Matilda1996

[Hortensia and Lavender explain to Matilda about how the Trunchbull punishes the students]

Matilda:
She doesn't really hit children with that riding crop, does she?

Hortensia:
No, it's mostly for scare. What she does is worse. Like yesterday, in the second grade, the Trunchbull makes a weekly visit to every classroom to show the teachers a thing or two about handling kids. [cut to flashback] And Julius Rottwinkle ate 2 M&Ms during her lesson.

Matilda:
And she caught him?

Hortensia:
Of course.

[The Trunchbull makes Julius spit out the M&Ms, then she throws him out the window; cut back to present]

Matilda:
Was Julius okay?

Hortensia:
After being thrown out the window? Of course he wasn't okay. He lived, if that's what you mean.

Lavender:
The Trunchbull used to be in the Olympics; shot put, javelin, hammer throw.

Hortensia:
The hammer throw's her specialty.

Matilda:
So she does this all the time?

Hortensia:
It's better than being put in the chokey.

Matilda:
The chokey?

Hortensia:
Yeah, the chokey. [cut to flashback] It's a tall narrow hole in the wall behind a door. You have to stand in a drippy pipe with jagged edges, and the walls have broken glass and nails sticking out.

The Trunchbull:
[as she puts Hortensia in the chokey] Get inside, you festering ball of pus!

Matilda:
She puts kids in there?

Hortensia:
I've been in twice. Sometimes she leaves you in there all day.

Matilda:
Didn't you tell your parents?

Hortensia:
They didn't believe me. I mean, would your parents believe it?

The Trunchbull:
Sixty lines after school: "I must obey Ms. Trunchbull."

Matilda:
No.