why did Matilda wish she could have been born in savage tribe instead of Brixton
Answers
MATILDA’S ears were red and shiny. So were her cheeks. Her hands were red too. This was because Pridmore had washed her. It was not the usual washing, which makes you clean and comfortable, but the “thorough good wash,” which makes you burn and smart till you wish you could be like the poor little savages who do not know anything, and run about bare in the sun, and only go into the water when they are hot.
Matilda wished she could have been born in a savage tribe instead of at Brixton.
“Little savages,” she said, “don’t have their ears washed thoroughly, and they don’t have new dresses that are prickly in the insides round their arms, and cut them round the neck. Do they, Pridmore?”
But Pridmore only said, “Stuff and nonsense,” and then she said, “don’t wriggle so, child, for goodness’ sake.”
Pridmore was Matilda’s nursemaid. Matilda sometimes found her trying. Matilda was quite right in believing that savage children do not wear frocks that hurt. It is also true that savage children are not over-washed, over-brushed, over-combed, gloved, booted, and hatted and taken in an omnibus to Streatham to see their Great-aunt Willoughby. This was intended to be Matilda’s fate. Her mother had arranged it. Pridmore had prepared her for it. Matilda, knowing resistance to be vain, had submitted to it.
But Destiny had not been consulted, and Destiny had plans of its own for Matilda.
When the last button of Matilda’s boots had been fastened (the button-hook always had a nasty temper, especially when it was hurried, and that day it bit a little piece of Matilda’s leg quite spitefully) the wretched child was taken downstairs and put on a chair in the hall to wait while Pridmore popped her own things on.
“wallow would choke a Professor.”
“Does it eat anything else besides lessons?”
“Christmas pudding. But there—what’s the use of talking—that bird would laugh if it were fed on dog-biscuits.”
His Majesty sighed and passed the buttered toast.
“You can’t possibly,” he went on, “have any idea of the kind of things that happen. That bird laughed one day at a Cabinet Council, and all my ministers turned into little boys in yellow socks. And we can’t get any laws made till they come right again. It’s not their fault, and I must keep their situations open for them, of course, poor things.”
“Of course,” said Matilda.
“There was a Dragon, now,” said the King. “When he came I offered the Princess’s hand and half my kingdom to any one who would kill him. It’s an offer that is always made, you know.”
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