More to Life

They were in the living room-room eating their suppers on their knees in front of the telly. The suppers were TV dinners in floppy aluminium containers with separate compartments for the stewed meat, the boiled potatoes and the peas. Mrs. Wormwood sat munching her meal with her eyes glued to the American soap-opera on the screen.

"Mummy," Matilda said, "would you mind if I ate my supper in the dining-room so I could read my book?"


The father glanced up sharply. "I would mind!" he snapped. "Supper is a family gathering and no one leaves the table till it's over!"



"But we're not at the table," Matilda said. "We never are. We're always eating off our knees and watching the telly."



"What's wrong with watching the telly, may I ask?" the father said. His voice had suddenly become soft and dangerous.



Matilda didn't trust herself to answer him, so she kept quiet. She could feel the anger boiling up inside her. She knew it was wrong to hate her parents like this, but she was finding it very hard not to do so. All the reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen. If only they would read a little Dickens or Kipling they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.



~ Matilda by Roald Dahl