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maybeimamuppet · 1 year

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the pursuit of a name

hello everyone!!

i might as well reintroduce myself here since i’ll likely get some new readers! i’m ezzy and i’m 21, i usually write for mean girls the musical but i’ve recently watched the new matilda movie and hohoooo the hyperfixation resurgence was just. WOW so anyway! here i am lol

there’ll be more information for you towards the end but i don’t want to take up too much space at the beginning.

tw for

mentioned/implied abuse

and please let me know if i miss any warnings so i can add them in!!

enjoy!!

—————

“I’m back,” Matilda says as she opens and closes the door to their place.

“Hi, darling,” Miss Honey greets. “Is Mrs. Phelps well?”

“Oh, yes,” Matilda says as she comes to join her in the kitchen. “She gave me this for you.”

“Oh,” Miss Honey says as Matilda rests a well-loved copy of An Honest Thief on the table. “I’ve been wanting to read this again.”

“I know,” Matilda says with an impish smile. “Oh, she gave me extra lemonade for you, too.”

“How nice of her, thank you,” Miss Honey says as Matilda puts the tin thermos on the table as well.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m working on a few papers to finalize your adoption,” Miss Honey sighs.

“Oh.” Matilda says.

“Oh?” Miss Honey questions, peeking at her over the tops of her reading glasses. “Are you upset about it?”

“Aren’t you?” Matilda asks softly. “You look stressed.”

“No, darling, no,” Miss Honey says immediately. “The forms have been… a challenge, just because we have no way of getting in touch with your biological parents. Some information I need, I can’t get. But there’s ways around the lot of that for circumstances like ours.”

“Oh.” Matilda says again. “What information?”

“Nothing I think you’d know, brilliant as you are,” Miss Honey sighs, removing her glasses and leaving them to hang by the chain around her neck. “Oh, but your middle name, what is that?”

“I haven’t got one,” Matilda says quietly. “My parents said I was lucky I got a name at all.”

Miss Honey sighs and gently tips up Matilda’s chin. “They were lucky that they got a Matilda.”

Matilda gives her a small grin, but there’s a sadness behind it that makes Miss Honey frown.

“We have the opportunity to change your name when your adoption goes through. Would you like to?”

“I’m not sure,” Matilda says. “I… I am Matilda. I like my name.”

“We don’t have to change your first name if you don’t want to. Matilda is a perfectly suitable and lovely name for you,” Miss Honey says. “But if you’d like to pick a middle name for yourself, we could do that.”

Matilda mulls this over. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course,” Miss Honey says comfortingly. “Take all the time you need. A name is a big decision.”

Matilda nods. “I’m going to go put these in my bedroom.”

“Alright,” Miss Honey says as Matilda stands and grabs her large stack of new books. “Oh, that reminds me!”

Matilda pauses on the staircase and turns to see her.

“We still need to decorate. Would you like to head to the shops today and see what we can find?”

Matilda’s face splits into a wide smile and she nods eagerly. Miss Honey grins back and motions her up the stairs. Matilda heads up a few more before she pauses again. “Miss Honey?”

“Yes?”

“Will I be a Honey too?” Matilda asks. “When I’m adopted?”

“If… if you’d like to be,” Miss Honey says, trying to hide her excitement. “Is that what you’d want?”

Matilda nods. “Matilda Honey sounds much nicer than Matilda Wormwood.”

“Then you’ll be Matilda Honey,” Miss Honey confirms. Matilda smiles again and rushes up the stairs.

—-

“What sort of theme do you think you’d like your room to have?” Miss Honey asks as they peruse the aisles of the home decor shop.

“I don’t know,” Matilda says softly, holding her hand as she looks at all the different options. Dinosaurs, flowers, the circus, dogs, different cartoon characters… it’s overwhelming.

“That’s alright,” Miss Honey says comfortingly. “We can take our time with it. How about we start with a color, to simplify things? Do you have a favorite color, Matilda?”

“Blue,” Matilda responds. “Would a blue bedroom be too terribly depressing?”

“I don’t think so,” Miss Honey replies. “Blue is a very relaxing color, I think that would be a fine color to paint your room.”

“Do you like blue, Miss Honey?” Matilda asks, looking up at her.

“I do,” Miss Honey says. “I think it’s a wonderful color. So many lovely things are blue.”

“Like the sky,” Matilda says.

“And bluebells,” Miss Honey says.

“And the sea.”

“And your eyes,” Miss Honey says, gently tapping the end of Matilda’s nose. Matilda blinks in shock before she giggles faintly. “Let’s go pick some paint.”

Matilda follows her to the paint aisle and looks around at all the different swatch cards. Miss Honey picks a few blue ones and starts perusing the different shade names.

“These colors have very strange names,” Matilda says as she grabs a few too.

“They do, don’t they?” Miss Honey chuckles. “Look here, this one’s called Lost at Sea.”

Matilda giggles as she holds up one of the cards. “I’ve got one called English Channel.”

Miss Honey chuckles as she reads the one Matilda holds up. “How funny. It’s a lovely shade, though.”

“It is,” Matilda agrees with a nod. “But I like this one.”

“Light Sky,” Miss Honey reads through the glasses perched on the tip of her nose. “It’s quite peaceful.”

“Yes,” Matilda says. “Whenever I got overwhelmed before I could do my telekinesis, I used to imagine myself floating in the sky with the clouds. On a hot air balloon, or something. And I was so high up nothing could bother me anymore.”

“That sounds lovely,” Miss Honey murmurs softly. “Would you like to do that in your room? We could paint the walls this color if you’d like, and add clouds.”

“Could we?”

Miss Honey crouches down to her eye level. “We can do whatever we’d like.”

Matilda beams and tackles her in a hug. Miss Honey squeezes her close and gently strokes through the soft ends of Matilda’s hair. They stay that way for a moment, both of them relishing in having someone dear they can hold close, before Miss Honey grabs the swatch card and heads to find someone to mix it up for them. Matilda follows, tightly holding her hand.

—-

They start painting the next day. They were both quite exhausted after their shopping day, but Matilda is so eager to get started that Miss Honey can’t find it in herself to push it back any further.

They don some tattered old things of Miss Honey’s that can stand to get covered in paint. Matilda giggles when she sees her in the ill-fitting and informal sweatshirt and jeans. Miss Honey laughs right back seeing Matilda swimming in an old button-down blouse with holes in the elbows and some shorts tied to fit around her waist.

“Miss Honey?” Matilda asks as she takes a small brush to outline the electrical outlets.

“Yes, Matilda?” Miss Honey replies as she rolls the blue over a section of the first wall.

“What’s your middle name?”

“My middle name is Faith,” Miss Honey says. “My father said that it took so much faith for he and my mother to have me that they hardly even had to think about it.”

“Jennifer Faith Honey,” Matilda recites to herself. “It’s pretty.”

“Thank you,” Miss Honey says.

“Is it very common to take someone else’s middle name?” Matilda asks as she outlines the light switch.

“Not very common, I would think,” Miss Honey says.

“Oh,” Matilda replies. Miss Honey smiles sadly.

“Were you hoping to share a name?”

“Not really,” Matilda shrugs. “I’m just looking for inspiration.”

“I think you’ll know when you find the proper one for you,” Miss Honey says, finishing the first wall.

“Matilda Faith sounds nice, but I don’t think it’s right for me,” Matilda replies.

“And that’s perfectly alright. We’ll get your name sorted out whenever you find the right one for you,” Miss Honey says. She takes a step back to admire her work. “What do you think?”

“It’s brilliant,” Matilda says, unable to keep a smile off her face.

“Good,” Miss Honey says, panting a bit for breath. “Hard work, isn’t it?”

Matilda rests her brush on the tray and nods, coming to hug her. “Thank you.”

“Of course, my little firefly,” Miss Honey murmurs, kissing the top of her head. “You’ve got paint in your hair.”

“You smell of it.”

“I think we’ll both need a bath after we finish here,” Miss Honey chuckles.

They continue chatting as they paint the other three walls. Matilda eventually finishes all her outlets and joins in using the rollers. With the both of them working it goes much more quickly, though Matilda can only reach about three quarters of the way up the wall with hers and has to leave Miss Honey to do the rest.

By the time they finish the last, the first wall has dried. Miss Honey cracks open the can of white paint they purchased and takes a sponge. Matilda watches curiously as she dabs it in seemingly random spots on the wall in front of her, until she pulls back and reveals a quaint little cloud.

“What do you think?”

“It’s fantastic,” Matilda beams. Miss Honey smiles back and holds out the sponge.

“Why don’t you do a few?”

Matilda takes the sponge from her hand and dips it into the paint. She picks a spot on the wall and stares at it, unmoving.

“Matilda?”

“What if I ruin it?” Matilda asks worriedly. Miss Honey gently rests a hand on her shoulder and leans in to look from Matilda’s eye level.

“Have you ever seen a perfect cloud?” she asks softly. Matilda thinks before she shakes her head. “Then how could you ruin it?”

She gently slides her hand down Matilda’s arm and guides the sponge to the wall. Once it’s squished against the surface and the first splotch of white is there, Matilda’s fear dissipates the slightest bit. She pulls it away and dabs it around in a few more spots before she takes a step back to see what she’s done.

A delightful, fluffy looking cloud sits before her.

“Beautiful,” Miss Honey says. “Do a few more.”

“What are you going to do?” Matilda asks. Her eyes widen as Miss Honey suddenly pulls out several tiny pots of various colored paints.

“Skies with just clouds are boring, don’t you think?”

Matilda smiles and nods. Miss Honey grabs a step stool and heads to the corner of the wall closest to Matilda’s window.

Matilda sponges on another cloud as Miss Honey outlines a hot air balloon in a rainbow of colors.

Miss Honey is beautiful when she’s concentrating on something. Matilda likes watching her read, or cook, or clean, or do paperwork. Anything, really. Her eyes aren’t angry the way her parents’ used to be. They simply look… excited. Welcoming to whatever this project she’s working on might bring her.

Her hair is unkempt today, since they’ve been working so hard. Matilda observes the frizzy strands framing her face, illuminated from behind by the afternoon sun streaming in through the window. She looks like the angels in all those paintings in the books about art Matilda has read. Matilda doesn’t believe in angels in the biblical sense, but if there ever was a real one, it would be Miss Honey.

The silence between them is peaceful as they continue working on the accent wall. Matilda’s old house was always loud; whether due to her parents shouting at each other or just the ever-on television. It’s quiet, here, but in a comforting sort of way. Miss Honey doesn’t feel a need to speak all the time. Matilda appreciates that.

Miss Honey starts humming a tune to herself as she works. She sings and hums a lot. Her voice is soft, and sweet. She almost never notices she’s doing it. Matilda often just sits and listens to the comforting, dulcet tones of her voice. She doesn’t dare mention the humming or the singing to Miss Honey’s face, lest she become self conscious and stop it altogether.

Their home is quiet, but not silent. And Matilda is perfectly happy with that.

The sun is beginning to set by the time they finish with their respective tasks. Miss Honey has painted the most beautiful hot air balloon Matilda could’ve possibly imagined, with stripes in every color of the rainbow holding up the little basket.

“I think we need one last finishing touch,” Miss Honey says as they admire their handiwork from the other side of the room, hands resting pensively on their chins.

“Finishing touch?”

Miss Honey grabs the yellow paint and pours some into an empty tray. Matilda approaches in confusion, which only grows when Miss Honey sticks her hands into it.

“Miss Honey!”

“I think…” Miss Honey says pensively, looking at every little place on the wall. She reaches up high and places one hand on the wall. “Here.”

“What are you doing?” Matilda giggles. Miss Honey lines up her other hand against the first handprint so it’s facing the other way and repeats the motion.

“Come on,” Miss Honey coaxes, motioning to the paint with a smile. Matilda hesitates for a second before sticking her little hands into the gloopy yellow paint. Miss Honey comes up behind her and hoists her into the air. “Put one handprint there.”

Matilda does, lining up her hand so it’s perpendicular to Miss Honey’s handprints and squishing it against the wall. She squeals slightly as the paint oozes and gets between her fingers.

“And there,” Miss Honey coaches. Matilda puts handprints everywhere Miss Honey points to, and smiles as she’s rested gently back on the ground.

“The sun,” she says when she sees what their handprints have made.

“I think that’s the best sun I’ve ever made,” Miss Honey says proudly.

“Our thumbprints made a love heart,” Matilda giggles, standing on her tippy toes to show the part where their thumbs overlapped. “There.”

“I think that’s fitting,” Miss Honey says quietly. Matilda smiles up at her. Miss Honey smiles back. “Now, I think it’s time we leave this to dry and go wash up for dinner.”

Matilda nods. Impishly, when Miss Honey turns, she presses a still-yellow hand against her backside. Miss Honey yelps and whirls around.

“Oh, you little gremlin!” she says. Unlike all the previous times Matilda has heard those words, there’s not a hint of malice behind it. She squeals as Miss Honey lunges for her and leaves a print on her shoulder. Matilda grabs a brush and some of the unused paint in other colors and swipes some over her sleeve.

Miss Honey grabs some purple and swipes some onto Matilda’s nose. Matilda gasps, going a bit cross-eyed as she stares at her purple nose. Miss Honey bites her lip as she tries in vain to hold back a laugh, like she herself can’t believe she just did that.

It turns to a shriek as Matilda suddenly charges, armed with some green that she swipes all over Miss Honey’s jeans. Miss Honey retaliates by grabbing her and spinning her around in a circle, leaving Matilda laughing harder than she thinks she’s ever laughed in her life and completely unable to do anything other than sink to the plastic-covered ground in exhaustion when she lets her go.

Miss Honey laughs as she lies next to her, staring up at the as-yet undecorated ceiling. “Oh, you make me laugh, Matilda.”

“You make me laugh too, Miss Honey,” Matilda says quietly. Unthinkingly, she reaches for and squeezes her hand. Miss Honey squeezes her back.

—————-

“Mrs. Phelps?” Matilda asks the next week during one of her daily visits to the book bus.

“Yes, Matilda?” Mrs. Phelps replies, her turbaned head popping out from behind a shelf.

“What’s your name?”

“My name?”

“I’ve only ever known you as Mrs. Phelps. What’s your first name, your middle name?” Matilda asks.

“Why do you want to know so suddenly?” Mrs. Phelps asks, sitting in her chair and pouring a glass of lemonade.

“I just think a person’s name is a good thing to know,” Matilda explains. Mrs. Phelps doesn’t seem to notice her dodging the question.

“My first name is Praveena,” she says. “And my middle name is Dawn.”

“Praveena Dawn Phelps,” Matilda says. Mrs. Phelps nods. “I like your names.”

“Thank you. I like yours too,” Mrs. Phelps replies. Matilda sips thoughtfully at her lemonade.

“Do you have any books about names?”

“I must, somewhere” Mrs. Phelps tuts. “Remind me to organize my sections.”

“I remind you every time I visit, Mrs. Phelps.”

“You do,” Mrs. Phelps acknowledges. “Fat lot of good it does, eh?”

“Miss Honey and I could help you do it sometime,” Matilda says as they both scan the shelves for anything to do with names. “She’s been wanting to visit you more.”

“Has she?” Mrs. Phelps says, a bit louder than she needs to since she’s a slight distance away. “She’s always welcome.”

“I’ll let her know. We’ll clear a day,” Matilda says.

“Ah! Here we are,” Mrs. Phelps calls. Matilda rushes over as she pulls out a small stack of dust-covered baby naming books. “I’ll keep an eye out for others, but this should be enough to get you started.”

“Oh, yes, this is perfect!” Matilda says. “May I borrow these?”

“Of course, Matilda,” Mrs. Phelps says. “What are you up to? Trying to name a character in a story of yours?”

“You could say that,” Matilda replies softly, staring at the books in her hands. “Thank you Mrs. Phelps! I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“By the windmill!” Mrs. Phelps calls as she goes rushing out the door.

“Windmill!” Matilda yells to acknowledge she heard. Mrs. Phelps shakes her head affectionately and starts packing up for the day.

—————

“Your new room is brilliant,” Lavender says upon seeing it for the first time. It’s come a good ways since the painting of the walls. Every day they add a little something. Matilda has a proper, massive, cozy bed with fluffy white sheets and pillows and blankets like a cloud.

She has a huge bookshelf, large enough to practically take up the whole wall. Miss Honey has been taking her to bookstores as well as her visits to Mrs. Phelps at the library, so it’s filling up quite quickly. She has her own desk for schoolwork and a place to read. And Miss Honey even put together a special reading nook in the corner, with a plush carpet and rainbow-colored cushions to sit on, and a tulle rainbow curtain hanging from the ceiling like a tent. It’s everything a little girl could want from a bedroom. “Thank you.”

“What are you reading this time?” Lavender asks around a mouthful of bubblegum, lying on her stomach on Matilda’s new bed.

“A book of baby names,” Matilda replies.

“Baby names? What baby?” Lavender asks. She gasps suddenly. “Is Miss Honey-”

“No, she’s not,” Matilda interrupts. “I’m trying to pick my middle name.”

“You don’t have one?”

“No,” Matilda replies. “And I can’t find one for myself, either.”

“My mum says picking my middle names was harder than my first,” Lavender agrees.

“What’s yours?”

“I’ve got three,” Lavender replies.

“Three?!” Matilda asks in shock.

“My whole family kind of does. In the Philippines a lot of people have got two first names, and their mum’s old last name usually becomes a middle name,” Lavender says. “My parents gave me two first names and two middle names. But I count the second first one as a middle one.”

“That’s lucky,” Matilda says. “What are they?”

“My first name is Lavender-Maria,” Lavender says. “And my middle names are Elizabeth and Santos.”

“Lavender-Maria Elizabeth Santos Torres,” Matilda says.

“In the flesh,” Lavender says with a nod.

“How did your mother pick your middle name? The Elizabeth one, I mean?” Matilda asks, closing her book and gently putting it aside.

“I dunno,” Lavender says with a small shrug. “She said she thought about names she’d seen and that she liked. In stories, and stuff. And she picked one from that. But she picked my brother’s because his middle name is our dad’s dad’s dad’s name.”

“Stories…” Matilda mumbles to herself. She shifts so she’s lying flat on her back, looking up at her ceiling. Miss Honey hung twinkly lights all over it that look like stars when the lights are off. The lights aren’t on right now, since it’s daytime, but they’re one of Matilda’s favorite bits of her new bedroom. “What do you think my middle name should be?”

“Lavender?” she suggests with a chortle.

“I wouldn’t want to steal your name,” Matilda replies in complete seriousness. “But it is a lovely name.”

“What are some of your favorite book characters? Just pick one of them,” Lavender says.

“Ophelia,” Matilda says. She wrinkles her nose. “Matilda Ophelia sounds like a medical condition.”

Lavender laughs harder than is probably appropriate. “Yeah.”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Matilda says.

“He’s a boy.”

“Yeah,” Matilda sighs. “Casy?”

“Casy’s not bad,” Lavender says.

“It still just… doesn’t feel like me,” Matilda grumbles. “How about… Josephine? Miss Honey’s been reading me Little Women before bed this week. She says Jo reminds her of me.”

“Matilda Josephine is just a mouthful,” Lavender says, blunt as always. Matilda nods with a sad sigh. Lavender clocks it, because she sits up and rests a friendly hand on Matilda’s shoulder. “You’ll think of something. You think of everything.”

Matilda giggles at that. “Thanks, Lavender.”

“What are best friends for?” Lavender says.

—————

It takes another month of thinking, and another four name books Mrs. Phelps orders specially for her. Matilda spends practically all of her free time poring over what her middle name should be. She’s had a few that sound nice, but none of them have quite given her that… aha moment. That just right feeling, like the kind you get when a story has the perfect ending.

She’s about to call off the hunt for a middle name altogether and stick to just being plain Matilda, when something Lavender said comes back to her.

“But she picked my brother’s because his middle name is our dad’s dad’s dad’s name.”

A family name.

Matilda never met her own grandparents. They never visited or called. She wonders if her parents even bothered to tell them she existed or not. She doesn’t know their names, or what they look like. Neither of her parents have siblings, so there’s no aunts or uncles to pick from either. She most definitely isn’t interested in naming herself after her parents.

She doesn’t have any family names to pick from.

She fidgets sadly with a loose thread on Miss Honey’s duvet, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time. Miss Honey is working on something for the school at her big wooden desk against the wall. Matilda listens to the sound of her pen scritching quietly across the paper in perfect, even strokes.

Miss Honey says all the time that Matilda doesn’t have to ask for hugs when she needs one. And Matilda needs one now.

She stands and pads over to the desk, wrapping her small arms around Miss Honey’s shoulders and resting her chin to peek over the left one.

“Hello, darling,” Miss Honey says, resting a warm hand against Matilda’s cheek.

“Hello,” Matilda replies quietly.

“You alright?” Miss Honey asks. Matilda nods, so Miss Honey gives her a gentle pat and returns to her work.

Matilda’s eyes wander over the desk. Everything stays in roughly the same place on Miss Honey’s desk. A snow globe that had been a gift from one of her students, a paperweight in the shape of a swan from another. Matilda’s eyes suddenly lock onto the photos of Miss Honey’s parents.

“Miss Honey?”

“Yes, Matilda?” the woman replies.

“What was your mother’s name?” Matilda asks quietly. The story that eventually led them both here told Matilda that her father’s name was Magnus, but Matilda never learned Miss Honey’s mother’s name.

“My mother?” Miss Honey asks. Matilda can feel her smile as she reaches for the photograph. Mrs. Honey was a very beautiful woman. She gave Miss Honey her eyes, and she had dimples too. Matilda never met her, but even looking at the picture just fills her with a sense of love. “Her name was Katherine. But everyone called her Kate.”

“Kate,” Matilda says. “Would… do you… do you think she’d mind if that became my middle name?”

Miss Honey turns her chair around and gently takes Matilda’s little hands into her own warm ones, squeezing her palms.

“I think she would be so honored,” she says. “That a little girl as amazing as you would want to be named after her.”

“Really?” Matilda asks. Miss Honey has tears brimming in her eyes as she nods.

“Really. From everything my father told me about her… she would have loved you so much, Matilda. You two would’ve been the best of friends,” she says, her voice trembling the slightest bit.

“She sounds like I would’ve loved her too,” Matilda says, drying Miss Honey’s tears with little fingers. “As long as she liked to read.”

“Where do you think I got it from?” Miss Honey asks with a chuckle, pulling Matilda into her lap. Matilda rests against her shoulder as they both look at the photo one more time.

“Matilda Kate Honey,” Matilda says, more to herself than anything else. The words just feel… right, in her mouth. In her mind. She’s a Honey. And her middle name is Kate. Just like her grandmother. She does have a family name after all. “I love you, Miss Honey.”

“I love you too, Matilda Kate.”

—————

thank you for reading!!

now to the boring stuff lol

i post on wednesdays!! not every single one, but when i do post things it will be on a wednesday so if you’d like to see more from me that is the day to keep an eye out!

please feel free to leave requests, whether for these two or not and i will do what i can to make them happen :)

i am, unfortunately for everyone involved, american, so i apologize for any inaccuracies in their britishness or for any differences in british systems and american systems that i’m not aware of. please bear with me!!

with the exception of lavender (and likely a few other more ‘background’ characters) i’m going to do my best to leave them as physically vague as possible. for stories like these i think it’s more important that you as the reader be able to imagine whoever you want as these characters; whether that’s yourself, your favorite actor, or something else :)

going along with that i did as much research as i could about how filipino people handle names but i am not filipino so i apologize sincerely again if anything with lavender wasn’t accurate.

i’m on wattpad and ao3 at the same handle so please feel free to pop in and say hello there if you’d like to!

i think that’s everything!! thank you so much for reading!! i hope you enjoyed and that you have a lovely day!

#matilda #matilda the musical #matilda 1996 #matilda netflix #matilda wormwood #jennifer honey #miss honey

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