Matilda

'It is quite possible that you are,' Miss Honey said. 'But I'd rather you didn't think about yourself as anything in particular at the moment. What I thought we might do is to explore this phenomenon a little further, just the two of us together, but making sure we take things very carefully all the time.'

'You want me to do some more of it then, Miss Honey?'

'That is what I am tempted to suggest,' Miss Honey said cautiously.

'Goody-good,' Matilda said.

'I myself,' Miss Honey said, 'am probably far more bowled over by what you did than you are, and I am trying to find some reasonable explanation.'

'Such as what?' Matilda asked.

'Such as whether or not it's got something to do with the fact that you are quite exceptionally precocious.'

'What exactly does that word mean?' Matilda said.

'A precocious child,' Miss Honey said, 'is one that shows amazing intelligence early on. You are an unbelievably precocious child.'

'Am I really?' Matilda asked.

'Of course you are. You must be aware of that. Look at your reading. Look at your mathematics.'

'I suppose you're right,' Matilda said.

Miss Honey marvelled at the child's lack of conceit and self-consciousness.

'I can't help wondering,' she said, 'whether this sudden ability that has come to you, of being able to move an object without touching it, whether it might not have something to do with your brain-power.'

'You mean there might not be room in my head for all those brains so something has to push out?'

'That's not quite what I mean,' Miss Honey said, smiling. 'But whatever happens, and I say it again, we must tread carefully from now on. I have not forgotten that strange and distant glimmer on your face after you tipped over the last glass.'

'Do you think doing it could actually hurt me? Is that what you're thinking, Miss Honey?'

'It made you feel pretty peculiar, didn't it?'

'It made me feel lovely,' Matilda said. 'For a moment or two I was flying past the stars on silver wings. I told you that. And shall I tell you something else, Miss Honey? It was easier the second time, much much easier. I think it's like anything else, the more you practise it, the easier it gets.'

Miss Honey was walking slowly so that the small child could keep up with her without trotting too fast, and it was very peaceful out there on the narrow road now that the village was behind them. It was one of those golden autumn afternoons and there were blackberries and splashes of old man's beard in the hedges, and the hawthorn berries were ripening scarlet for the birds when the cold winter came along. There were tall trees here and there on either side, oak and sycamore and ash and occasionally a sweet chestnut. Miss Honey, wishing to change the subject for the moment, gave the names of all these to Matilda and taught her how to recognize them by the shape of their leaves and the pattern of the bark on their trunks. Matilda took all this in and stored the knowledge away carefully in her mind.

They came finally to a gap in the hedge on the left-hand side of the road where there was a five-barred gate. 'This way,' Miss Honey said, and she opened the gate and led Matilda through and closed it again. They were now walking along a narrow lane that was no more than a rutted cart-track. There was a high hedge of hazel on either side and you could see clusters of ripe brown nuts in their green jackets. The squirrels would be collecting them all very soon, Miss Honey said, and storing them away carefully for the bleak months ahead.

'You mean you live down here?' Matilda asked.

'I do,' Miss Honey replied, but she said no more.

Matilda had never once stopped to think about where Miss Honey might be living. She had always regarded her purely as a teacher, a person who turned up out of nowhere and taught at school and then went away again. Do any of us children, she wondered, ever stop to ask ourselves where our teachers go when school is over for the day? Do we wonder if they live alone, or if there is a mother at home or a sister or a husband? 'Do you live all by yourself, Miss Honey?' she asked.

'Yes,' Miss Honey said. 'Very much so.'

They were walking over the deep sunbaked mud-tracks of the lane and you had to watch where you put your feet if you didn't want to twist your ankle. There were a few small birds around in the hazel branches but that was all.

'It's just a farm-labourer's cottage,' Miss Honey said. 'You mustn't expect too much of it. We're nearly there.'

They came to a small green gate half-buried in the hedge on the right and almost hidde

n by the overhanging hazel branches. Miss Honey paused with one hand on the gate and said, 'There it is. That's where I live.'

Matilda saw a narrow dirt-path leading to a tiny red-brick cottage. The cottage was so small it looked more like a doll's house than a human dwelling. The bricks it was built of were old and crumbly and very pale red. It had a grey slate roof and one small chimney, and there were two little windows at the front. Each window was no larger than a sheet of tabloid newspaper and there was clearly no upstairs to the place. On either side of the path there was a wilderness of nettles and blackberry thorns and long brown grass. An enormous oak tree stood overshadowing the cottage. Its massive spreading branches seemed to be enfolding and embracing the tiny building, and perhaps hiding it as well from the rest of the world.