9.The Parents

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 algebra¹, 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 brilliance². 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 unaware³ of their daughter's remarkable⁴ talents. After all, Mr
Wormwood was a successful motor-car dealer⁵ 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 prospect⁶ of coaching a child as bright as this appealed enormously to her professional
instinct as a teacher. And suddenly she decided⁷ 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 precisely⁸ what she did. Having got the address from the school records, Miss Honey
set out to walk from her own home to the Wormwood's 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 cosy⁹ 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 raffle¹⁰ tickets I don't want any."
"I'm not," Miss Honey said. "And please forgive me for butting¹¹ 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 doorway¹². "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 inconvenient¹³. 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 frail¹⁴ woman who stood so resolutely¹⁵ 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-room¹⁶
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, Harry¹⁷!" 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 juggle¹⁸ 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. Perhaps 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 intrigue¹⁹ 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 sloppiness²⁰ 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."
"What's the point of that when you can buy a calculator?" Mr Wormwood said.
"A girl doesn't get a man by being brainy," Mrs Wormwood said. "Look at that film-star for
instance," she added, pointing at the silent TV screen where a bosomy female was being embraced
by a craggy actor in the moonlight. "You don't think she got him to do that by multiplying figures
at him, do you? Not likely. And now he's going to marry her, you see if he doesn't, and she's going
to live in a mansion²¹ with a butler and lots of maids."
Miss Honey could hardly believe what she was hearing. She had heard that parents like this
existed all over the place and that their children turned out to be delinquents²² and drop-outs, but it
was still a shock to meet a pair of them in the flesh.
"Matilda's trouble", she said, trying once again, "is that she is so far ahead of everyone else around
her that it might be worth thinking about some extra kind of private tuition. I seriously believe that
she could be brought up to university standard in two or three years with the proper coaching."
"University?" Mr Wormwood shouted, bouncing up in his chair. "Who wants to go to university
for heaven's sake! All they learn there is bad habits!"
"That is not true," Miss Honey said. "If you had a heart attack this minute and had to call a doctor,
that doctor would be a university graduate. If you got sued for selling someone a rotten second-
hand car, you'd have to get a lawyer and he'd be a university graduate, too. Do not despise clever
people, Mr Wormwood. But I can see we're not going to agree. I'm sorry I burst in on you like
this." Miss Honey rose from her chair and walked out of the room.
Mr Wormwood followed her to the front-door and said, "Good of you to come, Miss Hawkes, or is
it Miss Harris?"
"It's neither," Miss Honey said, "but let it go." And away she went.

1 algebra   

n.代数学

参考例句：

• He was not good at algebra in middle school.他中学时不擅长代数。
• The boy can't figure out the algebra problems.这个男孩做不出这道代数题。

2 brilliance   

n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智

参考例句：

• I was totally amazed by the brilliance of her paintings.她的绘画才能令我惊歎不已。
• The gorgeous costume added to the brilliance of the dance.华丽的服装使舞蹈更加光彩夺目。

3 unaware   

a.不知道的，未意识到的

参考例句：

• They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
• I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。

4 remarkable   

adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的

参考例句：

• She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
• These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。

5 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

6 prospect   

n.前景，前途；景色，视野

参考例句：

• This state of things holds out a cheerful prospect.事态呈现出可喜的前景。
• The prospect became more evident.前景变得更加明朗了。

7 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

8 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

9 cosy   

adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的

参考例句：

• We spent a cosy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。
• It was so warm and cosy in bed that Simon didn't want to get out.床上温暖而又舒适，西蒙简直不想下床了。

10 raffle   

n.废物，垃圾，抽奖售卖；v.以抽彩出售

参考例句：

• The money was raised by the sale of raffle tickets.这笔款子是通过出售购物彩券筹集的。
• He won a car in the raffle.他在兑奖售物活动中赢得了一辆汽车。

11 butting   

用头撞人（犯规动作）

参考例句：

• When they were talking Mary kept butting in. 当他们在谈话时，玛丽老是插嘴。
• A couple of goats are butting each other. 两只山羊在用角互相顶撞。

12 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

13 inconvenient   

adj.不方便的，令人感到麻烦的

参考例句：

• You have come at a very inconvenient time.你来得最不适时。
• Will it be inconvenient for him to attend that meeting?他参加那次会议会不方便吗？

14 frail   

adj.身体虚弱的；易损坏的

参考例句：

• Mrs. Warner is already 96 and too frail to live by herself.华纳太太已经九十六岁了，身体虚弱，不便独居。
• She lay in bed looking particularly frail.她躺在床上，看上去特别虚弱。

15 resolutely   

adj.坚决地，果断地

参考例句：

• He resolutely adhered to what he had said at the meeting. 他坚持他在会上所说的话。
• He grumbles at his lot instead of resolutely facing his difficulties. 他不是果敢地去面对困难，而是抱怨自己运气不佳。

16 sitting-room   

n.（BrE）客厅，起居室

参考例句：

• The sitting-room is clean.起居室很清洁。
• Each villa has a separate sitting-room.每栋别墅都有一间独立的起居室。

17 harry   

vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼

参考例句：

• Today,people feel more hurried and harried.今天，人们感到更加忙碌和苦恼。
• Obama harried business by Healthcare Reform plan.奥巴马用医改掠夺了商界。

18 juggle   

v.变戏法，纂改，欺骗，同时做；n.玩杂耍，纂改，花招

参考例句：

• If you juggle with your accounts,you'll get into trouble.你要是在帐目上做手脚，你可要遇到麻烦了。
• She had to juggle her job and her children.她得同时兼顾工作和孩子。

19 intrigue   

vt.激起兴趣，迷住；vi.耍阴谋；n.阴谋，密谋

参考例句：

• Court officials will intrigue against the royal family.法院官员将密谋反对皇室。
• The royal palace was filled with intrigue.皇宫中充满了勾心斗角。

20 sloppiness   

n.草率，粗心

参考例句：

• The choice of Sarah Palin epitomised the sloppiness. 选择佩琳作为竞选伙伴凸显草率。 来自互联网
• He chided the boy for his sloppiness. 它责怪这男孩粗心大意。 来自互联网

21 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

22 delinquents   

n.（尤指青少年）有过失的人，违法的人( delinquent的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The robbery was committed by a group of delinquents. 那起抢劫案是一群青少年干的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• There is today general agreement that juvenile delinquents are less responsible than older offenders. 目前人们普遍认为青少年罪犯比成人罪犯的责任小些。 来自辞典例句