The Hat and the Superglue
The following morning, just before the father left for his beastly second-hand¹ car garage, Matilda
slipped into the cloakroom and got hold of the hat he wore each day to work. She had to stand on
her toes and reach up as high as she could with a walking-stick in order to hook the hat off the peg²,
and even then she only just made it. The hat itself was one of those flat-topped pork-pie jobs with
a jay's feather stuck in the hat-band and Mr Wormwood was very proud of it. He thought it gave
him a rakish daring look, especially when he wore it at an angle with his loud checked jacket and
green tie.
Matilda, holding the hat in one hand and a thin tube of Superglue in the other, proceeded to
squeeze a line of glue very neatly³ all round the inside rim⁴ of the hat. Then she carefully hooked the
hat back on to the peg with the walking-stick. She timed this operation very carefully, applying the
glue just as her father was getting up from the breakfast table.
Mr Wormwood didn't notice anything when he put the hat on, but when he arrived at the garage he
couldn't get it off. Superglue is very powerful stuff, so powerful it will take your skin off if you
pull too hard. Mr Wormwood didn't want to be
scalped so he had to keep the hat on his head the whole day long, even when putting sawdust in
gear-boxes and fiddling⁵ the mileages⁶ of cars with his electric drill. In an effort to save face, he
adopted a casual attitude hoping that his staff would think that he actually meant to keep his hat on
all day long just for the heck of it, like gangsters⁷ do in the films.
When he got home that evening he still couldn't get the hat off. "Don't be silly," his wife said.
"Come here. I'll take it off for you."
She gave the hat a sharp yank. Mr Wormwood let out a yell that

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