Matilda stays to live with Miss Engel

Matilda stays to live with Miss Honey after her parents decide to flee to Spain, turning a rushed family departure into a choice about where Matilda belongs. She does not simply accept being taken along: she runs back to the teacher she trusts, asks to remain with her, and returns with her to seek her parents’ permission. Their consent comes almost as an afterthought to their preparations, but it makes possible the lasting change at the story’s close: Matilda stays with Miss Honey while her family drives away.

The sudden departure

The scene begins after Matilda has spent another hour talking with Miss Honey. Their conversation has ranged to a horse’s heartbeat, which Matilda identifies as forty beats a minute. Miss Honey privately thinks that Matilda seems interested in everything and that one could never be bored in her company. The easy exchange gives way abruptly to the discovery that Matilda’s family is leaving: after an eight-minute walk home, she finds a large black Mercedes outside and her parents stuffing clothes and belongings into suitcases in the hall.

Matilda’s father tells her that the family will leave for the airport in half an hour and instructs her to pack. When she asks how long they will be gone and when they will return, he says they will not come back. The plan is therefore not presented as a temporary trip. Miss Honey later explains that Mr. Wormwood’s garage handled stolen cars, changing their number plates and repainting them, and that he is fleeing because the police are after him. He has apparently sent money to Spain over a period of years, so the family’s hurried packing sits within a larger escape plan that Matilda has not been told about beforehand.

Matilda chooses where to go

Rather than pack, Matilda turns and runs out through the open front door. She reaches Miss Honey’s house in less than four minutes, where she finds her in the front garden among the roses, using garden shears. Miss Honey hears Matilda running over the gravel and comes out to meet her. Matilda is breathless and red-faced as she reports that her family is packing and leaving for Spain within half an hour. She identifies her mother, father, and brother, Michiel Wurmhout, and adds that they expect her to go with them.

Her response is immediate and unmistakable: Matilda says she does not want to go with her family and wants to stay with Miss Honey. The request is not introduced as Miss Honey’s proposal or as a plan arranged by the adults. Matilda makes the choice herself, then asks Miss Honey to let her live there. Miss Honey initially says that Matilda must go with her parents, explaining that parents have the right to take their child with them. When Matilda asks whether she could stay if her parents agreed, however, Miss Honey says that she would be glad to have her.

Securing permission

Matilda believes her parents may allow the arrangement because, as she tells Miss Honey, they do not care about her. Miss Honey cautions her not to decide too quickly, but Matilda insists that there is no time to lose: the family could leave at any moment. She takes Miss Honey by the hand and urges her to come with her to ask. Their relationship is expressed through action as well as agreement: Matilda leads, pulls Miss Honey along by the wrist, and sets the pace for their hurried return.

They run together out of the garden and along the country road, through the village to Matilda’s home. The black Mercedes is still at the gate, now with its doors and boot open. Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood and Michiel are busy loading suitcases when the two arrive. Matilda gasps out her request to her parents: she wants to stay and live with Miss Honey, who will take her only if they give permission. The timing makes the appeal concrete and urgent; this is not a question for some later family discussion, but a decision that must be made while the car is being loaded.

Miss Honey then makes her own position clear to Mr. Wormwood. She would be delighted for Matilda to live with her, promises to care for her, and offers to pay for everything, so that the arrangement will cost him nothing. At the same time, she stresses that the idea is Matilda’s and that she will take her in only with his wholehearted agreement. Her offer combines practical reassurance with a limit: she is ready to become responsible for Matilda, but does not present herself as overriding the parents’ authority.

The family leaves

The parents’ responses are strikingly brief beside Matilda’s urgent appeal and Miss Honey’s careful offer. Mrs. Wormwood tells her husband to let Matilda go if that is what she wants, adding that it means one less person to care for. Mr. Wormwood says that he is in a hurry to catch the plane and that Matilda may stay if she wants. Neither response develops into a discussion of what Matilda’s departure means; their attention remains on leaving and getting the luggage into the car.

Once permission is given, Matilda throws herself into Miss Honey’s arms, and Miss Honey embraces her. The family gets into the car and drives away at speed. Michiel waves briefly through the rear window, but neither parent looks back. Miss Honey continues holding Matilda as they watch the black Mercedes disappear around the end of the road. The scene closes without either of them speaking, leaving the embrace and the departing car to mark the separation.

Change and ending

The transfer of care is achieved through a small sequence of decisions: Matilda refuses to go, Miss Honey agrees in principle, and the parents permit her to stay. Its importance lies in the contrast between the people involved. Miss Honey says she will care for Matilda and meet the cost; Matilda’s mother frames her departure as one less person to look after, while her father answers chiefly in terms of catching his plane. Matilda’s choice is therefore met not with a struggle to keep her, but with consent that reflects how little her parents resist losing her.

The setting sharpens the passage from uncertainty to separation. Matilda first encounters the family’s departure amid suitcases in a disordered hall; she then finds Miss Honey in the rose garden, and the pair races back to the waiting car. At the end, the family’s vehicle vanishes from view while Miss Honey still holds Matilda. The action resolves the immediate question of whether Matilda must leave for Spain and establishes her new home with Miss Honey. As the final scene, it closes the story not with Matilda returning to her former family life, but with her staying beside the adult who welcomes her.