 'Tell me one more.'

  'Ahorse,' Matilda said. 'That's really slow. It's only forty times a minute.'

  This child, Miss Honey told herself, seems to be interested in everything. When one is with her it is impossible to be bored. I love it.

  The two of them stayed sitting and talking in the kitchen for an hour or so longer, and then, at about six o'clock, Matilda said goodnight and set out to walk home to her parents' house, which was about an eight-minute journey away. When she arrived at her own gate, she saw a large black Mercedes motor-car parked outside. She didn't take too much notice of that. There were often strange cars parked outside her father's place. But when she entered the house, she was confronted by a scene of utter chaos. Her mother and father were both in the hall frantically stuffing clothing and various objects into suitcases.

  'What on earth's going on?' she cried.'

  'What's happening, Daddy?'

  'We're off,' Mr Wormwood said, not looking up. 'We're leaving for the airport in half an hour so you'd better get packed. Your brother's upstairs all ready to go. Get a move on, girl! Get going!'