The Red Shoe (6 page)

W
HEN
M
ATILDA WOKE UP
on Tuesday morning, at once she had an idea for the Pet Parade. She didn’t know where it came from. It was there in her head when she opened her eyes.

She got out of bed and tiptoed out to the kitchen. Under the sink there was a cupboard where her mother kept old boxes and cartons of biscuits and cereal. Matilda lifted a few of them up, looking for one that was just the right size.

In the end she chose a shoebox. Holding it, she went out the kitchen door, down the grassy lawn to the back corner of the yard. There was a pile of mossy bricks there that their father had been going to build a barbecue with, but he’d left it half-finished. It was the only wet place in the whole yard. Their mother said it must be because of a leaky pipe somewhere and they should get it fixed or they would run out of water altogether. But Matilda knew just what she would find there.

Snails gathered on the moist stones, covering them with silver trails, and in the morning sun it looked like the ruins of a fairy castle. Matilda got down on her knees, the box under her arm. There was a group of large, fat, damp snails, with their shells of grey and brown spirals, curling round and round like the galaxies in a special book about the universe their teacher let them look at on Friday afternoons.

Matilda pulled a snail stickily off the stone. Its feelers waved about in panic. She dropped it into the box. Then she scraped some moss from the sides of the bricks and put that in as well.

“There’s your breakfast, snaily,” she said.

She plucked another large one and tossed it in, and then another two. Then she found a group of little baby ones that had just been born, smaller than Corn Flakes, tiny and beautiful. She picked two of them up and put them in the box, along with some leaves and twigs.

I bet I win, thought Matilda. This is such a good idea.

Back in her bedroom, she found a lead pencil, and punched some holes in the lid of the box so her snails would have air. Then she began to write some letters on the side of the shoe box.

“What are you doing?” said Floreal.

Matilda started and the pencil broke – she had pressed too hard.

“Ay!” said Matilda. “Now look what you’ve made me do!”

“What is it?” asked Floreal.

“It’s for the Pet Parade.” Matilda held it up for him to see. “It’s a snail hotel.”

“A what?”

“A snail hotel,” repeated Matilda impatiently. She pointed to where she had begun to write the word on the cardboard. “See?”

Matilda was only just learning to write, and she couldn’t do much yet, just some of the capitals. But she could do an H and an O and a T.

“The E is back to front,” commented Floreal.

“No it’s not,” retorted Matilda. When she frowned, her whole face seemed to cave in and her eyes became even darker. “You’re just jealous.”

“Snails don’t have hotels, anyway,” said Floreal.

Matilda didn’t care what Floreal thought. It was a beautiful snail hotel. Uncle Paul lived in a hotel. Matilda wished they could go and see it. She had never been in a real hotel.

“It’s not for little girls,” Uncle Paul said gravely, when she asked him to take her there.

Matilda knew what that meant. It was too good for little girls, too marvellous, too wonderful. But at least her snails could have their own hotel. She lifted the lid. They sat there quietly, wet and wondering. She reached in and found one of the tiny ones hiding under a leaf. She lifted it carefully up into the air and its foot wiggled about, just like a real baby.

It was hard for Matilda and Frances to kiss their mother goodbye that morning. Matilda was holding the snail hotel in front of her and Frances had a felt flowerpot strapped on her head with a piece of elastic. Frances had worn the same flowerpot hat to the parade for the past three years. Of course she never won a prize. Frances has no ambition, Uncle Paul always said, but then Matilda has enough for all of us.

“Don’t you ever want to do something different?” asked Matilda.

“No,” said Frances.

“Don’t you want to win a prize?”

“No,” said Frances.

Their mother blew them kisses as she stood at the front door and waved goodbye. They could see the mad old man next door, glaring at them through the wire flyscreen.

“Good morning,” their mother called out uneasily.

The mad old man banged his stick on the floor in reply.

“I bet I win,” said Matilda to Frances, as they walked up the hill. “This is such a good idea.”

She was glad to get out of the house, not only to get to school, but also she wanted to get away from Floreal and all the mean things he kept saying about her snail hotel. Floreal never followed her outside, he never came to school. She skipped forward, clutching the box to her chest.

Just then a car appeared, swooping up towards them like a magpie. It was one of the shiny black cars from the house next door. Frances and Matilda scuffled to the side of the road. The car braked and the man who was driving leant his head out, his elbow resting on the edge of the window.

“Want a lift to school, girls?” he grinned.

He reached behind him and opened the back door and it swung wide onto the road. Frances and Matilda looked at each other, and then they climbed in the back seat. Frances pushed her flowerpot to one side, to stop it hitting the roof of the car, while Matilda balanced the snail hotel on her lap. There was another man sitting in the front passenger seat. He didn’t smile at all.

“Like your hat,” said the driver to Frances, but she turned her head away quickly and looked out the window.

This car is so beautiful, thought Matilda. The seats were dark brown leather and smelt so new. Silver things shone all about her, ashtrays and handles. As it drove along the winding gravel road through the wilderness of trees and falling leaves, the car hardly seemed to make a noise. It was like flying.

“What’ve you got in the box?” said the driver to Matilda, giving up on Frances.

Matilda could see the driver’s face in the rear-vision mirror. He had light blue eyes and dark eyebrows. It was strange to talk to someone back-to-front, with a face made of glass.

“Snails,” she said. “It’s a snail hotel.”

“Is that so?” The driver shook his head in wonder. “What will they think of next?”

“Have you come to live next door?” asked Matilda.

“That’s right,” nodded the driver in the mirror.

“For ever?”

“Probably not,” he said.

He glanced at the man in the passenger seat next to him. His arms were tightly folded in front of him, and he didn’t look very pleased.

“You going to the Show this year, girls?” asked the driver, changing the subject.

“Yes,” said Matilda.

Frances looked at her sideways, as if to say, that’s not true.

“We are going to the Show,” said Matilda defiantly. “My dad will take us. He’s coming home at Easter.”

They had reached the corner of the street which led to the school.

“Drop you off here, kids,” said the driver.

He pulled the car over and brought it to a stop, but he didn’t turn off the engine. It was like a big growling cat. Matilda tried to open the door on her side, but she couldn’t do it, so the driver leaned back and opened it for her. His hands were large and there were dark hairs on his fingers, like a pirate. When he sat back in his seat he winked at her in the rear-vision mirror. Matilda laughed.

“Bye bye,” she said, tumbling out, hanging onto the box.

“Thank you.” Frances crawled over the leather seat and got out of the car. Her flowerpot fell halfway off her head, but she pulled it back upright as she slammed the door behind her.

Almost instantly the car took off again. It disappeared, leaving low clouds of crimson dust behind it.

“We shouldn’t have done that, Matilda,” said Frances. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t,” said Matilda.

W
HEN
F
RANCES AND
M
ATILDA WALKED
into the playground the air was full of anxious noise, of squirming and escape. Quite apart from all the children in hats with streamers and feathers, there were dogs barking, clawing cats, guinea pigs in baskets, budgies in cages, ducks and chickens with strings on their feet, and even a goat with a rope around its neck.

Matilda searched about for a girl called Angela who had said she was going to bring a pony and Matilda had been so jealous. But there she was, with no animal at all, just wearing a straw hat with a few flowers in it.

“Can I see?” asked a boy called Philip, coming up to Matilda.

Matilda opened the lid of the box and let him look inside, and suddenly it seemed there were a hundred children crowding around and staring at it, poking their fingers, reaching in. Matilda felt a panic rise up inside her, and she thought she might scream and her face and cheeks were hot.

“A
TTEN–SHUN
!”

Someone had forgotten to ring the bell, there was too much excitement. But the parade was not till eleven o’clock, so they had to go into their classrooms until then. The goat was tied up near the taps so it could lick the dripping water when it was thirsty. It bleated all morning as they sat in the warm classroom, copying things down from the board about the transit of Venus. Then it became very quiet, falling asleep in the sunshine.

When at last it was time for the parade, Matilda couldn’t remember what she’d been doing, only they must have been writing because her tabletop was covered with pencil shavings. She stood with her snail hotel in a line with the other children and felt as though she would faint. She couldn’t eat. She gave her apple to Frederick, a boy with a large and mesmerising chickenpox scar in the middle of his forehead.

Out in the sunny playground, first to march around were the children with hats. It seemed to take forever, all those boring hats. There was Frances and her flowerpot falling off, she didn’t even seem to notice. Matilda’s legs wanted to run fast, as though her feet might take off without her, but she said to herself over and over again, Keep still, keep still.

Finally it was time for the Pet Parade. Now, the headmaster told them, rather than him choosing a winner, the children themselves could vote.

“Just like voting in an election,” he bellowed through a hand-held megaphone. “When you children are twenty-one, you will all be able to vote.”

“If you vote for my snail hotel,” said Matilda urgently to Frederick, “I will give you my lunch every day this week.”

“Now remember, children,” continued the headmaster, “the prize is for the most unusual pet. Not the best-looking or the most obedient. The most unusual.”

“I will give you an Easter egg,” said Matilda to Frederick.

“So have a good look at all the candidates,” said the headmaster. “Mrs Peterson will give you a piece of paper for you to write down which pet you think should win. Then you will put it in here” – he held up a wastepaper basket – “and then I will count them and announce the winner.”

“What about me?” said a boy called Owen. “Do I get an Easter egg?”

“You too,” said Matilda immediately.

“Now!” The headmaster cleared his throat. “Time for the Grand Parade!”

Matilda stood tall with her shoulders back and held up her hotel in front of her, tipped downward, so everyone could see the snails in their magnificent green palace. The line of competitors marched around the playground, while the other children stood in rows at the edges, shouting and clapping.

The boy with the goat went first, pulling it along with the rope, then a couple of dogs also with ropes, a cat in a box that was too frightened to get out, Frances’s friend Gillian with her horrible mice that she put on top of her head so they clung to her yellow hair, then a boy with a white chicken under one arm and a sign on his hat saying “Sunday Lunch”.

Then it was Matilda, with her snail hotel. Matilda could hear clapping and laughter, and she could see Frederick pointing and saying things to the other boys. Past the bell they marched, around the fig tree and then back again to the tune of the school’s wooden flute band playing “The Minstrel Boy”, “Men of Harlech” and “Waltzing Matilda”.

Matilda felt dizzy, the sun was so hot and right above her head. She saw Mrs Peterson handing out the little pieces of paper and everyone writing things down and putting them in the basket, and the headmaster coughing and smiling, striding up and down with his stick, waving it about, the same stick he had used to hit Geoffrey with six times on each hand and six times on the backs of his legs.

The sun was so high in the sky and it was so hot, even though it was nearly Easter. Matilda felt as though her own mind was spinning up into the sun and she couldn’t hear anything.

“Matilda!” said a voice. “Where are you, Matilda?”

She couldn’t even hear it, but someone pushed her forward and then the all-day sucker was placed into her hand and everyone, everyone in the whole world was looking at her and clapping and she had won, she had really won it, and the white chicken squawked and flew up onto the roof of the weather shed.