it's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. even when their own child is the most disgusting

little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.

some parents go further. they become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince

themselves their child has qualities of genius.

well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. it's the way of the world. it is only when the

parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting,

"bring us a basin! we're going to be sick!"

school teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents,

but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. if i were

a teacher i would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. "your son

maximilian", i would write, "is a total wash-out. i hope you have a family business you can push

him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else." or if i

were feeling lyrical that day, i might write, "it is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their

hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. your daughter vanessa, judging by what she's learnt

this term, has no hearing-organs at all."

i might even delve deeper into natural history and say, "the periodical cicada spends six years as a

grub underground, and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air. your son

wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school and we are still waiting for him to emerge from

the chrysalis." a particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, "fiona has the same

glacial beauty as an iceberg, but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface."

i

think i might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class. but enough of that.

we have to get on.

occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in

their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. mr and mrs wormwood

were two such parents. they had a son called michael and a daughter called matilda, and the

parents looked upon matilda in particular as nothing more than a scab. a scab

is something you have to put up with until the time comes when you can pick it off and flick it

away. mr and mrs wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their

little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.

it is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but

it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary,

and by that i mean sensitive and brilliant. matilda was both of these things, but above all she was

brilliant. her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been

obvious even to the most half-witted of parents. but mr and mrs wormwood were both so

gormless and so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything

unusual about their daughter. to tell the truth, i doubt they would have noticed had she crawled

into the house with a broken leg.

matilda's brother michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as i said, was something to

make your eyes pop. by the age of one and a half her speech was perfect and she knew as many

words as most grown-ups. the parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox

and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.

by the time she was three, matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and

magazines that lay around the house. at the age of four, she could read fast and well and she

naturally began hankering after books. the only book in the whole of this enlightened household

was something called easy cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from

cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more

interesting.

"daddy," she said, "do you think you could buy me a book?"

"a book?" he said. "what d'you want a flaming book for?"

"to read, daddy."

"what's wrong with the telly, for heaven's sake? we've got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen

and now you come asking for a book! you're getting spoiled, my girl!"

nearly every weekday afternoon matilda was left alone in the house. her brother (five years older

than her) went to school. her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town

eight miles away. mrs wormwood was hooked on bingo and played it five afternoons a week. on

the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, matilda set out all by

herself to walk to the public library in the village. when she arrived, she introduced herself to the

librarian, mrs phelps. she asked if she might sit awhile and read a book. mrs phelps, slightly

taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl unacccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she

was very welcome.

"where are the children's books please?" matilda asked.

"they're over there on those lower shelves," mrs phelps told her. "would you like me to help you

find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?"

"no, thank you," matilda said. "i'm sure i can manage."

from then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, matilda would toddle

down to the library. the walk took only ten minutes and this allowed her two glorious hours

sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner devouring one book after another. when she had read

every single children's book in the place, she started wandering round in search of something else.

mrs phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from

her desk and went over to her. "can i help you, matilda?" she asked.

"i'm wondering what to read next," matilda said. "i've finished all the children's books."

"you mean you've looked at the pictures?"

"yes, but i've read the books as well."

mrs phelps looked down at matilda from her great height and matilda looked right back up at her.

"i thought some were very poor," matilda said, "but others were lovely. i liked the secret garden

best of all. it was full of mystery. the mystery of

the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall."

mrs phelps was stunned. ''exactly how old are you, matilda?" she asked.

"four years and three months," matilda said.

mrs phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it. "what sort of a book

would you like to read next?" she asked.

matilda said, "i would like a really good one that grown-ups read. a famous one. i don't know any

names."

mrs phelps looked along the shelves, taking her time. she didn't quite know what to bring out.

how, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl? her

first thought was to pick a young teenager's romance of the kind that is written for fifteen-year-old

schoolgirls, but for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf.

"try this," she said at last. "it's very famous and very good. if it's too long for you, just let me

know and i'll find something shorter and a bit easier."

"great expectations," matilda read, "by charles dickens. i'd love to try it."

i must be mad, mrs phelps told herself, but to matilda she said, "of course you may try it."

over the next few afternoons mrs phelps could hardly take her eyes from the small girl sitting for

hour after hour in the big armchair at the far end of the room with the book on her lap. it was

necessary to rest it on the lap because it was too heavy for her to hold up, which meant she had to

sit leaning forward in order to read. and a strange sight it was, this tiny dark-haired person sitting

there with her feet nowhere near touching the floor, totally absorbed in the wonderful adventures

of pip and old miss havisham and her cobwebbed house and by the spell of magic that dickens

the great story-teller had woven with his words. the only movement from the reader was the

lifting of the hand every now and then to turn over a page, and mrs phelps always felt sad when

the time came for her to cross the floor and say ; "it's ten to five, matilda."

during the first week of matilda's visits mrs phelps had said to her, "does your mother walk you

down here every day and then take you home?"

"my mother goes to aylesbury every afternoon to play bingo," matilda had said. "she doesn't

know i come here."

"but that's surely not right," mrs phelps said. "i think you'd better ask her."

"i'd rather not," matilda said. "she doesn't encourage reading books. nor does my father."

"but what do they expect you to do every afternoon in an empty house?"

"just mooch around and watch the telly."

"i see."

"she doesn't really care what i do," matilda said a little sadly.

mrs phelps was concerned about the child's safety on the walk through the fairly busy village

high street and the crossing of the road, but she decided not to interfere.

within a week, matilda had finished great expectations which in that edition contained four

hundred and eleven pages. "i loved it," she said to mrs phelps. "has mr dickens written any

others?"

"a great number," said the astounded mrs phelps. "shall i choose you another?"

over the next six months, under mrs phelps's

watchful and compassionate eye, matilda read the following books:

nicholas nickleby by charles dickens

oliver twist by charles dickens

jane eyre by charlotte bronte

pride and prejudice by jane austen

tess of the d'urbervilles by thomas hardy

gone to earth by mary webb

kim by rudyard kipling

the invisible man by h. g. wells

the old man and the sea by ernest hemingway

the sound and the fury by william faulkner

the grapes of wrath by john steinbeck

the good companions by j. b. priestley

brighton rock by graham greene

animal farm by george orwell

it was a formidable list and by now mrs phelps was filled with wonder and excitement, but it was

probably a good thing that she did not allow herself to be completely carried away by it all.

almost anyone else witnessing the achievements of this small child would have been tempted to

make a great fuss and shout the news all over the village and beyond, but not so mrs phelps. she

was someone who minded her own business and had long since discovered it was seldom worth

while to interfere with other people's children.

"mr hemingway says a lot of things i don't understand," matilda said to her. "especially about

men and women. but i loved it all the same. the way he tells it i feel i am right there on the spot

watching it all happen."

''a fine writer will always make you feel that," mrs phelps said. "and don't worry about the bits

you can't understand. sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music."

"i will, i will."

"did you know", mrs phelps said, "that public libraries like this allow you to borrow books and

take them home?"

"i didn't know that," matilda said. "could i do it?"

"of course," mrs phelps said. "when you have chosen the book you want, bring it to me so i can

make a note of it and it's yours for two weeks. you can take more than one if you wish."

from then on, matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books and

return the old ones. her own small bedroom now became her reading-room and there she would

sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her. she was not quite tall

enough to reach things around the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse which she

brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted. mostly it was hot chocolate she

made, warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove before mixing it. occasionally she made

bovril or ovaltine. it was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room and have it beside her as she

sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons. the books transported her into

new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. she went on olden-day

sailing ships with joseph conrad. she went to africa with ernest hemingway and to india with

rudyard kipling. she travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an english

village.