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The letter comes two months after her powers have returned. She doesn't tell Jenny. She sits upstairs in her room at The Red House and bites her nails. It is a disgusting habit and yet she can't think of what else to do. Every part of her being wants her to use her powers, to make things fly across the room, but she refuses to do that. She will be an ordinary girl for a while.
Maybe it's all just a horrible mistake. She runs her fingers over the heavy parchment envelope, and the bright green letters spelling out her name and address. She traces the broken seal at the back, and unfolds the letter once more. There is a hotness behind her eyes, and she tells herself, no, no, she will not do magic. She is not magic. She is not – and then she realises that it's a different sort of hotness. The tears spill down her cheeks.
She is eleven. She is about to finish school and go off to university. Nearby, though, for she wants to be near home. Near Jenny. After all, Jenny is the only one who understands her. The others in school are too caught up in their personal dramas, in parties and makeup and fashion and boys, to pay much attention to her. This doesn't matter much to Matilda. She learned when she was quite young that most people are interested in other things, not books or politics or science or nature. The girls in her school sit examinations because they have to, not because they want to. They will go to university because it is expected of them, or because it will lead to a job, not because their eyes and brain light up whenever there is new knowledge to be absorbed and mulled over.
This other school is far away. Too far for anything more than the occasional visit. And it is a school, not a university, which means she will be starting all over again. She hasn't sat in a classroom with children of her own age for what seems like a very long time. And yet she senses that Hogwarts is not a place one says no to.
Jenny is in the room before Matilda realises it, rushing to her side when she sees the tears. Jenny has always said that she is not special, not like Matilda, just an ordinary woman with no extraordinary powers, but for Matilda she has always had that loveliest of gifts: the ability to see things about Matilda that no one else does.
She hands over the letter, silently.
"I suppose it makes sense," Jenny says slowly, "that there would be a place for people like you. After all, many schools would simply refuse to let someone your age move so far ahead . . ." She puts a finger to her chin, thinking.
Matilda shakes her head. "It's not just that. I still – lately I –" But she can't find the words. She who has always had the words for everything can't find a way of explaining to Jenny that she has been lying and hiding things.
"Darling." Jenny looks at her, brings that finger under Matilda's chin instead, tilts her face upwards. "Is it back?"
Matilda nods and another round of tears begins.
"I don't want to go," she sobs.
Jenny lets her cry, and then says quietly, "It's a marvellous opportunity."
Yes, it is, of course it is. But she is afraid. If the school is for magical children, then what does it mean that for so long her magical powers were dormant? Could she be the idiot of her year, filled with learning that carries no weight in the world of magic? What if the teachers tell her the last few years have been all wrong, and that she should have been developing her magic, not making it vanish?
She doesn't want to go anywhere that might even suggest that Jenny might have been wrong in the way she has guided Matilda.
She doesn't want to go anywhere that will mean not seeing Jenny every day.
"I'll miss you," Matilda says. "I don't think that the people at that school will talk to me the way you do. Or be as interested in things."
"Or love you the way I do," Jenny says, and her eyes are filling up too. "No, I don't suppose that they will." She looks at the address of the school. "There must be other schools nearby, you know, ordinary schools. I'm sure one of them is looking for a teacher."
"Especially a gifted teacher," Matilda says softly. "They would be very lucky to have you."
Jenny blushes, and then pulls Matilda into a tight hug. "And I will be very lucky to still have you," she says, and for the first time since that letter arrived, Matilda feels as though the future will be wonderful.