Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books.
Dear children far across the sea, How nice of you to write to me. I love to hear the things you say When you are miles and miles away. All children, and I think I’m right, Are nicer when they’re out of sight!
But Mr Tibbs didn’t hesitate for long. ‘Tell the head gardener,’ he whispered, ’that I require immediately a brand new unused garden fork and also a spade. And for a knife we shall use the great sword hanging on the wall in the morning-room. But clean the sword well first. It was last used to cut off the head of King Charles the First and there may still be a little dried blood on the blade.
A dream is not needing anything. If it is a good one, it is waiting peaceably for ever until it is released and allowed to do its job. If it is a bad one, it is always fighting to get out.
You mean to tell me,’ I said, ‘that every time I pleasure a young lady, I shoot into her two thousand million spermatozoa?’ ‘Absolutely.’ ‘All squiggling and squirming and thrashing about?’ ‘Of course.’ ‘No wonder it gives her a charge,’ I said. A.
It’s worse than that, William! It’s diabolical! Do you know what this means? It means that decent folk like you and me can’t even go out and have a little fun at night without risking a broken leg or arm. We might even break our necks!
The romance, alas, waned and withered but the quiche lived on.
This Giant had some sort of magic in his legs.
It was all this, I think, that made me begin to have doubts about religion and even about God. If this person, I kept telling myself, was one of God’s chosen salesmen on earth, then there must be something very wrong about the whole business.
The Trunchbull” is no match for Matilda!
But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.
A witch never gets caught. Don’t forget that she has magic in her fingers and devilry dancing in her blood.
The children and their parents were too flabber-gasted to speak. They were staggered. They were dumbfounded. They were bewildered and dazzled. They were completely bowled over by the hugeness of the whole thing. They simply stood and stared.
She might even – and this will make you jump – she might even be your lovely school-teacher who is reading these words to you at this very moment.
There’s someone over there needs a helping hand and it’s our job to give it.
Poppyrot and pigwash!
I am not, of course, telling you for one second that your teacher actually is a witch. All I am saying is that she might be one. It is most unlikely. But – and here comes the big “but” – it is not impossible.
My Great Glass Elevator is ready for anything! In we go! Into the breach, dear friends, into the breach!
And on the pillow of the bed lay the head.
That’s why they always put two blank pages at the back of the atlas. They’re for new countries. You’re meant to fill them in yourself.
But sometimes mysteries are more intriguing than explanations.