Matilda Read online

  'You are right there,' Miss Honey said.

  'There aren't many funny bits in Mr Tolkien either,' Matilda said.

  'Do you think that all children's books ought to have funny bits in them?' Miss Honey asked.

  'I do,' Matilda said. 'Children are not so serious as grown-ups and they love to laugh.'

  Miss Honey was astounded by the wisdom of this tiny girl. She said, 'And what are you going to do now that you've read all the children's books?'

  'I am reading other books,' Matilda said. 'I borrow them from the library. Mrs Phelps is very kind to me. She helps me to choose them.'

  Miss Honey was leaning far forward over her work-table and gazing in wonder at the child. She had completely forgotten now about the rest of the class. 'What other books?' she murmured.

  'I am very fond of Charles Dickens,' Matilda said. 'He makes me laugh a lot. Especially Mr Pickwick.'

  At that moment the bell in the corridor sounded for the end of class.

  The Trunchbull

  In the interval, Miss Honey left the classroom and headed straight for the Headmistress's study. She felt wildly excited. She had just met a small girl who possessed, or so it seemed to her, quite extraordinary qualities of brilliance. There had not been time yet to find out exactly how brilliant the child was, but Miss Honey had learnt enough to realize that something had to be done about it as soon as possible. It would be ridiculous to leave a child like that stuck in the bottom form.

  Normally Miss Honey was terrified of the Headmistress and kept well away from her, but at this moment she felt ready to take on anybody. She knocked on the door of the dreaded private study. 'Enter!' boomed the deep and dangerous voice of Miss Trunchbull. Miss Honey went in.

  Now most head teachers are chosen because they possess a number of fine qualities. They understand children and they have the children's best interests at heart. They are sympathetic. They are fair and they are deeply interested in education. Miss Trunchbull possessed none of these qualities and how she ever got her present job was a mystery.

  She was above all a most formidable female. She had once been a famous athlete, and even now the muscles were still clearly in evidence. You could see them in the bull-neck, in the big shoulders, in the thick arms, in the sinewy wrists and in the powerful legs. Looking at her, you got the feeling that this was someone who could bend iron bars and tear telephone directories in half. Her face, I'm afraid, was neither a thing of beauty nor a joy for ever. She had an obstinate chin, a cruel mouth and small arrogant eyes. And as for her clothes ... they were, to say the least, extremely odd. She always had on a brown cotton smock which was pinched in around the waist with a wide leather belt. The belt was fastened in front with an enormous silver buckle. The massive thighs which emerged from out of the smock were encased in a pair of extraordinary breeches, bottle-green in colour and made of coarse twill. These breeches reached to just below the knees and from there on down she sported green stockings with turn-up tops, which displayed her calf muscles to perfection. On her feet she wore flat-heeled brown brogues with leather flaps. She looked, in short, more like a rather eccentric and bloodthirsty follower of the stag-hounds than the headmistress of a nice school for children.

  When Miss Honey entered the study, Miss Trunchbull was standing beside her huge desk with a look of scowling impatience on her face. 'Yes, Miss Honey,' she said. 'What is it you want? You're looking very flushed and flustered this morning. What's the matter with you? Have those little stinkers been flicking spitballs at you?'

  'No, Headmistress. Nothing like that.'

  'Well, what is it then? Get on with it. I'm a busy woman.' As she spoke, she reached out and poured herself a glass of water from a jug that was always on her desk.

  'There is a little girl in my class called Matilda Wormwood ...' Miss Honey began.

  'That's the daughter of the man who owns Wormwood Motors in the village,' Miss Trunchbull barked. She hardly ever spoke in a normal voice. She either barked or shouted. 'An excellent person, Wormwood,' she went on. 'I was in there only yesterday. He sold me a car. Almost new. Only done ten thousand miles. Previous owner was an old lady who took it out once a year at the most. A terrific bargain. Yes, I liked Wormwood. A real pillar of our society. He told me the daughter was a bad lot though. He said to watch her. He said if anything bad ever happened in the school, it was certain to be his daughter who did it. I haven't met the little brat yet, but she'll know about it when I do. Her father said she's a real wart.'

  'Oh no, Headmistress, that can't be right!' Miss Honey cried.

  'Oh yes, Miss Honey, it darn well is right! In fact, now I come to think of it, I'll bet it was she who put that stink-bomb under my desk here first thing this morning. The place stank like a sewer! Of course it was her! I shall have her for that, you see if I don't! What's she look like? Nasty little worm, I'll be bound. I have discovered, Miss Honey, during my long career as a teacher that a bad girl is a far more dangerous creature than a bad boy What's more, they're much harder to squash. Squashing a bad girl is like trying to squash a bluebottle. You bang down on it and the darn thing isn't there. Nasty dirty things, little girls are. Glad I never was one.'

  'Oh, but you must have been a little girl once, Headmistress. Surely you were.'

  'Not for long anyway,' Miss Trunchbull barked, grinning. 'I became a woman very quickly.'

  She's completely off her rocker, Miss Honey told herself. She's barmy as a bedbug. Miss Honey stood resolutely before the Headmistress. For once she was not going to be browbeaten. 'I must tell you, Headmistress,' she said, 'that you are completely mistaken about Matilda putting a stink-bomb under your desk.'

  'I am never mistaken, Miss Honey!'

  'But Headmistress, the child only arrived in school this morning and came straight to the classroom ...'

  'Don't argue with me, for heaven's sake, woman! This little brute Matilda or whatever her name is has stink-bombed my study! There's no doubt about it! Thank you for suggesting it.'

  'But I didn't suggest it, Headmistress.'

  'Of course you did! Now what is it you want, Miss Honey? Why are you wasting my time?'

  'I came to you to talk about Matilda, Headmistress. I have extraordinary things to report about the child. May I please tell you what happened in class just now?'

  'I suppose she set fire to your skirt and scorched your knickers!' Miss Irunchbull snorted.

  'No, no!' Miss Honey cried out. 'Matilda is a genius.'

  At the mention of this word, Miss Trunchbull's face turned purple and her whole body seemed to swell up like a bullfrog's. 'A genius!' she shouted. 'What piffle is this you are talking, madam? You must be out of your mind! I have her father's word for it that the child is a gangster!'

  'Her father is wrong, Headmistress.'

  'Don't be a twerp, Miss Honey! You have met the little beast for only half an hour and her father has known her all her life!'

  But Miss Honey was determined to have her say and she now began to describe some of the amazing things Matilda had done with arithmetic.

  'So she's learnt a few tables by heart, has she?' Miss Trunchbull barked. 'My dear woman, that doesn't make her a genius! It makes her a parrot!'

  'But Headmistress, she can read.'

  'So can I,' Miss Trunchbull snapped.

  'It is my opinion,' Miss Honey said, 'that Matilda should be taken out of my form and placed immediately in the top form with the eleven-year-olds.'

  'Ha!' snorted Miss Trunchbull. 'So you want to get rid of her, do you? So you can't handle her? So now you want to unload her on to the wretched Miss Plimsoll in the top form where she will cause even more chaos?'

  'No, no!' cried Miss Honey. 'That is not my reason at all!'

  'Oh, yes it is!' shouted Miss Trunchbull. 'I can see right through your little plot, madam! And my answer is no! Matilda stays where she is and it is up to you to see that she behaves herself.'

  'But Headmistress, please ...'

  'Not another word!' shou
ted Miss Trunchbull. 'And in any case, I have a rule in this school that all children remain in their own age groups regardless of ability. Great Scott, I'm not having a little five-year-old brigand sitting with the senior girls and boys in the top form. Whoever heard of such a thing!'

  Miss Honey stood there helpless before this great red-necked giant. There was a lot more she would like to have said but she knew it was useless. She said softly, 'Very well, then. It's up to you, Headmistress.'

  'You're darn right it's up to me!' Miss Trunchbull bellowed. 'And don't forget, madam, that we are dealing here with a little viper who put a stink-bomb under my desk ...'

  'She did not do that, Headmistress!'

  'Of course she did it,' Miss Trunchbull boomed. 'And I'll tell you what. I wish to heavens I was still allowed to use the birch and belt as I did in the good old days! I'd have roasted Matilda's bottom for her so she couldn't sit down for a month!'

  Miss Honey turned and walked out of the study feeling depressed but by no means defeated. I am going to do something about this child, she told herself. I don't know what it will be, but I shall find a way to help her in the end.

  The Parents

  When Miss Honey emerged from the Headmistress's study, most of the children were outside in the playground. Her first move was to go round to the various teachers who taught the senior class and borrow from them a number of text-books, books on algebra, geometry, French, English Literature and the like. Then she sought out Matilda and called her into the classroom.

  'There is no point,' she said, 'in you sitting in class doing nothing while I am teaching the rest of the form the two-times table and how to spell cat and rat and mouse. So during each lesson I shall give you one of these text-books to study. At the end of the lesson you can come up to me with your questions if you have any and I shall try to help you. How does that sound?'

  'Thank you, Miss Honey,' Matilda said. 'That sounds fine.'

  'I am sure,' Miss Honey said, 'that we'll be able to get you moved into a much higher form later on, but for the moment the Headmistress wishes you to stay where you are.'

  'Very well, Miss Honey,' Matilda said. 'Thank you so much for getting those books for me.'

  What a nice child she is, Miss Honey thought. I don't care what her father said about her, she seems very quiet and gentle to me. And not a bit stuck up in spite of her brilliance. In fact she hardly seems aware of it.

  So when the class reassembled, Matilda went to her desk and began to study a text-book on geometry which Miss Honey had given her. The teacher kept half an eye on her all the time and noticed that the child very soon became deeply absorbed in the book. She never glanced up once during the entire lesson.

  Miss Honey, meanwhile, was making another decision. She was deciding that she would go herself and have a secret talk with Matilda's mother and father as soon as possible. She simply refused to let the matter rest where it was. The whole thing was ridiculous. She couldn't believe that the parents were totally unaware of their daughter's remarkable talents. After all, Mr Wormwood was a successful motor-car dealer so she presumed that he was a fairly intelligent man himself. In any event, parents never underestimated the abilities of their own children. Quite the reverse. Sometimes it was well nigh impossible for a teacher to convince the proud father or mother that their beloved offspring was a complete nitwit. Miss Honey felt confident that she would have no difficulty in convincing Mr and Mrs Wormwood that Matilda was something very special indeed. The trouble was going to be to stop them from getting over-enthusiastic.

  And now Miss Honey's hopes began to expand even further. She started wondering whether permission might not be sought from the parents for her to give private tuition to Matilda after school. The prospect of coaching a child as bright as this appealed enormously to her professional instinct as a teacher. And suddenly she decided that she would go and call on Mr and Mrs Wormwood that very evening. She would go fairly late, between nine and ten o'clock, when Matilda was sure to be in bed.

  And that is precisely what she did. Having got the address from the school records, Miss Honey set out to walk from her own home to the Wormwoods' house shortly after nine. She found the house in a pleasant street where each smallish building was separated from its neighbours by a bit of garden. It was a modern brick house that could not have been cheap to buy and the name on the gate said COSY NOOK. Nosey cook might have been better, Miss Honey thought. She was given to playing with words in that way. She walked up the path and rang the bell, and while she stood waiting she could hear the television blaring inside.

  The door was opened by a small ratty-looking man with a thin ratty moustache who was wearing a sports-coat that had an orange and red stripe in the material. 'Yes?' he said, peering out at Miss Honey. 'If you're selling raffle tickets I don't want any.'

  'I'm not,' Miss Honey said. 'And please forgive me for butting in on you like this. I am Matilda's teacher at school and it is important I have a word with you and your wife.'

  'Got into trouble already, has she?' Mr Wormwood said, blocking the doorway. 'Well, she's your responsibility from now on. You'll have to deal with her.'

  'She is in no trouble at all,' Miss Honey said. 'I have come with good news about her. Quite startling news, Mr Wormwood. Do you think I might come in for a few minutes and talk to you about Matilda?'

  'We are right in the middle of watching one of our favourite programmes,' Mr Wormwood said. 'This is most inconvenient. Why don't you come back some other time?'

  Miss Honey began to lose patience. 'Mr Wormwood,' she said, 'if you think some rotten TV programme is more important than your daughter's future, then you ought not to be a parent! Why don't you switch the darn thing off and listen to me!'

  That shook Mr Wormwood. He was not used to being spoken to in this way. He peered carefully at the slim frail woman who stood so resolutely out on the porch. 'Oh very well then,' he snapped. 'Come on in and let's get it over with.' Miss Honey stepped briskly inside.

  'Mrs Wormwood isn't going to thank you for this,' the man said as he led her into the sitting-room, where a large platinum-blonde woman was gazing rapturously at the TV screen.

  'Who is it?' the woman said, not looking round.

  'Some school teacher,' Mr Wormwood said. 'She says she's got to talk to us about Matilda.' He crossed to the TV set and turned down the sound but left the picture on the screen.

  'Don't do that, Harry!' Mrs Wormwood cried out. 'Willard is just about to propose to Angelica!'

  'You can still watch it while we're talking,' Mr Wormwood said. 'This is Matilda's teacher. She says she's got some sort of news to give us.'

  'My name is Jennifer Honey,' Miss Honey said. 'How do you do, Mrs Wormwood.'

  Mrs Wormwood glared at her and said, 'What's the trouble then?'

  Nobody invited Miss Honey to sit down so she chose a chair and sat down anyway. 'This,' she said, 'was your daughter's first day at school.'

  'We know that,' Mrs Wormwood said, ratty about missing her programme. 'Is that all you came to tell us?'

  Miss Honey stared hard into the other woman's wet grey eyes, and she allowed the silence to hang in the air until Mrs Wormwood became uncomfortable. 'Do you wish me to explain why I came?' she said.

  'Get on with it then,' Mrs Wormwood said.

  'I'm sure you know,' Miss Honey said, 'that children in the bottom class at school are not expected to be able to read or spell or juggle with numbers when they first arrive. Five-year-olds cannot do that. But Matilda can do it all. And if I am to believe her ...'

  'I wouldn't,' Mrs Wormwood said. She was still ratty at losing the sound on the TV.

  'Was she lying, then,' Miss Honey said, 'when she told me that nobody taught her to multiply or to read? Did either of you teach her?'

  'Teach her what?' Mr Wormwood said.

  'To read. To read books,' Miss Honey said. 'Perhaps you did teach her. Perhaps she was lying. Perhaps you have shelves full of books all over the house. I wouldn't know. Perh
aps you are both great readers.'

  'Of course we read,' Mr Wormwood said. 'Don't be so daft. I read the Autocar and the Motor from cover to cover every week.'

  'This child has already read an astonishing number of books,' Miss Honey said. 'I was simply trying to find out if she came from a family that loved good literature.'

  'We don't hold with book-reading,' Mr Wormwood said. 'You can't make a living from sitting on your fanny and reading story-books. We don't keep them in the house.'

  'I see,' Miss Honey said. 'Well, all I came to tell you was that Matilda has a brilliant mind. But I expect you knew that already.'

  'Of course I knew she could read,' the mother said. 'She spends her life up in her room buried in some silly book.'

  'But does it not intrigue you,' Miss Honey said, 'that a little five-year-old child is reading long adult novels by Dickens and Hemingway? Doesn't that make you jump up and down with excitement?'

  'Not particularly,' the mother said. 'I'm not in favour of blue-stocking girls. A girl should think about making herself look attractive so she can get a good husband later on. Looks is more important than books, Miss Hunky ...'

  'The name is Honey,' Miss Honey said.

  'Now look at me,' Mrs Wormwood said. 'Then look at you. You chose books. I chose looks.'

  Miss Honey looked at the plain plump person with the smug suet-pudding face who was sitting across the room. 'What did you say?' she asked.

  'I said you chose books and I chose looks,' Mrs Wormwood said. 'And who's finished up the better off? Me, of course. I'm sitting pretty in a nice house with a successful businessman and you're left slaving away teaching a lot of nasty little children the ABC.'

  'Quite right, sugar-plum,' Mr Wormwood said, casting a look of such simpering sloppiness at his wife it would have made a cat sick.

  Miss Honey decided that if she was going to get anywhere with these people she must not lose her temper. 'I haven't told you all of it yet,' she said. 'Matilda, so far as I can gather at this early stage, is also a kind of mathematical genius. She can multiply complicated figures in her head like lightning.'