Secondary Characters in Calvin and Hobbes - Miss Wormwood

For Mrs. Wormwood, The Sarah Jane Adventures character, see List of The Sarah Jane Adventures minor characters#W.

Miss Wormwood
Miss Wormwood, Calvin's teacher
Comic strip(s) Calvin and Hobbes Creator(s) Bill Watterson First appearance November 21, 1985

Miss Wormwood is Calvin's world-weary teacher, named after the junior devil in C. S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. She usually wears polka-dotted dresses, and is another character who serves as a foil to Calvin's mischief.

Although there is a large progression of time in the Calvin and Hobbes Universe (10 years), mainly exhibited by the changing seasons, every character seems to remain exactly the same age, with the exception of Susie who had a birthday party and turned from 5 years old to 6 plus. As a result, Calvin and Susie inexplicably return to Miss Wormwood's first-grade class every fall due to a repeating time-loop.

Miss Wormwood is rarely sympathetic to the trouble Calvin has in school, and comes across as a rather strict, sour character. She often calls on Calvin when no one raises their hand to catch him off guard. Calvin either replies with an excuse ("Hard to say, Ma'am. I think my cerebellum just fused."), or spaces out completely, usually taking solace in the world of one of his alter egos. She is quick to send Calvin to the principal's office at the first sign of trouble. Calvin apparently takes joy in being the reason why Miss Wormwood mixes different stress-related medications, drinks Maalox straight from the bottle, and is waiting for retirement (one strip has her chanting in her head, "Five years until retirement, five years until retirement, five years until retirement..."). In one particular strip, Calvin implies that she smokes ("They say she's up to two packs a day, unfiltered."). Regarding the difficulties of reining in rambunctious students, she once commented that "it's not enough that we have to be disciplinarians. Now we need to be psychologists."

Watterson has said that he feels a great deal of sympathy for Miss Wormwood. Given that the strip gives so much attention to playful imagination, she may represent the perspective of the "real world" and its frustrations in trying to adapt to or rein in such extreme creativity. Another strip had Calvin imagining that he has found himself on a sheet of his own notebook paper, but had the advantage of making use of his doodles, such as being able to drive a military tank he drew, which he uses to shell the school, but is unable to stop a gigantic, vicious Miss Wormwood in his drawing. The real Miss Wormwood confiscates Calvin's drawing, sarcastically commenting "Hand it over, Leonardo, and see me after class." Though frustrated by Calvin's antics, she seems to have become somewhat accepting of them. She once asked him what state he lived in, and received an answer of "Denial." Unable to respond to Calvin's confident answer, she sighed "Well, I don't suppose I can argue with that..." and walked away.

Outside of academics, Calvin has actually gotten in trouble for show and tell. In a strip, Calvin claims that he found a space alien which he feeds ammonia and keeps in a bag, then shows a snake-like alien emerging from the bag. The alien is actually only a sock puppet. In the final panel, Hobbes is shown later asking how the presentation went, to which Calvin replies that Miss Wormwood now demands both his parents must sign his report card next semester. On another occasion, Calvin pretends to be invisible for show and tell, and is in the process of removing his clothes in order to escape the room undetected when Ms. Wormwood grabs him, at which he cries "Lucky guess, Ms. Wormwood!"

Calvin often fails tests and usually writes ridiculous answers. In one strip, Miss Wormwood is shown handing a marked test to Calvin, angrily declaring "Calvin, your test was an absolute disgrace! It's obvious you haven't read any of the material! Our first president was not Chef Boyardee, and you ought to be ashamed to have turned in such preposterous answers!", to which Calvin remarks, "I just don't test well." In another strip, after stating that he couldn't reveal where Plymouth Rock was, lest it "compromise our agents in the field," Calvin cheerfully remarks, "I understand my tests are popular reading in the teacher's lounge." Usually, he asks Susie for answers, and while receiving a lot of intentionally wrong answers, still uses them anyway.

Calvin, when in his Spaceman Spiff persona, will usually imagine Miss Wormwood as a slimy, often dictatorial alien.