Matilda

Mrs C, Mrs U, Mrs LTY.

That spells difficulty.'

'How perfectly ridiculous!' snorted the Trunchbull. 'Why are all these women married? And anyway you're not meant to teach poetry wh

en you're teaching spelling. Cut it out in future, Miss Honey.'

'But it does teach them some of the harder words wonderfully well,' Miss Honey murmured.

'Don't argue with me, Miss Honey!' the Headmistress thundered. 'Just do as you're told! I shall now test the class on the multiplication tables to see if Miss Honey has taught you anything at all in that direction,' The Trunchbull had returned to her place in front of the class, and her diabolical gaze was moving slowly along the rows of tiny pupils. 'You!' she barked, pointing at a small boy called Rupert in the front row. 'What is two sevens?'

'Sixteen,' Rupert answered with foolish abandon.

The Trunchbull started advancing slow and soft-footed upon Rupert in the manner of a tigress stalking a small deer. Rupert suddenly became aware of the danger signals and quickly tried again. 'It's eighteen!' he cried. 'Two sevens are eighteen, not sixteen!'

'You ignorant little slug!' the Trunchbull bellowed. 'You witless weed! You empty-headed hamster! You stupid glob of glue!' She had now stationed herself directly behind Rupert, and suddenly she extended a hand the size of a tennis racquet and grabbed all the hair on Rupert's head in her fist. Rupert had a lot of golden-coloured hair. His mother thought it was beautiful to behold and took a delight in allowing it to grow extra long. The Trunchbull had as great a dislike for long hair on boys as she had for plaits and pigtails on girls and she was about to show it. She took a firm grip on Rupert's long golden tresses with her giant hand and then, by raising her muscular right arm, she lifted the helpless boy clean out of his chair and held him aloft.

Rupert yelled. He twisted and squirmed and kicked the air and went on yelling like a stuck pig, and Miss Trunchbull bellowed, Two sevens are fourteen! Two sevens are fourteen! I am not letting you go till you say it!'

From the back of the class, Miss Honey cried out, 'Miss Trunchbull! Please let him down! You're hurting him! All his hair might come out!'

'And well it might if he doesn't stop wriggling!' snorted the Trunchbull. 'Keep still, you squirming worm!'

It really was a quite extraordinary sight to see this giant Headmistress dangling the small boy high in the air and the boy spinning and twisting like something on the end of a string and shrieking his head off.

'Say it!' bellowed the Trunchbull. 'Say two sevens are fourteen! Hurry up or I'll start jerking you up and down and then your hair really will come out and we'll have enough of it to stuff a sofa! Get on with it boy! Say two sevens are fourteen and I'll let you go!'

'T-t-two s-sevens are f-f-fourteen,' gasped Rupert, whereupon the Trunchbull, true to her word, opened her hand and quite literally let him go. He was a long way off the ground when she released him and he plummeted to earth and hit the floor and bounced like a football.

'Get up and stop whimpering,' the Trunchbull barked.

Rupert got up and went back to his desk massaging his scalp with both hands. The Trunchbull returned to the front of the class. The children sat there hypnotized. None of them had seen anything quite like this before. It was splendid entertainment. It was better than a pantomime, but with one big difference. In this room there was an enormous human bomb in front of them which was liable to explode and blow someone to bits any moment. The children's eyes were riveted on the Headmistress. I don't like small people,' she was saying. 'Small people should never be seen by anybody They should be kept out of sight in boxes like hairpins and buttons. I cannot for the life of me see why children have to take so long to grow up. I think they do it on purpose.'

Another extremely brave little boy in the front row spoke up and said, 'But surely you were a small person once, Miss Trunchbull, weren't you?'

'I was never a small person,' she snapped. 'I have been large all my life and I don't see why others can't be the same way.'

'But you must have started out as a baby,' the boy said.

'Mel A baby!' shouted the Trunchbull. 'How dare you suggest such a thing! What cheek! What infernal insolence! What's your name, boy? And stand up when you speak to me!'

The boy stood up. 'My name is Eric Ink, Miss Trunchbull,' he said.

'Eric what?' the Trunchbull shouted.

'Ink,' the boy said.

'Don't be an ass, boy! There's no such name!'

'Look in the phone book,' Eric said. 'You'll see my father there under Ink.'

'Very well, then,' the Trunchbull said. 'You may be Ink, young man, but let me tell you something. You're not indelible. I'll very soon rub you out if you try getting clever with me. Spell what.'

'I don't understand,' Eric said. 'What do you want me to spell?'

'Spell what, you idiot! Spell the word "what"!'

'W ... O ... T,' Eric said, answering too quickly.