Afternoon in the Chokey pt 4

Matilda sat alone in her room amongst the pile of borrowed library books thinking about the past two days. It seemed no matter how hard she tried, her thoughts kept drifting back to her afternoon in the Chokey. The feeling of being trapped inside that tiny little space made her chest tighten in anxiety. She closed her eyes, while taking a few deep breaths as she leaned back on top of her bed. It was bad enough she had had an accident then, but to follow it up by being put in a diaper by Ms. Honey. She shivered at the thought. Then she got them both locked in a closet for several hours where she ended up wetting the diaper, and poor Ms. Honey, she thought. It must feel so much worse for an adult to have an accident. To top the whole day off, she just had to go and wet the bed!

“Ugh” Matilda moaned softly. Other than that though; it had been so... nice. Never before had she felt so cared for than she had in that 24 hour period. She smiled as she remembered the feeling of Miss Honey’s warm arms wrapped around her.  When was the last time her own mother ever made her feel like that? Had she ever? No, definitely not. She had never held her or read with her, or even... said she loved her. How many perfect scores on tests had she shown her in hopes of earning some kind of praise only to be told, “that’s nice” or “I’m on the phone”.

The way Ms. Honey had held her though. It had made her feel like she was actually...wanted. She probably does that with all her students though; It’s not like she was anything special. So what if she could read at a higher level or do a few math problems. She probably does that all the time.

“I hope she lets me come over again sometime.” Matilda mumbled wrapping her arms around her pillow pretending it was her teacher’s soft stomach as she remembered the lovely feeling of having her hair played with. Would she ever let her over again, she wondered. It wasn’t just the bedwetting that was the problem now after all. Matilda had actually scared her teacher.  She grimaced as she remembered the look Ms. Honey had given her after the bath tub incident. It was a look of pure fear. “She probably thinks I’m some kind of freak now; that’s definitely why she wants to meet with my parents alone tonight.”

She had had this inexplicable feeling for days now that something...strange was going on with her and just the other day wasn’t she trying to move cereal around? To think that it actually happened though. It wasn’t just her imagination; it really happened! She was elated when she had gotten over the initial shock, until she saw the look on her teachers face however.

The two had walked to school that morning in complete silence, leaving Matilda to wonder if she had done something wrong. She hadn’t meant to make the shampoo bottle move on its own, it just sort of happened. She went to reach for it, but it came to her instead. The feeling of guilt intensified when Ms. Honey forbid her to tell anyone what had happened that morning; even Lavender.

She felt kind of bad ignoring her friend all day in favor of daydreaming or looking over at Ms. Honey for some sign that she wasn’t in trouble. If only she’d smile gently at me like she usually does, she thought unaware her teacher was lost in her own thoughts. Matilda had been so distracted that day that she hadn’t even finished all of her special school work like she usually did and was forced to take it home as homework on top of her usual reading assignments. Pre-Algebra and intro to chemistry just didn’t hold her interest like usual.

When Matilda heard the doorbell ring, she sprang to her feet and dashed to the end of the hall peeking her head around the corner so as not to be seen. She could hear her parents grumbling about their show being interrupted as an unhappy Harry Wormwood opened the door to find one of his least favorite people standing in the doorway.

“What do you want?” Harry barked.

“Mr. Wormwood.” Miss Honey said trying to stand up as straight as she could under the intimidating man’s glare. “I’d like to talk to you about the possibility of adopting your daughter.”