'But don't the parents complain?' Matilda asked.
'Would yours?' Hortensia asked. 'I know mine wouldn't. She treats the mothers and fathers just the same as the children and they're all scared to death of her. I'll be seeing you some time, you two.' And with that she sauntered away.
Bruce Bogtrotter and the Cake
'How can she get away with it?' Lavender said to Matilda. 'Surely the children go home and tell their mothers and fathers. I know my father would raise a terrific stink if I told him the Headmistress had grabbed me by the hair and slung me over the playground fence.'
'No, he wouldn't,' Matilda said, 'and I'll tell you why. He simply wouldn't believe you.'
'Of course he would.'
'He wouldn't,' Matilda said. 'And the reason is obvious. Your story would sound too ridiculous to be believed. And that is the Trunchbull's great secret.'
'What is?' Lavender asked.
Matilda said, 'Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable. No parent is going to believe this pigtail story, not in a million years. Mine wouldn't. They'd call me a liar.'
'In that case,' Lavender said, 'Amanda's mother isn't going to cut her pigtails off.'
'No, she isn't,' Matilda said. 'Amanda will do it herself. You see if she doesn't.'
'Do you think she's mad?' Lavender asked.
'Who?'
'The Trunchbull.'
'No, I don't think she's mad,' Matilda said. 'But she's very dangerous. Being in this school is like being in a cage with a cobra. You have to be very fast on your feet.'
They got another example of how dangerous the Headmistress could be on the very next day. During lunch an announcement was made that the whole school should go into the Assembly Hall and be seated as soon as the meal was over.
When all the two hundred and fifty or so boys and girls were settled down in Assembly, the Trunchbull marched on to the platform. None of the other teachers came in with her. She was carrying a riding-crop in her right hand. She stood up there on centre stage in her green breeches with legs apart and riding-crop in hand, glaring at the sea of upturned faces before her.
'What's going to happen?' Lavender whispered.
'I don't know,' Matilda whispered back.
The whole school waited for what was coming next.
'Bruce Bogtrotter!' the Trunchbull barked suddenly. 'Where is Bruce Bogtrotter?'
A hand shot up among the seated children.
'Come up here!' the Trunchbull shouted. 'And look smart about it!'
An eleven-year-old boy who was decidedly large and round stood up and waddled briskly forward. He climbed up onto the platform.
'Stand over there!' the Trunchbull ordered, pointing. The boy stood to one side. He looked nervous. He knew very well he wasn't up there to be presented with a prize. He was watching the Headmistress with an exceedingly wary eye and he kept edging farther and farther away from her with little shuffles of his feet, rather as a rat might edge away from a terrier that is watching it from across the room. His plump flabby face had turned grey with fearful apprehension. His stockings hung about his ankles.
'This clot,' boomed the Headmistress, pointing the riding-crop at him like a rapier,' this black-head, this foul carbuncle, this poisonous pustule that you see before you is none other than a disgusting criminal, a denizen of the underworld, a member of the Mafia!'
'Who, me?' Bruce Bogtrotter said, looking genuinely puzzled.
'A thief!' the Trunchbull screamed. 'A crook! A pirate! A brigand! A rustler!'
'Steady on,' the boy said. 'I mean, dash it all, Headmistress.'
'Do you deny it, you miserable little gumboil? Do you plead not guilty?'