The Names
"Miss Trunchbull!" Matilda cried, jumping about a foot in the air. "You mean she is your aunt?
She brought you up?"
"Yes," Miss Honey said.
"No wonder you were terrified¹!" Matilda cried. "The other day we saw her grab² a girl by the
pigtails and throw her over the playground fence³!"
"You haven't seen anything," Miss Honey said. "After my father died, when I was five and a half,
she used to make me bath myself all alone. And if she came up and thought I hadn't washed
properly she would push my head under the water and hold it there. But don't get me started on
what she used to do. That won't help us at all."
"No," Matilda said, "it won't."
"We came here", Miss Honey said," to talk about you and I've been talking about nothing but
myself the whole time. I feel like a fool. I am much more interested in just how much you can do
with those amazing eyes of yours."
"I can move things," Matilda said. "I know I can. I can push things over."
"How would you like it", Miss Honey said, "if we made some very cautious⁴ experiments to see
just how much you can move and push?"
Quite surprisingly, Matilda said, "If you don't mind, Miss Honey, I think I would rather not. I want
to go home now and think and think about all the things I've heard this afternoon."
Miss Honey stood up at once. "Of course," she said. "I have kept you here far too long. Your
mother will be starting to worry."
"She never does that," Matilda said, smiling. "But I would like to go home now please, if you don't
mind."
"Come along then," Miss Honey said. "I'm sorry I gave you such a rotten⁵ tea."
"You didn't at all," Matilda said. "I loved it."
The two of them walked all the way to Matilda's house in complete silence. Miss Honey sensed
that Matilda wanted it that way. The child seemed so lost in thought she hardly looked where she
was walking, and when they reached the gate of Matilda's home, Miss Honey said, "You had

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