Matilda Read online

  When all the two hundred and fifty or so boys and girls were settled down in Assembly, the Trunchbull marched on to the platform. None of the other teachers came in with her. She was carrying a riding-crop in her right hand. She stood up there on centre stage in her green breeches with legs apart and riding-crop in hand, glaring at the sea of upturned faces before her.

  'What's going to happen?' Lavender whispered.

  'I don't know,' Matilda whispered back.

  The whole school waited for what was coming next.

  'Bruce Bogtrotter!' the Trunchbull barked suddenly. 'Where is Bruce Bogtrotter?'

  A hand shot up among the seated children.

  'Come up here!' the Trunchbull shouted. 'And look smart about it!'

  An eleven-year-old boy who was decidedly large and round stood up and waddled briskly forward. He climbed up onto the platform.

  'Stand over there!' the Trunchbull ordered, pointing. The boy stood to one side. He looked nervous. He knew very well he wasn't up there to be presented with a prize. He was watching the Headmistress with an exceedingly wary eye and he kept edging farther and farther away from her with little shuffles of his feet, rather as a rat might edge away from a terrier that is watching it from across the room. His plump flabby face had turned grey with fearful apprehension. His stockings hung about his ankles.

  'This clot,' boomed the Headmistress, pointing the riding-crop at him like a rapier,' this black-head, this foul carbuncle, this poisonous pustule that you see before you is none other than a disgusting criminal, a denizen of the underworld, a member of the Mafia!'

  'Who, me?' Bruce Bogtrotter said, looking genuinely puzzled.

  'A thief!' the Trunchbull screamed. 'A crook! A pirate! A brigand! A rustler!'

  'Steady on,' the boy said. 'I mean, dash it all, Headmistress.'

  'Do you deny it, you miserable little gumboil? Do you plead not guilty?'

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' the boy said, more puzzled than ever.

  'I'll tell you what I'm talking about, you suppurating little blister!' the Trunchbull shouted. 'Yesterday morning, during break, you sneaked like a serpent into the kitchen and stole a slice of my private chocolate cake from my tea-tray! That tray had just been prepared for me personally by the cook! It was my morning snack! And as for the cake, it was my own private stock! That was not boy's cake! You don't think for one minute I'm going to eat the filth I give to you? That cake was made from real butter and real cream! And he, that robber-bandit, that safe-cracker, that highwayman standing over there with his socks around his ankles stole it and ate it!'

  'I never did,' the boy exclaimed, turning from grey to white.

  'Don't lie to me, Bogtrotter!' barked the Trunchbull. 'The cook saw you! What's more, she saw you eating it!'

  The Trunchbull paused to wipe a fleck of froth from her lips.

  When she spoke again her voice was suddenly softer, quieter, more friendly, and she leaned towards the boy, smiling.

  'You like my special chocolate cake, don't you, Bogtrotter? It's rich and delicious, isn't it, Bogtrotter?'

  'Very good,' the boy mumbled. The words were out before he could stop himself.

  'You're right,' the Trunchbull said. 'It is very good. Therefore I think you should congratulate the cook. When a gentleman has had a particularly good meal, Bogtrotter, he always sends his compliments to the chef. You didn't know that, did you, Bogtrotter? But those who inhabit the criminal underworld are not noted for their good manners.'

  The boy remained silent.

  'Cook!' the Trunchbull shouted, turning her head towards the door. 'Come here, cook! Bogtrotter wishes to tell you how good your chocolate cake is!'

  The cook, a tall shrivelled female who looked as though all of her body-juices had been dried out of her long ago in a hot oven, walked on to the platform wearing a dirty white apron. Her entrance had clearly been arranged beforehand by the Headmistress.

  'Now then, Bogtrotter,' the Trunchbull boomed. 'Tell cook what you think of her chocolate cake.'

  'Very good,' the boy mumbled. You could see he was now beginning to wonder what all this was leading up to. The only thing he knew for certain was that the law forbade the Trunchbull to hit him with the riding-crop that she kept smacking against her thigh. That was some comfort, but not much because the Trunchbull was totally unpredictable. One never knew what she was going to do next.

  'There you are, cook,' the Trunchbull cried. 'Bogtrotter likes your cake. He adores your cake. Do you have any more of your cake you could give him?'

  'I do indeed,' the cook said. She seemed to have learnt her lines by heart.

  'Then go and get it. And bring a knife to cut it with.'

  The cook disappeared. Almost at once she was back again staggering under the weight of an enormous round chocolate cake on a china platter. The cake was fully eighteen inches in diameter and it was covered with dark-brown chocolate icing. 'Put it on the table,' the Trunchbull said.

  There was a small table centre stage with a chair behind it. The cook placed the cake carefully on the table. 'Sit down, Bogtrotter,' the Trunchbull said. 'Sit there.'

  The boy moved cautiously to the table and sat down. He stared at the gigantic cake.

  'There you are, Bogtrotter,' the Trunchbull said, and once again her voice became soft, persuasive, even gentle. 'It's all for you, every bit of it. As you enjoyed that slice you had yesterday so very much, I ordered cook to bake you an extra large one all for yourself.'

  'Well, thank you,' the boy said, totally bemused.

  'Thank cook, not me,' the Trunchbull said.

  'Thank you, cook,' the boy said.

  The cook stood there like a shrivelled bootlace, tight-lipped, implacable, disappproving. She looked as though her mouth was full of lemon juice.

  'Come on then,' the Trunchbull said. 'Why don't you cut yourself a nice thick slice and try it?'

  'What? Now?' the boy said, cautious. He knew there was a catch in this somewhere, but he wasn't sure where. 'Can't I take it home instead?' he asked.

  'That would be impolite,' the Trunchbull said, with a crafty grin. 'You must show cookie here how grateful you are for all the trouble she's taken.'

  The boy didn't move.

  'Go on, get on with it,' the Trunchbull said. 'Cut a slice and taste it. We haven't got all day.'

  The boy picked up the knife and was about to cut into the cake when he stopped. He stared at the cake. Then he looked up at the Trunchbull, then at the tall stringy cook with her lemon-juice mouth. All the children in the hall were watching tensely, waiting for something to happen. They felt certain it must. The Trunchbull was not a person who would give someone a whole chocolate cake to eat just out of kindness. Many were guessing that it had been filled with pepper or castor-oil or some other foul-tasting substance that would make the boy violently sick. It might even be arsenic and he would be dead in ten seconds flat. Or perhaps it was a booby-trapped cake and the whole thing would blow up the moment it was cut, taking Bruce Bogtrotter with it. No one in the school put it past the Trunchbull to do any of these things.

  'I don't want to eat it,' the boy said.

  'Taste it, you little brat,' the Trunchbull said. 'You're insulting the cook.'

  Very gingerly the boy began to cut a thin slice of the vast cake. Then he levered the slice out. Then he put down the knife and took the sticky thing in his fingers and started very slowly to eat it.

  'It's good, isn't it?' the Trunchbull asked.

  'Very good,' the boy said, chewing and swallowing. He finished the slice.

  'Have another,' the Trunchbull said.

  'That's enough, thank you,' the boy murmured.

  'I said have another,' the Trunchbull said, and now there was an altogether sharper edge to her voice. 'Eat another slice! Do as you are told!'

  'I don't want another slice,' the boy said.

  Suddenly the Trunchbull exploded. 'Eat!' she shouted, banging her thigh with the riding-crop. 'If I tell you to eat,