Matilda's eyes shone brightly at the word "surprise". She swallowed her mouthful of toast and strawberry jam and looked up at Jenny sitting across from her at the table working on a crossword puzzle.
"What's the surprise?" she asked eagerly.
"Well, you'll just have to wait and see at school." Jenny said grinning.
"Aww, can't you give me a hint?"
"Hmm, well it involves your friend, Hortensia." Matilda perked up even more.
"Are we going somewhere?"
"Yes, we're going to school." Matilda frowned.
"Mom," she groaned, "that's not what I meant." Miss Honey laughed before draining the last of her mug of tea. "So the surprise is at school?"
"You'll just have to wait and see, we'll go as soon as you finish your bre- Matilda!" Jenny chastised as she watched the girl nearly unhinge her jaw before shoving half a piece of toast inside her mouth.
"Hmmfy." Matilda said with a mouthful of bread, which Jenny could only assume meant, "ready".
"If you're so eager to leave, you could have taken it with you! You won't get a surprise if you choke to death first! Now you've got jelly all over your face."
"Mowry" Matilda said between chewing, before going to the sink to wash her face off.
"And don't talk with your mouthful, please."
"Who do you think you are? My mother?" Matilda said, poking her face out from the dish rag with a playful smile.
"Well as a matter of fact, according to the letter I received in the mail yesterday, I believe I am." Jenny said, before her mouth broke out in a wide grin. They had been so excited last night, Jenny had done something she had never done in her adult life. She ordered a pizza to celebrate. It was a large splurge for her, even with a second paycheck to her name, but it seemed the kind of thing that needed to be celebrated. It had seemed such an impossible hurdle before, but now it was finally done and over.
Matilda grabbed her backpack, and Ms. Honey buttoned her coat, something Matilda had nearly demanded she buy herself, before they left the apartment.
"Is Hortensia doing some kind of show and tell in our class today?" Matilda asked as they walked down the sidewalk. It was her eighth wrong guess, but Jenny refused to confirm or deny any of her answers.
"My lips are sealed."
On their walk into the school, Matilda had nearly walked passed Miss Honey, who had stopped at the Headmistresses office, instead of walking toward her classroom like usual. Matilda gave her a puzzled look, but Miss Honey just smiled and beckoned her inside as Mr. Trilby opened the door for them.
"Well good morning, Miss Honey, what was it you wanted to meet about?" Mr. Trilby asked as they had all taken their seats.
"First, I'd like to officially introduce you to my daughter, Matilda." She slid a piece of paper over to him. Mr. Trilby's eyes went wide in surprise as he looked from Miss Honey to Matilda, then to the paper. He picked it up and read before a large smile spread across his face.
"Congratulations you two! I had no idea!"
"We've had to keep it quiet until everything became official, because of, well, it's complicated." Jenny trailed off. Mr. Trilby folded his hands and listened intently. "Well, the reason I asked for this meeting, is because now that the Headmistress is no longer here, I was hoping to see about moving Matilda up to the class she belongs in. She really has no business being in the bottom form."
Matilda's heart sank. Miss Honey was moving her out of her class?
"So you want to move her into year two? Do you think she's ready?" Mr. Trilby got up from the desk and made his way to the file cabinet and began rifling through folders. "I can have her take an assessment test to see if she's prepared enough for year two."
"No, Mr. Trilby, sir," Miss Honey said. "Not second year either. I'd like her to go into year five."
The sound of shuffling papers stopped abruptly. Matilda saw the temporary headmaster's head nearly swivel around like an owl as he gave Miss Honey a curious expression.
"Year five!? But Miss Honey, that's a five-year jump! That would put her with the ten and eleven-year-olds! Why don't we start with year two and see how that goes?"
"No, Mr. Trilby." Miss Honey said firmly. Matilda wasn't sure what the man seemed more stunned by, the idea of sending her to class with children twice her age, or the fact that Miss Honey sternly told him no. "You're right, Mr. Trilby. She doesn't belong in year five." Matilda watched as the tension seemed to seep out of the man's face and right into Matilda. She didn't want to leave Miss Honey's class, but she didn't want her mother slipping back into her subservient, people pleasing roll. "I think she's ready for top form, but I'm not ready for her to graduate and move on to another school. I want to keep an eye on her and see how she handles being with the older children for another year before I feel comfortable sending her on to senior form. Maybe once she's a little older. Six or seven, perhaps."
"S-senior form…s-s-ix or seven." Mr. Trilby let out a shaky laugh. He fell quiet as he stared into Ms. Honey's face. "You're serious."
"Yes, very." The two adults stayed quiet for a moment, until Miss Honey spoke again. "Ask her multiplication, ask her about science, or spelling, or, or, whatever!" Mr. Trilby stared ahead before letting out a defeated sigh.
"Matilda, can you tell me what seven multiplied by nine is?" he asked. Matilda stared ahead at the look of doubt on Mr. Trilby's face, but remained silent. The answer came to her at once, but the words wouldn't budge from her lips. "How about something a bit simpler? Five times five?" Again, Matilda remained quiet. She could feel Miss Honey's eager expression begin to falter. "Nine times three?"
"Matilda," Miss Honey began, but Mr. Trilby put a hand up to silence her.
"Miss Honey, look, even if she got them right, I can't in good conscious move her five grades, and these are basic-"
"Mr. Trilby, please, may I speak to her in the hall for a moment?" Miss Honey stood and took Matilda by the hand before he had even had a chance to give her an answer. "Sweetie, what is going on?" Miss Honey asked. "These are super easy questions."
"I don't want to move classes!" Matilda blurted out, tears filling her eyes. "I want to stay with you."
"Matilda? You have no business being in my class. There's nothing I can teach you." Miss Honey said softly.
"Yes there is! What about the independent studies? You always explain things perfectly if I ever have questions. You teach me things every day! Why can't I stay with you? You're the best teacher here!"
"Matilda, I love that you think that, but I'm running out of material to give you from this school. To be honest, I think you're already ready for senior form. I'm nearly positive you'd pass the exit test with flying colors, but I have no idea how you'll do with the older children. I think you'd, as well as I, would be more comfortable if you stayed here one more year. If I can get Mr. Trilby to agree, you'd be with your older friends, Hortensia and Bruce. It's not like you won't see me at home, and just think, no more arts and crafts."
"Promise?" Matilda mumbled.
"Yes! We'll still walk to school and back home every day, we'll still read together every night and-"
"I meant about no more arts and crafts."
Miss Honey laughed. "I promise. Now how about we go back in, and you show Mr. Trilby what you can really do?"
"Okay."
…..
Mr. Trilby let out an exasperated sigh as he looked from Miss Honey to Matilda. "So she knows up to her twelve times tables, I'll admit I'm impressed, but there's much more than multiplication in year five. There's grammar, and reading, and.." he dropped his voice and mouthed the words, "Sex Education."
"I can keep going." Matilda said quietly. Mr. Trilby gave her a puzzled look. "You said I knew my twelve times tables. I can keep going if you want." He gave her an amused smile.
"Matilda, what's 1, 243 times 13?" Miss Honey asked.
"16,159." Mr. Trilby's amused smile faltered.
"What about 867 times 962?" Miss Honey asked.
"834,054."
"Wait wait wait," Mr. Trilby said. "Are you saying she can do large multiplication in her head?" He gave Matilda an incredulous look. Matilda shrugged.
"Ask her some, see for yourself."
Mr. Trilby opened a desk drawer, shuffled some things around, and pulled out a calculator. He paused for a moment, seemingly racking his brain before asking, "566 times 88?" he asked, still sounding a bit doubtful.
"49,808." Matilda answered, barely a moment of hesitation. She watched as Mr. Trilby typed in the numbers before his face began to drain of color.
"Wh-what about d-division?" he asked, before clearing his throat. "Do you know division as well?"
"Yes, Mr. Trilby." Matilda answered.
"What if I threw in a decimal?"
Matilda shrugged. "Yes, Mr. Trilby."
"Percentages?"
"Yes, Mr. Trilby"
"Fractions?" Matilda nodded and Mr. Trilby leaned back in his chair. He glanced over at Miss Honey who nodded her head as well. He stroked his beard thoughtfully, before glancing over at the filing cabinet. "Would you mind if I gave you a few tests? I'm intrigued to say the least, and I'd like to know how you do in other subjects before I agree in placing you in such an advanced class for your age." He stood and began rummaging through his file cabinet once more.
"Thank you," Miss Honey said sincerely. "It's more than Miss Trunchbull would do."
"Would you be okay if I kept her here while you taught your class?" He asked. "I think I can have her back by the end of the day. "
Miss Honey agreed, wished Matilda well, and left to her classroom. Mr. Trilby came back with several folders, before setting them on his desk and took a seat.
"Can you really do all of those math equations in your head?"
"I think so." Matilda said quietly.
"Do you come from a family of mathematicians?"
Matilda shook her head, before staring at the manila folders.
"Now don't worry if you don't know some, or even many of the answers to some of these. It's a test that cover's all grade levels in the public school system, even all the way up to year 13, far beyond the six years we have here at Crunchem Hall. If you don't know an answer just leave it blank, and move on. I'll give this to you last if there's time, and only if you score well on this other test. It's not important, more for my own curiosity.
Normally, I wouldn't dream of giving someone your age this. Now this is the one I want you to fully concentrate on." He slid a packet of papers over to her, along with a pencil and a piece of blank paper. "This covers the levels of subjects we teach at this school, and depending on how many you answer right, it will give me a better understanding of which year to place you in. Now between you and me, year five, I just don't see it happening in all honesty, but I do agree, I don't think the bottom form is where you belong."
Matilda nodded.
Was Miss Honey mistaken? Was all her talk of university in a few years just…talk? Maybe Matilda wasn't as special as Miss Honey thought. Would she be disappointed?
"Now this is a timed test. I doubt there's any form of timed testing in Miss Honey's class, but you have three hours to complete this. If you need a break at all between subjects, just let me know, and i'll stop the timer. Do you have any questions?" Matilda shook her head.
"Alright, well, whenever you're ready, you may begin."
…
When Matilda had finished, Mr. Trilby wasn't in his office. He had left to lead morning assembly, but a woman from the office sat in the corner keeping an eye on her at his request to make sure she didn't cheat by using a calculator, or somehow getting a hold of the answer key. So Matilda sat at the desk and waited. She stared at the Chokey and had to smile. It had been covered by a sheet and bore a sign that said. "Closed for Business," In a more messy and childish scrawl below it said, "Miss Trunchbull's new office." With a rather colorful depiction of a large stick figure woman getting speared in multiple places. She had a feeling she knew who had added it, and found it even more amusing that despite the added graffiti, the sign still hung.
"Matilda, are you stuck or did you need something?"
"No, ma'am."
"Well, let's get back to work."
"I finished already."
The lady gave a sympathetic smile. "Did you have to skip many of them? That must be very hard for someone your age since it covers all grade levels. Are you testing for the next level? You must be very smart for them to want to move you."
Matilda didn't feel like explaining, so she just shrugged.
"Why don't you see if there's anymore you can answer? Maybe it will come to you with a second glance."
"May I use the restroom?"
"Sure, you can just use the one in here." She pointed to the door on the other end of the room. Matilda had always wondered what that old, peeling, green painted door led to. She had pictured another torture room full of things worse than the Chokey, but when she opened the door, she only found a small, private bathroom.
While she was washing her hands in the sink, she heard Mr. Trilby come back and ask where she was.
"I think she had a hard time with the test. She said she finished already. She obviously had to skip a lot, but I did see her writing for a while. I didn't think kids her age could read and write already."
"They can't." Mr. Trilby said, before Matilda heard shuffling papers. "Except for this one. Look at this." Matilda heard the creaking of a chair, followed by footsteps. "She completed a three-hour test in thirty minutes."
"Yeah, but it's not like she did the whole test, that's not possible for someone her age. She's in bottom form."
"Not anymore." Mr. Trilby mumbled.
When Matilda came back out, she took her seat at the desk. Without looking away from the papers in his hand, Mr. Trilby slid the other packet across the desk towards her.
"Same rules apply, just do whatever you can, until you get stuck. It will keep getting harder, and like I said, this one isn't important. It's more just for fun while I grade this."
…..
It was nearly lunchtime when the phone rang in Miss Honey's class. She was going over basic vocabulary with her students when she picked it up and heard Mr. Trilby's voice over the line.
"Miss Honey, would you come to my office at your earliest convenience?"
"Of course, sir, I dismiss the class in fifteen minutes."
"Actually, you can give the children an extra fifteen minutes on the playground. Go ahead and dismiss them now. I'm sending Matilda out to join them, so we can talk privately." She hung up the phone and let the students out early, much to their delight and made her way over to the office.
Miss Honey let out a deep, shaky breath as she got to the headmistresses' door before knocking and chastising herself that she no longer had anything to fear here. She entered when beckoned in, and shut the door behind her.
"Please take a seat, Miss Honey." She frowned a little and did as she was told. She had never seen Mr. Trilby looking so serious.
"There's a few things I need to speak to you about, and I'm not sure where to start." She saw he looked a bit shell shocked.
"This is about Matilda, right?"
"No. I mean, yes, her as well, but also about Miss Trunchbull. She was your family, wasn't she?"
Miss Honey shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the mention of her aunt.
"Matilda is my family." Miss Honey answered, although her voice rose an octave higher than she had meant it to. She noticed he looked a little relieved to hear this.
"S-so you weren't close, or anything?"
Miss Honey shifted in her chair again. "N-no. Can we talk about Matilda first?" He gave a smile that seemed a tad forced and nodded.
"Well, I'm afraid to tell you, my first assessment of her was right. She doesn't belong in the fifth year." Miss Honey frowned, but before she could protest, he held up a large packet. "This is a test that covers all 13 years of school. I gave it to her to keep her entertained while I went over her answers on a much simpler test. I got maybe a page or two in when I noticed something strange."
"Strange? What do you mean strange?"
"I've never seen a student smile while taking a test before. I asked her why, and she said, 'you're right, Mr. Trilby, this is fun.' "
Miss Honey let out a relieved laugh. "Yes, she enjoys this sort of thing." She frowned again as she thought of what he said. "So if you won't place her in year five, what about four or-"
He shook his head, and snaked his hand down his face. "According to her test, she places in year seven."
Miss Honey let out a sigh herself before letting out a nervous chuckle. "I was afraid of this, but I had a feeling she would test beyond this school. She absorbs information like a sponge, I was running out of text books to give her."
"How long have you known you had a genius in your class?"
"Since day one." Miss Honey said. "I tried to tell Miss Trunchbull, but she refused to listen. So I went to her parents, thinking they must be highly intelligent people and," She let out a bitter laugh "Poor girl had some of the worst people I've ever met for parents."
Mr. Trilby gave a sort of pained expression. "I'm sorry," he said. "I don't mean to change the subject, but there really is something I need to tell you. The police called. They found Miss Trunchbull." Miss Honey could feel the color draining from her face.
No! She wasn't ready to have her aunt back in her life! She was finally free!
"D-did they arrest her? Did they say where she was? They aren't bringing her back here, are they?"
Mr. Trilby stared at her confused for a moment before realization dawned on him. " Miss Honey, Jennifer, no. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I meant they found Miss Trunchbull's body."