‘How dare you come in without knocking!’ the Matron shouted. ‘Here I am trying to get something out of Mr Corrado’s eye and in you burst and disturb the whole delicate operation!’
‘I’m very sorry, Matron.’
‘Go away and come back in five minutes!’ she cried, and I shot out of the room like a bullet.
After ‘lights out’ the Matron would prowl the corridor like a panther trying to catch the sound of a whisper behind a dormitory door, and we soon learnt that her powers of hearing were so phenomenal that it was safer to keep quiet.
* * *
‘The Trunchbull, her face more like a boiled ham than ever, was standing before the class quivering with fury. Her massive bosom was heaving in and out and the splash of water down the front of it made a dark wet patch that had probably soaked right through to her skin. ‘Who did it?’ she roared. ‘Come on! Own up! Step forward! You won’t escape this time! Who is responsible for this dirty job? Who pushed over this glass?’ Nobody answered. The whole room remained silent as a tomb.’
(Matilda)
* * *
Once, after lights out, a brave boy called Wragg tiptoed out of our dormitory and sprinkled castor sugar all over the linoleum floor of the corridor. When Wragg returned and told us that the corridor had been successfully sugared from one end to the other, I began shivering with excitement. I lay there in the dark in my bed waiting and waiting for the Matron to go on the prowl. Nothing happened. Perhaps, I told myself, she is in her room taking another speck of dust out of Mr Victor Corrado’s eye.
Suddenly, from far down the corridor came a resounding crunch! Crunch crunch crunch went the footsteps. It sounded as though a giant was walking on loose gravel.
Then we heard the high-pitched furious voice of the Matron in the distance. ‘Who did this?’ she was shrieking. ‘How dare you do this!’ She went crunching along the corridor flinging open all the dormitory doors and switching on all the lights. The intensity of her fury was frightening. ‘Come along!’ she cried out, marching with crunching steps up and down the corridor. ‘Own up! I want the name of the filthy little boy who put down the sugar! Own up immediately! Step forward! Confess!’
‘Don’t own up,’ we whispered to Wragg. ‘We won’t give you away!’
Wragg kept quiet. I didn’t blame him for that. Had he owned up, it was certain his fate would have been a terrible and a bloody one.
Soon the Headmaster was summoned from below. The Matron, with steam coming out of her nostrils, cried out to him for help, and now the whole school was herded into the long corridor, where we stood freezing in our pyjamas and bare feet while the culprit or culprits were ordered to step forward.
Nobody stepped forward.
I could see that the Headmaster was getting very angry indeed. His evening had been interrupted. Red splotches were appearing all over his face and flecks of spit were shooting out of his mouth as he talked.
‘Very well!’ he thundered. ‘Every one of you will go at once and get the key to his tuck-box! Hand the keys to Matron, who will keep them for the rest of the term! And all parcels coming from home will be confiscated from now on! I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour!’
We handed in our keys and throughout the remaining six weeks of the term we went very hungry. But all through those six weeks, Arkle continued to feed his frog with slugs through the hole in the lid of his tuck-box. Using an old teapot, he also poured water in through the hole every day to keep the creature moist and happy. I admired Arkle very much for looking after his frog so well. Although he himself was famished, he refused to let his frog go hungry. Ever since then I have tried to be kind to small animals.
* * *
Roald Dahl’s advice on frogs:
‘Be nice to frogs, by the way. They are your friends in the garden. They eat the beastly slugs and never harm your flowers.’
(My Year)
* * *
Each dormitory had about twenty beds in it. These were smallish narrow beds ranged along the walls on either side. Down the centre of the dormitory stood the basins where you washed your hands and face and did your teeth, always with cold water which stood in large jugs on the floor. Once you had entered the dormitory, you were not allowed to leave it unless you were reporting to the Matron’s room with some sickness or injury. Under each bed there was a white chamber-pot, and before getting into bed you were expected to kneel on the floor and empty your bladder into it. All around the dormitory, just before ‘lights out’, was heard the tinkle-tinkle of little boys peeing into their pots. Once you had done this and got into your bed, you were not allowed to get out of it again until next morning. There was, I believe, a lavatory somewhere along the corridor, but only an attack of acute diarrhoea would be accepted as an excuse for visiting it. A journey to the upstairs lavatory automatically classed you as a diarrhoea victim, and a dose of thick white liquid would immediately be forced down your throat by the Matron. This made you constipated for a week.