Donderdag

Donderdag, or Thursday, is the fixed day on which Miss Trunchbull takes over Juffrouw Engel’s class. Scheduled for two o’clock, immediately after lunch, the weekly lesson gives the school’s ordinary calendar a threatening rhythm: the children know when the Head will arrive, what she may test them on, and how dangerous a wrong answer or show of defiance can become. Thursday is therefore more than a time marker. Its recurrence makes fear part of the school routine, while the differences between the successive lessons expose both the children’s vulnerability and the limits of Miss Trunchbull’s rule.

The weekly timetable

During the first week of Matilda Wormwood’s schooling, Juffrouw Engel explains that Miss Trunchbull customarily takes over every class for an hour each week. Each class has its own regular day and time; for Juffrouw Engel’s class, it is always Thursday at two in the afternoon, just after the lunch break. Juffrouw Engel remains in the room, but only as a silent witness. The arrangement gives the Head a formal place in the timetable and makes her intrusion predictable rather than exceptional.

The scheduled lesson is introduced while the children are still learning the expectations of school. Juffrouw Engel says that they should expect to be tested on the week’s work, then the multiplication table of two, and advises them to practise at home. She also warns them to arrive in clean clothes, with clean hands and faces, to speak only when asked, to stand before answering, and never to argue, contradict, or joke with the Head. These instructions turn preparation for Thursday into more than revision: the children are being taught how to manage their conduct around an authority who may become angry.

That warning sits beside Juffrouw Engel’s gentler account of learning. She wants the class to master the two-times table by the end of the week and, over the following year, the tables from one to twelve, because knowing them will help later. On Matilda’s first day, Matilda Wormwood is the only pupil who volunteers that she already knows the two-times table. She recites well beyond ten times two, and Juffrouw Engel is struck by how quickly she handles a multiplication problem. The contrast matters to the Thursday routine: the class’s scheduled test is designed around shared weekly learning, while Matilda’s demonstrated ability already exceeds its immediate demands.

The first Thursday lesson

When Miss Trunchbull’s weekly visit is announced, the children are told that she is strict and that mistakes or jokes may provoke her. The warning acquires its force in the lesson itself. During the first Thursday takeover, the Head tests the children on the two-times table and responds to incorrect answers with physical punishment. Robert gives a wrong answer; Miss Trunchbull grabs his long golden curls, lifts him from his chair, and holds him up while insisting that he repeat the correct multiplication. Juffrouw Engel protests that she is hurting him and pulling out his hair, but the scene demonstrates how little protection her presence affords the pupils.

Erik’s punishment makes the lesson’s method explicit. Miss Trunchbull seizes him by the ears and lowers him back into his chair after he answers. She presents hanging and rough treatment as a way to make children remember, and treats the stretching of Erik’s ears as an acceptable consequence. Juffrouw Engel objects that the Head could cause lasting harm. The Thursday lesson thus sets formal instruction against its brutal enactment: arithmetic is being taught, but fear and bodily control are the Head’s instruments.

A return shaped by memory

The next Thursday brings the same scheduled visit, now preceded by memories of what happened the week before. In the morning, Juffrouw Engel reminds the class that some pupils remember the last lesson badly. She asks Erik about his ears; he says they were stretched and that his mother can see they have grown larger. Robert reports that his head hurt terribly afterward, though Juffrouw Engel notes that he has not lost any hair since the previous Thursday. These references carry the consequences of the first visit forward into the next one: the harm does not end when the lesson does.

Juffrouw Engel also warns Nico not to try to outwit the Head as he did the previous week. Nico openly says he cannot stand her, and Juffrouw Engel advises him not to show it so clearly, reminding him that Miss Trunchbull is very strong. The children are therefore preparing not only for a multiplication test but for a power imbalance they already understand. This time Juffrouw Engel expects the class to be asked the three-times table, which they have been learning during the week.

After lunch, the class returns to the room and waits in silence while Juffrouw Engel stands to one side. Miss Trunchbull enters in green trousers and a brown jacket and goes straight to the water jug, checking it for the slimy creature that had been put there previously. Her inspection shows that the remembered danger extends beyond the arithmetic test: she suspects the class of having played a trick and threatens unpleasant consequences if the creature is there. The familiar timetable has not made the visit safe; it has taught the pupils what to fear before the Head even begins teaching.

What Thursday marks

The two Thursday lessons create a pattern of repetition with variation. The day and hour remain fixed, but the tested multiplication table advances from two to three, and the children’s memory of earlier punishments changes the atmosphere of the next visit. Juffrouw Engel tries to prepare them through instruction and caution, while Miss Trunchbull turns the same classroom and timetable into a setting for intimidation. The recurrence makes the Head’s authority feel embedded in ordinary school life, not confined to a single outburst.

That pattern belongs to a period of Miss Trunchbull’s rule, not to an unchanging future. After she disappears from the school, Mr. Dophoed is appointed Head, and Matilda Wormwood is eventually moved to the highest class. The account does not identify either change with a Thursday. Their significance is instead retrospective: the weekly visit that once organized the class’s apprehension loses its force when the authority behind it is gone. Thursday preserves the contrast between a school’s orderly timetable and the violence that can be carried out within it, as well as the possibility that the institution’s routines may change when its ruler does.