It’s a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful. 

Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius. 

Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It’s the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring, that we start shouting, ‘Bring us a basin! We’re going to be sick!’ 

School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports. If I were a teacher I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of doting parents. ‘Your son Maximilian,’ I would write, ‘is a total wash-out. I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school because he sure as heck won’t get a job anywhere else.’ Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, ‘It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing-organs in the sides of the abdomen. Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she’s learnt this term, has no hearing-organs at all.’ 

Occasionally one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the doting ones. Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents. They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda, and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular 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 Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.

Matilda’s brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop. By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house. At the age of four, she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books. The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking belonging to her mother, and when she had read this from cover to cover and had learnt all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting. 

‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘do you think you could buy me a book?’

‘A book?’ he said. ‘What d’you want a flaming book for?'

‘To read, Daddy’ ‘What’s wrong with the telly, for heaven’s sake? We’ve got a lovely telly with a twelve-inch screen and now you come asking for a book! You’re getting spoiled, my girl!

On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village. 

‘Where are the children’s books please?’ Matilda asked.

‘They’re over there on those lower shelves,’ Mrs Phelps told her.

‘Would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?’

‘No, thank you,’ Matilda said. ‘I’m sure I can manage.’ 

From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library...