Description: The Trunchbull let out a yell. . . The Trunchbull lifted the water-jug and poured some water into her glass. And suddenly, with the water, out came the long slimy newt straight into the glass, plop! The Trunchbull let out a yell and leapt off her chair as though a firecracker had gone off underneath her. She stared at the creature twisting and wriggling in the glass. The fires of fury and hatred were smouldering in the Trunchbull''s small black eyes. "Matilda!" she barked. "Stand up!" "Who, me?" Matilda said. "What have I done?" "Stand up, you disgusting little cockroach! You filthy little maggot! You are a vile, repellent, malicious little brute!" The Trunchbull was shouting. "You are not fit to be in this school! You ought to be behind bars, that''s where you ought to be! I shall have the prefects chase you down the corridor and out of the front-door with hockey-sticks!" The Trunchbull was in such a rage that her face had taken on a boiled colour and little flecks of froth were gathering at the corners of her mouth. But Matilda was also beginning to see red. She had had absolutely nothing to do with the beastly creature in the glass. By golly, she thought, that rotten Trunchbull isn''t going to pin this one on me! Puffin Books by Roald Dahl The BFG Boy: Tales of Childhood Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator Danny the Champion of the World Dirty Beasts The Enormous Crocodile Esio Trot Fantastic Mr. Fox George''s Marvelous Medicine The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me Going Solo James and the Giant Peach The Magic Finger Matilda The Minpins Roald Dahl''s Revolting Rhymes The Twits The Vicar of Nibbleswicke The Witches The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More Roald Dahl Matilda illustrated by Quentin Blake PUFFIN BOOKS For Michael and Lucy The Reader of Books Mr Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer The Hat and the Superglue The Ghost Arithmetic The Platinum-Blond Man Miss Honey The Trunchbull The Parents Throwing the Hammer Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake Lavender The Weekly Test The First Miracle The Second Miracle Miss Honey''s Cottage Miss Honey''s Story The Names The Practice The Third Miracle A New Home The Reader of Books It''s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful. Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius. Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It''s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, "Bring us a basin! We''re going to be sick!" School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. "Your son Maximilian", I would write, "is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won''t get a job anywhere else." Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, "It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she''s learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all." I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, "The periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air. Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis." A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, "Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface." I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. But enough of that. We have to get on. Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it away. Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that. It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extra ordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant. Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant. Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter. To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg. Matilda''s brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop. By the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups. The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard. By the time she was three , Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house. At the age of four , she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting. "Daddy," she said, "do you think you could buy me a book?" "A book ?" he said. "What d''you want a flaming book for?" "To read, Daddy." "What''s wrong with the telly, for heaven''s sake? We''ve got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You''re getting spoiled, my girl!" Nearly every weekday afternoon Matilda was left alone in the house. Her brother (five years older than her) went to school. Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away. Mrs Wormwood was hooked on bingo and played it five afternoons a week. On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village. When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs Phelps. She asked if she might sit awhile and read a book. Mrs Phelps, slightly taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome. "Where are the children''s books please?" Matilda asked. "They''re over there on those lower shelves," Mrs Phelps told her. "Would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?" "No, thank you," Matilda said. "I''m sure I can manage." From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library. The walk took only ten minutes and this allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner devouring one book after another. When she had read every single children''s book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else. Mrs Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from her desk and went over to her. "Can I help you, Matilda?" she asked. "I''m wondering what to read next," Matilda said. "I''ve finished all the children''s books." "You mean you''ve looked at the pictures?" "Yes, but I''ve read the books as well." Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back up at her. "I thought some were very poor," Matilda said, "but others were lovely. I liked The Secret Garden best of all. It was full of mystery. The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall." Mrs Phelps was stunned. "Exactly how old are you, Matilda?" she asked. "Four years and three months," Matilda said. Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. "What sort of a book would you like to read next?" she asked. Matilda said, "I would like a really good one that grown-ups read. A famous one. I don''t know any names." Mrs Phelps looked along the shelves, taking her time. She didn''t quite know what to bring out. How, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old

Please Wait