Matilda gets revenge on her revolting father by squeezing some superglue around the inside rim of his hat. As Matilda knows full well, her father really loves this hat, a pork-pie with a jay's feather stuck in the hatband. Apparently, he thinks it makes him look daring and rakish, especially when he wears it at an angle with his “loud checked jacket and green tie.” She knows that he's guaranteed to wear it the next time he goes to work.

Sure enough, Mr. Wormwood puts on his hat for work, and, as expected, he can't get it off again. As he doesn't want to scalp himself, Mr. Wormwood has no choice but to wear the hat all day at the garage. He tries to make himself look less ridiculous by pretending to his staff that he wants to wear the hat all day, just like gangsters in movies.

A week later, and Mr. Wormwood still has bits of hat stuck to his head. His wife has managed to cut most of it off, but there are still little brown patches on his forehead that, according to Matilda, look like insects. She tells her father that people will think he's got lice.

Mr. Wormwood angrily tells his daughter to be quiet. But for about a week after the superglue incident, he's relatively nice towards Matilda, meaning that he appears chastened, and to have lost his taste for bullying and bragging. It isn't very long, however, before he's back to his normal, revolting self.