Het Pauwenest is the Wormwood family’s home: a modern brick house on a pleasant street, with three bedrooms upstairs and a living room, dining room, and kitchen downstairs. It provides the setting for Matilda Wormwood’s carefully prepared tricks and for Juffrouw Engel’s attempt to reach her parents about her abilities.

Setting and Layout

The house stands among relatively narrow homes separated by small gardens. When Juffrouw Engel visits, she judges it to be a house that could not have been inexpensive; a gate bears the name Het Pauwenest. Inside, the arrangement includes an entrance hall, a dining room with a large open fireplace, and the family’s other principal rooms. These concrete domestic spaces become part of Matilda’s schemes rather than merely a backdrop to them.

Matilda’s Pranks

One morning, Matilda slips into the hall and reaches her father’s brown, flat-topped hat, which has a magpie feather in its band. She has to stretch and use a walking stick to lift it from its hook. After applying a thin line of superglue around the inside edge, she hangs it back. Her father puts it on without noticing the alteration and then cannot remove it at work without risking his scalp. The house is thus the starting point of a prank whose effects follow Mr. Wormwood out to the garage.

On another occasion, Matilda returns to her own empty house carrying a tall birdcage. In the dining room, she pushes it up into the chimney until it can no longer be seen. The fireplace and chimney let her conceal the cage while the bird calls down into the house, creating the eerie effect on which this separate prank depends.

Juffrouw Engel’s Visit

After deciding to speak directly with Matilda’s parents, Juffrouw Engel copies their address from the class list and arrives shortly after nine in the evening. She walks up the garden path and rings the bell, hearing the television blaring inside as she waits. Mr. Wormwood opens the door only partway and initially mistakes her for someone selling raffle tickets. Juffrouw Engel identifies herself as Matilda’s teacher and insists that speaking with him and his wife is important. The visit makes Het Pauwenest a point of contact between Matilda’s school life and the household where her parents have yet to recognize her exceptional abilities.