Miss Trunchbull’s disappearance from the school turns the collapse in Matilda’s classroom into a lasting reversal of power: the headmistress who had dominated the school is carried out unconscious, returns only to leave, and then vanishes from the Red House. Her absence sets in motion both the recovery of Miss Honey’s home and a change in the school’s leadership and treatment of Matilda.

The collapse in the classroom

After the chalk has written its message, it stops, hangs briefly in the air, then falls to the floor with a rattle and breaks in two. A child on the front row cries out that Miss Trunchbull has fallen. The class stands to see her sprawled on her back, unconscious. The writing’s abrupt end and the headmistress’s collapse make the scene a decisive break in the order she has enforced: for once, the children are looking down at the school’s most powerful adult, helpless on the classroom floor.

Miss Honey kneels beside her and identifies the immediate problem as fainting. She tells the children to fetch the school nurse, and three run out. Another child, acting on his father’s advice that cold water can revive someone, takes the large water jug and pours its entire contents over Miss Trunchbull’s head. No one objects, including Miss Honey. The response is hurried and practical, but its unchecked boldness contrasts with the fear that usually governs the children’s behavior around the headmistress.

All the teachers and the nurse are needed to lift Miss Trunchbull’s enormous body and carry her out of the classroom. Miss Honey sends the pupils to the playground until the next lesson, then carefully erases everything written on the blackboard. Matilda leaves with the others but pauses beside her teacher; their eyes meet, and Miss Honey runs to embrace and kiss her. The scene thus moves from public commotion to private recognition, while the board is cleared of the words that preceded the collapse.

Recovery and disappearance

News spreads through the school later that day that Miss Trunchbull has recovered. She marches out of the school pale and tight-lipped. The account gives no explanation of what she says or does after regaining consciousness; instead, her rigid expression and immediate departure mark her return as an exit rather than a resumption of authority.

She does not come to school the next morning. At midday, the acting head calls her home to ask whether she is ill, but nobody answers. After school he goes to the Red House, the brick country house in the woods beyond the hills where Miss Trunchbull lives. He rings and knocks without response, calls inside, and gets no answer. Finding the door unlocked, he enters.

The house is silent and empty, but the furniture is still in place. Upstairs, the large bedroom also appears normal until he opens drawers and looks in the cupboards: the clothes, underwear, and shoes are gone. That selective absence makes the departure legible. The household has not been cleared out; Miss Trunchbull has taken her personal belongings and left the house behind. The acting head concludes that she has run away and returns to inform the school board that its head has disappeared.

The Red House and Miss Honey’s inheritance

Two days later, a registered letter from a local solicitor brings a consequence that makes the disappearance more than a vacancy at school. Miss Honey learns that her late father’s will has unexpectedly come to light. It establishes that she has been the legal owner of the Red House since her father’s death, although Miss Trunchbull had occupied it until recently. The will also leaves Miss Honey her father’s savings, which have remained safely in the bank. The house that Miss Trunchbull has just abandoned is therefore not hers to keep: it belongs to the niece whose life she had controlled.

Miss Honey visits the solicitor, and within three weeks moves into the Red House, where the furniture and paintings from her childhood have remained. The recovery is material as well as emotional in its implications: she regains the home in which she grew up and the inheritance secured by her father’s will. Matilda visits her there after school every day, and the teacher and pupil develop a close friendship. Miss Trunchbull’s departure consequently opens a space not only for Miss Honey’s return to her own house but also for a lasting bond between her and Matilda.

Changes at school

Miss Trunchbull’s absence becomes permanent, and the school’s leadership changes with it. The capable acting head is appointed to the position. Matilda, meanwhile, is transferred to the highest class, where her new teacher soon discovers that she is as exceptionally clever as Miss Honey had said. These changes connect the headmistress’s disappearance to the circumstances that had been obscured under her rule: the school can appoint a different leader, and Matilda can receive instruction suited to her ability.

The event’s consequences extend beyond the moment of collapse. Miss Trunchbull does not return to reclaim either the school or the Red House; Miss Honey recovers her home and savings, while Matilda’s education advances. The sequence closes the headmistress’s presence in the school not with a formal dismissal or confrontation, but with absence—first an unanswered phone, then an unlocked door, and finally the discovery that her clothes and shoes are gone.