Matilda

Matilda is the clerk at Sloughburg's town office, where local rules are used to mistreat visitors from Odyssey. When Connie and Lucy arrive to dispute a parking ticket, Matilda explains that only "townfolk" may use thirty-day payment terms. The girls have eleven dollars toward a fifteen-dollar fine, so she presents a harsh choice: scrub the jail floor for six hours or spend a week locked up doing the same work. Matilda is unmoved when Lucy appeals to their shared humanity and God-given dignity. She later releases them only because Bart Rathbone has paid the ticket, not because the argument changed her mind. Matter-of-fact and unsympathetic, Matilda enforces Sloughburg's prejudice as ordinary procedure, helping Lucy understand how discrimination feels to the people forced to endure it.