Occasionally one comes across parents who show no interest at all in their children. Mr. and Mrs.
Wormwood were two such parents.They had a son called Micheal and a daughter called Matilda, and the
parents looked upon Matilda 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.
Wornwood looked forward enormously to time when they could pick their little daughter
off and flick her away, preferably into the next country or even furtherthan that.
It is had 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 extra-ordinary, and by that
I mean sensitive and brilliant, Matilda was both of these thing, but above all she was
brilliant.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.
"Funny, witty,fresh.Dahl at his ouytrageous best!