The Ghost
There was comparative calm in the Wormwood household for about a week after the Superglue
episode. The experience had clearly chastened Mr Wormwood and he seemed temporarily to have
lost his taste for boasting and bullying¹.
Then suddenly he struck again. Perhaps he had had a bad day at the garage and had not sold
enough crummy second-hand² cars. There are many things that make a man irritable³ when he
arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals
and will leave him alone until he simmers down.
When Mr Wormwood arrived back from the garage that evening his face was as dark as a
thundercloud and somebody was clearly for the high-jump pretty soon. His wife recognised the
signs immediately and made herself scarce. He then strode into the living-room. Matilda happened
to be curled up in an arm-chair in the corner, totally absorbed in a book. Mr Wormwood switched
on the television. The screen lit up. The programme blared. Mr Wormwood glared at Matilda. She
hadn't moved. She had somehow trained herself by now to block her ears to the ghastly sound of
the dreaded⁴ box. She kept right on reading, and for some reason this infuriated the father. Perhaps
his anger was
intensified⁵ because he saw her getting pleasure from something that was beyond his reach.
"Don't you ever stop reading?" he snapped at her.
"Oh, hello daddy," she said pleasantly. "Did you have a good day?"
"What is this trash?" he said, snatching the book from her hands.
"It isn't trash, daddy, it's lovely. It's called The Red Pony⁶. It's by John Steinbeck, an American
writer. Why don't you try it? You'll love it."
"Filth⁷," Mr Wormwood said. "If it's by an American it's certain to be filth. That's all they write
about."

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