Christianna Brand

“Good evening, children,' Said Nurse Matilda, and she gave a loud thump on the floor with her big black stick. 'I am Nurse Matilda.”

“Once upon a time there was a huge family of children; and they were terribly, terribly naughty.”

“The Agency was doubtful, because they had already sent a lot of nurses and nannies and governesses to Mr. and Mrs. Brown's family. 'The person you want,' they said, 'is Nurse Matilda.”

“And as they spoke - lo and behold! - there was a knock at the door, and there stood a small, stout figure dressed in rusty black; and she said, 'Good evening, Mr and Mrs Brown, I am Nurse Matilda.”

“She was very ugly - the ugliest person you ever saw in your life! Her hair was scraped into a bun, sticking straight out at the back of her head like a teapot handle; and her face was round and wrinkly, and she had eyes like two little black boot-buttons. And her nose! - she had a nose like two potatoes. She wore a rusty black dress right up to the top of her neck and right down to her button boots, and a rusty black jacket and a rusty black bonnet, all trimmed with trembly black jet, with her teapot-handled of a bun sticky out at the back. And she carried a small brown case and a large black stick, and she had a very fierce expression indeed on her wrinkly, round, brown face. But what you noticed most of all was that she had one huge front Tooth, sticking right out like a tombstone over her lower lip. You never, in the whole of your life, ever saw such a Tooth!”