Matilda: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

According to the narrator, the nice thing about Matilda is that she seems perfectly normal and sensible, unless you bring up literature or math. Because of this, Matilda easily makes friends at school, even though she gets to read her own books during lessons—mostly because kids that age are too caught up in their own struggles to be too curious when their classmates do something different. Matilda’s new best friend is Lavender, who’s extremely tiny. The girls like each other because they each believe the other is “gutsy and adventurous.”

During the first week of school, the new students learn all manner of tales about Miss Trunchbull. One morning, when Matilda and Lavender are on the playground for morning break, a 10-year-old named Hortensia welcomes them and asks if they’ve met “the Trunchbull” yet. Hortensia warns the girls that the Trunchbull hates small kids; many don’t survive and leave school for good on stretchers. Observing the little girls’ non-reactions, Hortensia asks if they’ve heard of the Trunchbull’s lock-up cupboard, the Chokey. It’s a tall, narrow cupboard with glass embedded in three walls and spiky nails in the door—a person in it has to stand still or get stabbed.

Hortensia says she’s been in the Chokey a bunch, six times her first term. It’s terrible. The first time, she poured Golden Syrup on the Trunchbull’s seat for the morning prayer. The syrup squelched when the Trunchbull sat in it, just like the mud on the Limpopo River in the Just So Stories (which the little girls are “too small and stupid to have read”) . Matilda notes that she’s read them, but Hortensia calls her a liar and continues her tale. The chair stuck to the Trunchbull’s green breeches for a moment—and then the Trunchbull grabbed her syrupy bottom and got syrup all over her hands. A little boy told on Hortensia, so Hortensia spent a day in the Chokey.

Lavender wants to know what else Hortensia did to get time in the Chokey, but Hortensia nonchalantly says she doesn’t remember. She can recall one more story: she excused herself to the restroom once and, since the Trunchbull was teaching a class, Hortensia snuck into her office. She put itching powder in every pair of the Trunchbull’s knickers. A few days later, during prayers, the Trunchbull started to scratch. In the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, the Trunchbull leapt up, grabbed her bottom, and left the room.

Lavender and Matilda are in awe of Hortensia, who’s clearly a master and dedicated to her craft. Hortensia explains that the Trunchbull never proved it was her that time; the Trunchbull tends to guess when she can’t figure out for sure who did something. She’s usually right. Matilda says this is like a war, and Hortensia agrees—the students are crusaders while the Trunchbull is “the Prince of Darkness, the Foul Serpent, the Fiery Dragon.” The students all try to support each other. Lavender pledges her support, but Hortensia says Lavender is too little—though she may be useful for an undercover job.

Matilda and Lavender ask for another story, so Hortensia tells them about a boy named Julius Rottwinkle. He was eating during scripture class, so the Trunchbull threw him right out the window. The Trunchbull, Hortensia explains, threw the hammer in the Olympics. Throwing the hammer refers to throwing a huge cannonball on the end of a wire; the thrower spins it around and then lets go. The Trunchbull loves practicing on children, especially since she insists large boys weigh the same as Olympic hammers.

Suddenly, the loud playground goes silent. Miss Trunchbull is striding across the playground, shouting for Amanda Thripp. Hortensia whispers that Amanda has made the mistake of letting her hair grow long, and then letting her mother braid it in two braids—the Trunchbull hates pigtails. The girls watch as the Trunchbull stops in front of Amanda, who has golden braids tied with blue bows. Amanda is clearly terrified as the Trunchbull tells her to chop off her braids before tomorrow. She insists that her mother likes the braids, but the Trunchbull says she doesn’t care.

The Trunchbull then snatches Amanda by the braids and picks her up, swinging her around by her braids before throwing her into the playing field. Matilda asks if the parents ever complain, but Hortensia says parents are afraid of the Trunchbull, too.