I don't own Matilda

Sleep my little one

Let your dreams take flight

You will grow big and strong

And your life will be sweet

That was one of her mother's lullabies. Her sweet soothing voice was soft and calming. Jennifer Honey thought that her life was always going to be beautiful...until that fateful day. Death showed up on her family's doorstep as he raised his scythe and took her mother's life away.

Her father, Magnus, cried during the night be he never revealed his misery to the young Jenny who was too young to know what Death was during that time. She was just a child wrapped around in a blanket of pure innocence. Magnus wanted to continue to work so he could support his daughter and himself so he invited Jenny's aunt to live with them. Agatha Trunchbull was her name. Once her father left for work, Jenny always felt those sausage-like fingers touching her fragile neck.

"Up to your room," her aunt would say as little girl would obey her aunt's orders. She would stay in her room for hours until her father came home. She was once punished for leaving her room to use the restroom. One time, she was brutally spanked from that iron hand as she took a chocolate from the special box.

Once Agatha was done punishing her, she would take a disgusting bite from a piece of chocolate and say to young Jenny, "much too good for children!" she would sneer as her fat lips smacked against each other.

Jenny's only comfort was her room and her little Lissy doll. She would cup the doll's porcelain cheeks in her hands and kiss her, sing to her, and care for her as if she was a mother herself.

Another fateful event happened a couple of years later. Jenny was walking up the flight of stairs until she reached her father's library. She opened the door and to her horror, she found her father's body sprawled on the floor. He was lying in his red pool of blood as her aunt towered over his body.

Jenny looked from her father and then at her aunt. She failed to notice a bloody object in her aunt's grip, which she kept well-hidden from Jenny's sight. The police was called as they put her father's body on the gurney with a black blanket draped over his corpse. They put him in the back of the ambulance truck and drove away. Jenny sat on her swing once the ambulance pulled away. She wanted to cry for the loss of her father but she wasn't aloud to cry. After all, she wouldn't let her.

A hand clamped on her shoulder as Jenny's eyes slowly looked at it. She saw a sinister smile as it opened its mouth and said, "get in the house."

Jenny slid off the swing and walked in the house as quickly as possible. As she walked in, she felt that she was all alone. The next morning, the abuse commenced...

Jenny was not allowed to leave the house. Her aunt watched her every single move but Jenny was sometimes cautious of her aunt. Agatha had taken away her prerogative from eating supper. However, Jenny would sneak a small piece of bread from her dinner portion and wait to eat it until she was in her room. She was thankful that her aunt never caught her or she would have paid the price with a very brutal beating.

When she was old enough, Jenny had enough of the tortures from her aunt. She let go of all her possessions, happy, and unhappy memories in that house. She ran away to start a new life. A life that she had been deprived of. A life as sweet as her parents shared together.