Matilda Wurmhout—Lavendel

Matilda Wormwood and Lavender’s friendship gives each girl a companion at school and becomes a channel for mutual admiration and confidential knowledge. They spend their breaks together from the first day, value one another’s courage and adventurousness, and approach the frightening world of Miss Trunchbull’s school as fellow newcomers. Later, Lavender’s plan to put a salamander in Miss Trunchbull’s water jug shows both how much Matilda’s example matters to her and where Lavender draws the line between wanting her friend’s confidence and acting alone.

Friendship at School

Lavender is one of Matilda’s new friends. From their first day, the two walk together during recess and at lunchtime. Their companionship begins in the ordinary repeated time of the school day: they are small classmates moving around together while they get used to a new school and its older pupils.

The affection is mutual, and the reasons the girls give for liking each other closely match. Matilda likes Lavender because she is brave and adventurous; Lavender likes Matilda for precisely the same qualities. This symmetry makes their bond more than simple proximity. Each recognizes in the other a readiness to meet the world with daring, even though the girls’ particular forms of daring are not identical.

Matilda’s unusual intelligence does not set her apart from her classmates in the way an adult might expect. She does not advertise it or boast, and children in her class generally accept that she is clever and can read quietly during lessons. Their attention is largely occupied by their own concerns. Against that background, Lavender’s friendship with Matilda rests on companionship and character as much as on Matilda’s exceptional abilities.

Facing the School’s Reputation

The girls’ first week brings them into contact with the school’s threatening reputation. On the third day, while Matilda and Lavender are standing together in a corner of the playground, Hortensia, a sturdy ten-year-old, addresses them as newcomers and calls the school a reform school. Eating crisps from an enormous bag, she welcomes them while pieces of food spray from her mouth. The two younger girls look up at her and say nothing; Hortensia then asks whether they have met Miss Trunchbull.

The exchange places Matilda and Lavender together at the threshold of an older pupil’s warning. Hortensia’s size, age, and manner contrast with the two little newcomers, who are silent before her. The scene does not show the friends reacting separately or making a plan together; its significance for their relationship is the shared position it establishes. They encounter the school’s menace side by side, before they know from experience what Miss Trunchbull is capable of.

Confidence, Admiration, and Example

Lavender later admires both Hortensia and Matilda for their bold deeds. Matilda has told her, in the deepest secrecy, about the parrot trick and the hair-oil switch that turned Mr. Wormwood’s hair blond. The disclosure makes their friendship a channel for stories of resistance: Lavender knows of Matilda’s earlier pranks not merely as school gossip, but because Matilda confided them to her.

That knowledge helps shape Lavender’s own ambitions. When Miss Honey assigns her the task of fetching and preparing the water jug and a clean, empty glass before class, Lavender sees an opportunity to do something heroic. She longs to tell Matilda about her plan, and would like to tell the whole class, too. Yet she decides that secrecy is safer: if no one knows who acted, no one can betray her, even under the worst torture. Her wish to confide in Matilda thus sits beside her determination to keep the plan undisclosed.

A Shared World, Separate Deeds

Lavender carries out the salamander plan herself. After lunch she fills one of Miss Trunchbull’s large, blue-glazed earthenware jugs halfway with water. Finding the classroom empty, she opens her pencil box and tips the salamander into the jug; it splashes and thrashes briefly before settling. She adds the water plants from the box, then puts her pens and pencils back into the damp case and returns to the playground. The deed grows from Lavender’s own scheme and is not presented as a joint action by the friends.

The distinction matters to the shape of their bond. Matilda’s example and Lavender’s admiration help make daring imaginable, while Lavender takes responsibility for her own attempt. She wants Matilda as a confidante, but keeps this particular secret from her along with the rest of the class. Their friendship is therefore defined both by closeness—shared breaks, matching admiration, and a private disclosure from Matilda—and by Lavender’s choice to make her decisive school prank alone.