Matilda Wormwood was born into a little suburb in Middle America. Harry and Zinnia, Matilda's parents were so excited to bring their little one home from the hospital. Michael, Matilda's brother was excited to have a little sister. They all doted over Matilda and showered her with gifts and affection. I really wish I could say this was Matilda's reality but sadly it is not. As unusual as it sounds it's the complete opposite.
Matilda's parents actually forgot the newborn in the backseat of their car the day she was brought home. Since she was only a few days old, she could not defend herself but one day that was going to change. For the first few months of her life she lived only as a baby could which was whatever was provided for her. So that meant the attention that most babies get she didn't, not even close.
Not to say that she was mistreated or abused…she was sort of forgotten. She was fed enough, bathed enough, and so on. But she lacked the love that most people got when you were younger. Oddly enough that didn't affect Matilda all that much. She actually became independent at a very young age. Her parents didn't mind much since that was one thing less they had to worry about.
When she was only 4 years old, she was preparing her own meals and self educating her mind. Some would say she was more independent that most people in their 20's are. As her father went to work as a used car salesmen and her mother played bingo to win big bucks, she picked a book from her family's bookshelf and read it from cover to cover, and moving on to the next one.
Eventually she read all of the books in her house and wanted more. She knew that the only place she wanted to go was to the town library since there were thousands of books to read there. Since she didn't really know how to get to the library she decided to ask her parents for help.
"Mommy, can you take me to the library?" Matilda asked her mother.
Her mother was on the phone and had the TV on which meant that she was not getting an answer, not even glance.
"Daddy, can you take me to the library?" she asked her father.
"Take you to the library? Why in sam hill would I do that?" he said with a gruff manner.
"So I can read the books there." she responded as sweetly as she could.
"Well, I'm too busy so the answer is going to be no." he said.
When children are told that can't get something or brought somewhere they will pout for a little while and then forget it completely. Not in Matilda's case, she was determined to get to the library even if it was going to take extreme measures.
"Hey squirt, why don't walk there?" her brother said then laughing.
A light bulb shined brightly over Matilda's head as that was going to be here plan. Over the next few days Matilda gathered some resources together and put her plan together. She grabbed the phone book from the drawer and the city map from her father's car. With a highlighter, she marked a path from her house to the library. She then got her transportation together.
She got her tricycle and red wagon and tied them together. After she grabbed her stuffed animals for company she was ready to venture out. Though she was a little girl, she was quite crafty and waited for her parents to leave. Matilda was not afraid of the open world since she didn't fully realize that dangers that were out there but she made her trip and got to the library.
As she walked through the main doors, a huge smiled spread across her face. She had never seen so many books at one time before.
Her heart was pounding with excitement as she knew all these books were for her to read. With her excitement reaching a high point, she jumped right in and started reading. From that day on, Matilda would return everyday to the library and read. Unbeknownst to her, her knowledge began to increase a thousand fold.
After some time, the librarians noticed that she was never with any adults. One day the head librarian went over to Matilda as she read and knelt down next to her.
"Well, hello there." The librarian said.
"Hello." Matilda said with a big smile.
"My name is Tracy, what's yours?" the librarian asked.
"Matilda." Matilda gladly answered.
"Well Matilda I have noticed you come here every day for quite some time." Tracy said.
"Well yeah, I love to read." Matilda said.
"I'm glad to hear that, but I just want to ask you where your parents are." Tracy said,
"Home," Matilda responded.
"Oh my…did they forget you here?" Tracy said concerned.
"No, they were never here." Matilda said.
"Wait, I'm confused. If they were never here then how did you get here?" Tracy asked.
"I rode my tricycle here." Matilda said very nonchalantly.
The librarian had the look of utter shock on her face.
"You mean to tell me that since you have been coming here, you've been walking by yourself from your own house?" Tracy asked.
"Yup." Matilda answered.
Tracy could barely believe what the little girl was telling her. She went on to ask why she was walking all the way there. And that was when Matilda went through her life story as brief as it was, to Tracy. Tracy was so overwhelmed and astonished by her story that she was going to call Child Protective Services. But Matilda pleaded for her parents not to be squealed on. Once asked why, she told Tracy that they were still her parents and that she still loved them.
Tracy agreed not to call the CPS but only under one condition that she would pick Matilda up on her way to work and back again so that she knew that Matilda was safe. The next few years seemed to go by fairly quickly and the life that Matilda had didn't change much. She still went to the library everyday to read but the relationship with her parents was going sour. Her father was beginning to turn into a very devious person.
At his used car lot he was tricking people into buying from him. He seemed to be lying to people. Matilda knew this because while she was left home alone since her mother became a bingo mistress, and she had to receive her father's dubious packages. A little resentment for her father formed in her heart. It was getting harder to love her parents as their actions and attitude towards her was getting worse.
Every so often Matilda would get punished for things that didn't make much sense, at least in her own mind. One time her father was expecting an important package to be delivered and Matilda who for some time been bringing books home from the library because of the advice of Tracy got a library card.
So being enthralled in her books she missed the delivery. Her father was furious and forced her to stand in the corner of her room for 7 hours straight. On another occasion she had to make dinner for her family because on Wednesdays they would watch a long stretch of TV shows and eat dinner as they watched. Matilda wasn't completely deterred since he did it for herself all the time.
But unfortunately she over cooked the meal just a little too much and caused her family to be displeased. She was sent to her room with no dinner for herself. But being the super intelligent child that she was, she snuck out after everyone was asleep and made herself a sandwich.
Matilda was happy for the most part expect for one thing. Every time she walked to and from the library, she would pass a park that children were running around in. She craved social interaction with other kids. She wanted to be able to run around until she felt dizzy.
Sure she was happy with her books but being with other children would make her truly happy. But since the situation she was in, she placed that want in the back of her mind. One night as she was reading in her room her father barged in.
"Any packages come today?" he asked her.
Matilda not looking away from her book just shook her head. Her father looked around the room and saw piles of books.
"Where did all these books come from?" he asked.
"The library." Matilda said.
"Library? You've never been to a library, you're only 4 years old." He said.
"I'm six." She responded.
"No way, if you were six, you would be in school." He told her.
"I told you I wanted to go to school, but you never listen to me." Matilda said.
"Well…to be honest we can't put you in school because there would be no one taking my packages." He said.
Matilda knew arguing with her father would get her nowhere so she dropped the conversation. A few days later her father came home and shared the success of the day with his family.
"I am the best car salesmen ever. Mikey, come here I'm going to show you a life lesson." Matilda's dad said.
All the family gathered into the kitchen where Matilda was already sitting and reading.
"Let's go over my profits. The first car I sold was $120.00 which I sold for $545.00. The second was $350.00 and I sold it for $795.000. The last one was $835.00 and I sold it for a whopping 1,483.00. What was my total?" he asked his son.
"Wait, wait. One hundred and what?" Michael asked.
"$1,518" Matilda said.
Her family all looked at her in awe.
"Get a calculator is you don't believe me." Matilda said.
"You cheated, you saw the paper." Her father said.
"There's no way, you were holding it close to you." Matilda said defending herself.
"Are you being smart with me? Because if you are, you're in a lot of trouble." He said.
"No, I'm not. I'm just saying…" Matilda said but was cut off.
"That's it, for being a smart you will be punished." He said then grabbing her by the arm.
"I'm being punished for being smart?" Matilda asked.
"You're being punished for being bad. Bad people are taught lessons for being bad." He said as he dragged his daughter through the house.
"Now go to sleep." He said throwing into her room.
He slammed the door behind him. Matilda could hear his footsteps back to the kitchen. Matilda got into her bed and laid back. She thought about her father's words. He said that bad people are punished when you do bad things. So she got the idea that since her parents do bad things, mostly to her, she should be able to punish them as they do her. Over the next few days she planned out her punishments.
One night after dinner, Matilda was forced to clean the dishes. As she cleaned up she saw the dishwashing soap sitting by the sink and a container of a juice mix that her family always drank.
She put her first punishment into action. She had the idea to tamper slightly with the juice. So after putting the dishes away, she unscrewed the top of the dishwashing soap and poured a tiny bit into the juice. She then grabbed a large wooden spoon and stirred until the soap was dissolved. After covering her tracks, she trotted to her room and went to sleep. The next day woke up and went into the kitchen.
She looked around and didn't see her family around. Sounds of an unpleasant nature began emanating from the household bathrooms. As she got closer to the bathroom she heard things that were being shouted. "My bowels are on fire!" and "It hurts!" as well as a few others. Matilda smiled and went on with her day. As the day went on she kept thinking about what she had done. She wasn't 100 percent happy with what she did, but as her father said, bad people need to be punished.
Time went by and every so often Matilda would get in trouble and she would plan a little bit of punishment each time. One of those times her father was waiting for a very valuable package in the mail and she was asked to wait for it. The day it arrived, she had a huge smirk on her face. She picked the package up from the front porch and brought it inside.
The package had several "Caution: Fragile" stickers on it. She went into the garage and grabbed her brother's baseball bat and brought it inside. She starred at the package, gripping the bat in her hand. She raised it over her head and swung. Whatever was inside was now crushed. Picturing her father as she starred at the package, she began to get angry and began to swing the bat very ferociously.
After a minute or so of swinging, her arms dropped due to exhaustion. The package lay crumbled on the floor. She then picked it up and placed it with the others. Later on when her father came home, he came inside with a very excited look. He asked Matilda where the package was and she pointed. Her father picked up the box and his big smile dropped into a low frown. He had asked her why it was like the way it was. All she said was that's the way she found it by the door.
One night everything came to a boiling point and drastically would change the course of Matilda's life forever. As her family sat in front of the TV and ate dinner, Matilda sat to the side and read. Her father noticed her and stood up in frustration.
"Are you a Wormwood?" he asked her.
Matilda just stared at her father.
"I said are you a Wormwood?" he said.
"…yes" she said reluctantly.
"Then should be with us watching TV and not reading…Moby Dick?!" he said as his uncultured mind read the title.
He grabbed the book from her and began to furiously rip the pages out.
"No stop, that's not mine!" she cried out.
"You're a Wormwood so you are going to act like one." He said placing his hand on her head and forcing her eyes to stare at the nonsensical dribble that was on the TV screen.
An inner anger began to stir up in Matilda. Her anger for her father forcing her watch nonsense, her anger for her general mistreatment, and all her general anger mixing together to form a very dangerous cocktail. As she starred at the TV her anger became more focused and out of nowhere the TV exploded.
Her mother screamed as the house was plunged in darkness. The lights came on and everyone looked at the obliterated set. Matilda's mouth sat agape as she looked at what was left of the TV. She didn't know if somehow she did it or it was weird cosmic coincidence.
"This is just great Harry; your cheap set broke on us." Matilda's mom said.
"Well things like this can happen when you buy from some guy's trunk." Her father said.
The next few days went by without anything strange happening and Matilda was happy for that. But during a normal day of business at his car lot a very unique woman came to purchase a car. Her name was Agatha Truchbull and she was a very harsh person. She and Matilda's father seemed to hit it off since they had similar personalities. They began to talk as they went over the dealings.
"So what do you do for a living Miss Trunchbull?" Matilda's father asked.
"I am the Principal of Crunchum Hall." She said.
"Oh so you like kids huh?" he said.
"Like them? I despise them, they're little worms that shouldn't be able to wiggle under my feet. Use the rod, beat the child is my motto." She said.
"That's a good motto." He said.
"Do you have children Mr. Wormwood?" she asked.
"Yes, my son Michael and a parasite Matilda." He said.
"They're all parasites and should be eradicated as such." She said.
"You know what? I like your style Miss Trunchbull. Maybe I should enroll Matilda into your school." He said.
You should, I love it when I have a chance to use my techniques of discipline on new subjects." She said with an evil grin on her face.
And with that Matilda's father enrolled her into the roughest, toughest elementary school in probably ever. That night after he returned home, he told Matilda what she has been waiting for.
"Congratulations, you are going to school tomorrow." Matilda's father told the girl.
"Oh thank you dad," she said with a huge grin on her face.
"Don't thank me, just go to sleep." He told her.
Matilda was so excited for her first day of school she was unsure if she'd be able to sleep. The next morning she got up early to get all the stuff she needed ready. She got her favorite dress on and put a bright red ribbon in her hair. She made her lunch consisting of a cheese sandwich, cookies for dessert, and juice box. She then sat on the couch in the living room and waited for parents to wake up so they could take her.