Matilda’s parents forget to register Matilda for school, so she’s months past five years old when she first enters. She’s assigned to Crunchem Hall Primary School, where her first teacher is Miss Honey, a lovely but shy and skinny woman in her early twenties whom the kids adore. On the other hand, the headmistress, Miss Trunchbull, is large and tyrannical: She gives off a “dangerous heat” and marches around snorting like a bull and plowing through knots of kids. She intimidates students and teachers alike.

On the first day, Miss Honey warns the new students to beware of Miss Trunchbull, do exactly as she demands, and never get out of line lest she “liquidise” them. Miss Honey’s first assignment is for the students to memorize the two-times table. She asks if any of them can do so; Matilda raises her hand and recites them all the way up to two times 13. Miss Honey stops her and asks if she can calculate two times 487; Matilda quietly replies that it’s 974.

Miss Honey asks whether Matilda knows more of the times tables; Matilda thinks she knows them up through the 12s.