My Eyes Are Open

Chapter Seventeen

Jenny stands in the cement ally in the chilly fall air, wondering how on earth she had let Matilda convince her to go through with their plan. She remembers adamantly objecting to the girl's idea, but--as usual--Matilda had been too stubborn for her own good.

"No, absolutely not." Miss Honey said as soon as the plan left the little girl's mouth.

"Miss Honey, it's the best way."

"There are other ways." The teacher interjected.

"But this is the fastest way. You'll be there to look out for me." Matilda explains.

"No, no way. It's too dangerous." Jenny is unswayed.

"I have to do this. I won't provoke her." But she can tell she's not convincing her teacher, so she pulls her last card, "Let me do this. I have to stand up to her."

Miss Honey looks at the girl for a long, hard moment. "I know what you're trying to do, Matilda, but I won't change my mind."

"I'm not asking you to think this is right. I'm asking you to be my lookout, my protector. I'm going back, for one day, just a couple of hours and then I will leave forever. Won't it be nice to have some evidence so that she doesn't come after me?" Matilda reasons, seeing her teacher start to crack.

"But how are we supposed to explain the pictures in the first place? I can't just say I happened to walk by and suddenly felt moved to take a picture of the inside of that house." Miss Honey objects.

"We can just turn the photos in anonymously, or say I installed the camera, or make up some other reason or don't give one at all. I don't think the police would be suspecting the one who saved the little girl to have done it, if it even ever gets to the authorities." Matilda theorizes.

Miss Honey, however, disagrees. If they were going to do this, they were going to turn in the pictures with some sort of reasoning--however fabricated--immediately. The woman would allow no room for Miss Hannigan to plot revenge, and certainly not to enact it. They needed to put her away, with certainty and swiftness. If it meant the little girl would be safe from retaliation, Miss Honey would stomach some dishonesty about where the photos came from.

"It will be alright, Miss Honey. But I'm doing this, I have to. Will you help me?" She offers out her little hand.

Miss Honey shifts into a more comfortable position as she watches Matilda read on the stairs through the library's borrowed lenses. If Mrs. Phelps knew what they were up to when they asked for the camera, the old woman would surely be disappointed and withdraw the library's services, despite her vow to always provide any means the library had to offer. But Matilda was so very convincing, and Jenny felt guilty that she had helped.

Matilda, on the other hand, was feeling emboldened and quite pleased with herself, despite the few hours of sleep she had gotten when her teacher watched over her on the street. She thanked Molly once again--in her head, this time--for waking up at dawn and letting her inside. She'd make sure to make it up to her eventually.

Matilda was halfway through her newest book when she hears the door down the hall swing open and irregular steps shuffle across the wood. She tightens her grip on her book, slightly glances over it to have brief assurance her teacher was still there and hidden and watching, and orders herself to relax. But the woman's screeching makes her shoulders tense. "What 'n tha bloody 'ell do you think you're doin'?"

Matilda doesn't look up. "I'm reading."

"I can see that. I mean what are you doin' in here. I left you outside, did I not?" Mrs. Hannigan approaches her target.

Her target flips a page, uninterested. "You did. I found an open window in the kitchen this morning."

"Stop with that idiotic readin', you dumb girl." Miss Hannigan snatches the book from the girl and when Matilda stands to reach for it, she taps her on the bottom with it towards the intended direction. "Go make yourself useful, and I'll get rid of this."

"But Miss Hannigan, that's a library book." Matilda stands on the second step, still a foot shorter than her guardian.

"'That's a library book'." The woman mocks the girl, "Well it's about to be trash unless I see you startin' your chores right quick."

This angers the little girl, "But that's not right! I just cleaned everything." She asserts, her fist clenched and jaw tensed.

"What's not right is your head, you stupid child. You're always sittin' round here readin' your silly books and tellin' the others those ridiculous stories, distractin' them from their work. It's disgusting." She yells down at the girl's frowning face.

Matilda yells right back, "Maybe I wouldn't have to distract them if you didn't put us to work all the time. Our work is in direct violation of the Child Labor Act, and is--"

Miss Hannigan slaps the girl across the face. Matilda is stunned for a moment, before she steadies herself again and looks up to her guardian contemptuously through the tears stinging her eyes. She firmly presses her lips together before the little girl tries to pass the woman in front of the steps, but Miss Hannigan grabs the little girl by her hair and throws her back into the steps, "Where do you think you're goin'?"

"To my room." Matilda answers quietly.

"We aren't done here." The woman's voice booms in comparison. "I'm at my wit's end with you, little girl, and I've 'bout had enough of you. You're rebellious and you don't listen and--"

Matilda sits up on the stairs as her guardian looms over her, increasing in volume again. "I do listen! I listen to you all day, and do every frivolous and mundane ennui you've ever asked of me, just to be chastised and castigated. That's not fair."

Miss Hannigan seems taken back for a beat, before she finds her words. "I don't know who you think you are, little girl, but clearly these books are fillin' your head with foolish ideas that you're somethin' special." The woman makes a show of raising the book up and Matilda sinks into the steps as her stomach drops.

"No." She whispers.

But Miss Hannigan's diatribe is uninterrupted, surging into a crescendo as she starts to violently rip the pages from Matilda's book with each slicing insult. "You are a useless, filthy, nasty, little creep, Matilda, and you'd best not forget your place again." She unceremoniously drops the book cover on the floor and stalks away.

Matilda collapses to her knees and frantically begins to shuffle the pages into one pile and scoops them into her arms. Her steps are heavy and loud as she climbs the stairs. She flies into her room, where most of the girls have covered their faces with pillows, and runs to her bed as tears stream down her face. Matilda grabs her pillow and stuffs the remnants of her book in it, followed by her extra pair of clothes, her school uniform, and the few small personal effects she's collected over her years.

She has to fight to keep her hair out of her face as she ties the pillow case in a knot and starts towards the door, until she hears a small, "Tilly?" Matilda turns to see Molly's small frame curled up in a ball on her bed, "Where are you going?"

Matilda takes a breath to make herself seem more composed than she is. "I have to go now. I'll see you soon." Apparently the assurance is enough so that the tiny girl doesn't follow her out the room and back down the stairs.

She's not purposefully being silent, her goal is for speed. She needs to get out. Now. She made Miss Hannigan really upset, and does not wish to be around when the woman comes looking for her again.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" Miss Hannigan steps in front of the front door.

Too late. "Away." Matilda states, knowing it's obvious enough to not try to lie. She lifts her chin, trying to hide her flushed cheeks and lump in her throat.

"Fine, go on then. Be out in the real world, its way worse out there." She steps aside, eerily calm, to give Matilda access to the door.

Matilda is shocked, but recovers enough to respond, "Anywhere is better than here."

"That, Matilda, is where you're wrong. I feed you, give you shelter. Out there," she slings a haphazard hand towards the window, missing the panicked rustling of the bushes outside it, "They will eat you alive, little girl. You won't survive out there."

But Matilda is unafraid. She has Miss Honey. "Watch me." She opens the door without touching it, and slams it behind her with invisible hands.