“Nathan?” said Madeline sharply.
She heard him clear his throat. “Maddie.” He sounded wide awake now. “Did you seriously ring me at midnight to talk to me about Abigail’s math tutor?”
It was an entirely different tone of voice than the one he normally used. For years her interactions with Nathan had reminded her of dealing with an unctuous, eager-to-please salesman working on commission only. Now that he had Abigail, he thought he was her equal. He didn’t need to be apologetic anymore. He could be irritable. He could be like a regular ex-husband.
“We’re all asleep,” he continued. “Could it seriously not have waited until tomorrow morning? Skye and Bonnie are both very light—”
“You’re not all asleep!” said Madeline. “Your fourteen-year-old daughter is wide awake and on the Internet! Is there any supervision in that house? Do you have any idea what she’s doing right now?”
Madeline could hear the soft, melodious tones of Bonnie saying something sweet and understanding in the background.
“I’ll go check on her,” said Nathan. He sounded more conciliatory now. “I thought she was asleep. And look, she wasn’t getting anywhere with that math tutor. He’s just a kid. I can do a better job than him. But you’re right, of course I should have talked to you about it. I meant to talk to you about it. It just slipped my mind.”
“That tutor was making real progress with her,” said Madeline.
She and Abigail had tried out two other tutors first before they’d gotten Sebastian. The kid got such good results, he had a waiting list of students. Madeline had begged him to squeeze in Abigail.
“No, he wasn’t,” said Nathan. “But let’s talk about it when I’m not half-asleep.”
“Fabulous. Look forward to it. Will you be letting me know of any other changes you’ve made to Abigail’s schedule? Just curious.”
“I’m hanging up now,” said Nathan.
He hung up.
Madeline threw her mobile phone so hard against the wall it bounced back, landing faceup on the carpet, right at her feet, so she could see the shattered screen, like the sharp reprimand of an adult to a child.
Stu: Look, I didn’t think poor old Nathan was a bad bloke. I saw him a bit about the school. The place is overrun by women, and half the time they’re all so busy rabbiting away to each other, it’s hard to get a word in edgewise. So I’d always made a point of talking to the other dads. I remember one morning Nathan and I were having a good old natter about something when Madeline comes stalking by on her high heels and, jeez Louise—if looks could kill!
Gabrielle: I couldn’t stand to live in the same suburb as my ex-husband. If our kids attended the same school, I’d probably end up murdering him. I don’t know how they thought that arrangement could work. It was just crazy.
Bonnie: It was not crazy. We wanted to be as close as possible to Abigail, and then we happened to find the perfect house in the area. What’s crazy about that?
49.
Five Days Before the Trivia Night
It was Monday morning just before the bell rang, and Jane was on her way back from the school library where she’d returned two books Ziggy had forgotten to take back. She’d left him happily swinging along the monkey bars with the twins and Chloe. At least Madeline and Celeste weren’t banning their children from playing with Ziggy.
After she dropped the books off, Jane was staying on at school to help out listening to the children practice their reading. She and Lily’s dad, Stu, were the Monday-morning parent volunteers.
As she came out of the library she could see two of the Blond Bobs standing outside the music room, very deep in important, loudly confidential conversation.
She heard one of them say, “Which one is the mother?”
The other one said, “She sort of flies under the radar. She’s really young. Renata thought she was the nanny.”
“Wait, wait! I know the one! She wears her hair like this, right?” The Blond Bob pulled back her blond locks in an exaggeratedly tight ponytail, and at that moment her eyes met Jane’s and widened. She dropped her hands like a child caught misbehaving.
The other woman, who was facing away from Jane, continued talking. “Yes! That’s her! Well, apparently her kid, this Ziggy, has been secretly bullying poor little Amabella. I’m talking really vicious stuff— What?”
The first Blond Bob made frantic head-jerking movements.
“What’s wrong? Oh!”
The woman turned her head and saw Jane. Her face turned pink.
“Good morning!” she said. Normally someone so high on the school parent hierarchy would nod vaguely and graciously at Jane as she walked by, a royal nod for a commoner.
“Hi,” said Jane.
The woman was holding a clipboard up to her chest. She suddenly dropped her arm by her side so that the clipboard hung behind her legs, exactly like a child hiding a stolen treat behind his back.
It’s the petition, thought Jane. It wasn’t just kindergarten parents signing it. They were getting parents in other years to sign it. Parents who didn’t even know her or Ziggy or anything about it.
Jane kept walking past the women. Her hand was on the glass doors leading back out into the playground when she stopped. There was a roaring, ascending feeling in her body, like a plane taking off. It was the disdainful way that woman had used Ziggy’s name. It was Saxon Banks, his breath tickling her ear: Never had an original thought in your life, have you?
She turned. She walked back to the women and stood directly in front of them. The women took tiny steps backward, their eyes comically round. The three of them were almost exactly the same height. They were all mothers. But the Blond Bobs had husbands and houses and absolute certainty about their places in the world.
“My son has never hurt anyone,” said Jane, and all of a sudden she knew it was true. He was Ziggy Chapman. He was nothing whatsoever to do with Saxon Banks. He was nothing to do with Poppy. He wasn’t even anything to do with her. He was just Ziggy, and she didn’t know everything about Ziggy, but she knew this.
“Oh, darling, we’ve all been there! We sympathize! This is just a terrible situation,” began the Blond Bob with the clipboard. “How much screen time do you let him have? I’ve found cutting down on screen time really—”
“He’s never hurt anyone,” repeated Jane.
She turned and walked away.
Thea: So, the week before the trivia night, Jane accosted Trish and Fiona when they were in the middle of a private conversation. They said her behavior was just bizarre, to the point where they even wondered if she had some . . . mental health issues.
• • •
Jane walked into the playground feeling a strange sense of calm. Perhaps she needed to learn from Madeline’s example. No more avoiding confrontation. March up to your critics and bloody well tell them what you think.
A Year 1 girl strolled alongside her. “I’m having a sausage roll for lunch today.”
“Lucky you,” said Jane. This was one of her favorite parts of walking around the school playground: the way children chatted so artlessly, launching into whatever happened to be on their minds at the time.
“I wasn’t meant to be having a sausage roll, because it’s not Friday, but this morning my little brother got stung by a bee, and he was screaming, and my sister broke a glass, and my mum said, ‘I’m losing my mind!’” The little girl put her hands over her head to demonstrate. “And then Mum said I could buy my lunch at the canteen as a special treat, but no juice, but I could still have a gingerbread man, but not the chocolate sort. Bees die after they sting you, did you know that?”
“I did,” said Jane. “That’s the very last thing they do.”
“Jane!” Miss Barnes approached, carrying a laundry basket full of dress-up clothes. “Thank you for coming today!”
“Um. You’re welcome?” said Jane. She’d been doing this every Monday morning since the beginning of the year.
“I mean, in light of, you know, everything.” Miss Barnes winced and shifted the laundry basket onto her hip. She stepped closer to Jane and lowered her voice. “I haven’t heard anything else about this petition. Mrs. Lipmann has been telling the parents involved that she wants it stopped. Also, she’s assigned me a teacher’s aide to do nothing else but observe the children, and in particular Amabella and Ziggy.”
“That’s great,” said Jane. “But I’m pretty sure the petition is still circulating.”
She could feel eyes on her and Miss Barnes from all corners of the playground. It felt like every parent was secretly observing their conversation. This must be what it felt like to be famous.
Miss Barnes sighed. “I noticed you kept Ziggy home on Friday. I hope you’re not feeling intimidated by these tactics.”
“Some parents are telling their children they’re not allowed to play with him,” said Jane.
“For goodness’ sake.”
“Yeah, so I’ve started a petition too,” said Jane. “I want all those kids who won’t play with Ziggy suspended.”
For a moment Miss Barnes looked horrified. Then she threw back her head and laughed.
Harper: It’s all very well, the school saying they were taking the situation seriously, but then you see Jane and Miss Barnes standing in the playground laughing their heads off! To be frank, that got me riled up. That was the same morning as the assault, and yes, I am going to use the word “assault.”
Samantha: Assault. Give me a break.
50.
Parent reading was done outside in the playground. Today Jane was in Turtle Corner, named because of the giant concrete turtle sitting in the middle of a sandy play area. There was room for an adult and a child to sit comfortably together on the turtle’s neck, and Miss Barnes had provided two cushions and a blanket to put across their knees.
Jane loved listening to the children read: watching them frown as they sounded out a word, their triumphant expressions when they untangled the syllables, their sudden bursts of laughter over the story and their random, off-beat observations about the story. Sitting on a turtle with the sun on her face, the sand at her feet and the sea glittering on the horizon made her feel as if she were on holiday. Pirriwee Public was a magical little school, almost a dream school, and the thought of pulling Ziggy out and having to start again somewhere else without a Turtle Corner or a Miss Barnes filled her with regret and resentment.
“Beautiful reading, Max!” she said, double-checking as she did that it was indeed Max and not Josh who had just finished reading Monkey’s Birthday Surprise. Madeline had told her that the trick to differentiating Celeste’s boys was to look for the strawberry-shaped birthmark on Max’s forehead. “I think to myself, Marked Max,” said Madeline.
“You used great expression, Max,” said Jane, although she wasn’t sure that he had. The parents had been told to try to find something specific to compliment after each child read.
“Yep,” said Max coolly. He slid off the turtle’s neck and sat down cross-legged on the sand and began digging.
“Max,” said Jane.
Max sighed theatrically, sprang to his feet and suddenly ran back toward his classroom, his arms and legs pumping comically, like a cartoon character running for his life. The twins both ran faster than Jane would have thought possible for five-year-olds.
Jane checked his name off her list and looked up to see who Miss Barnes was sending out next. It was Amabella. Max nearly collided with her as she walked through the playground toward Jane, her curly head lowered, her book in her hand.
“Hi, Amabella!” Jane called out cheerily. Your mother and her friends are petitioning to have Ziggy suspended because they think he’s hurting you, honey! So do you think you could tell me what’s really going on?
She’d become fond of Amabella since she’d been doing the reading this year. She was a quiet little girl with a serious, angelic face, and it was impossible not to like her. She and Jane had had some interesting conversations about the books that they read together.
Of course she would not say a word to Amabella about what was going on with Ziggy. That would be inappropriate. That would be wrong.
Of course she wouldn’t.
Samantha: Don’t get me wrong, I love Miss Barnes, and anyone who spends her days wrangling five-year-olds deserves a medal, but I do think letting Amabella read to Jane that day might not have been the most sensible thing in the world.
Miss Barnes: That was a mistake. I’m human. I make mistakes. It’s called human error. These parents seem to think I’m a machine and they can demand a refund every time a teacher makes a mistake. And look, I don’t want to say anything bad about Jane—but she was in the wrong that day too.
Amabella was reading to Jane from a book about the solar system. It was the highest-level book for kindergarten children, and as usual Amabella read it fluently, with impeccable expression. The only way that Jane felt she could add any value for Amabella was by interrupting and asking her some questions raised by the book, but today Jane was finding it difficult to muster any interest in the solar system. All she could think about was Ziggy.
“What do you think it would be like to live on Mars?” she said finally.
Amabella lifted her head. “It would be impossible because you can’t breathe the atmosphere, there’s too much carbon dioxide and it’s too cold.”
“Right,” said Jane, although she’d actually have to Google it to be sure. It was possible that Amabella was already smarter than she was.
“Also, it would be lonely,” said Amabella after a moment.
Why would a smart little girl like Amabella not say the truth? If it was Ziggy, why wouldn’t she just say it? Why not tell on him? It was so strange. Children were normally such tattletales.
“Sweetheart, you know I’m Ziggy’s mum, right?” she asked.
Amabella nodded in a “duh” sort of a way.
“Has Ziggy been hurting you? Because if he has, I want to know about it, and I promise I will make sure he never ever does anything like that again.”
Amabella’s eyes filled with instant tears. Her bottom lip quivered. She dropped her head.
“Amabella,” said Jane. “Was it Ziggy?”
Amabella said something Jane didn’t catch.
“What’s that?” said Jane.
“It wasn’t . . .” began Amabella, but then her face crumpled. She began to cry in earnest.
“It wasn’t Ziggy?” said Jane, filled with desperate hope. She felt an urge to shake Amabella, to demand the child just say the truth. “Is that what you said, it wasn’t him?”
“Amabella! Amabella, sweetie!” Harper stood at the edge of the sandpit, holding a box of oranges for the canteen. She had a white scarf tied so tightly around her neck, it looked like she was being garroted, an effect enhanced by the fact that her long, droopy face was now purpling with rage. “Whatever is the matter?”
She dumped the box at her feet and walked across the sand to them.
“Amabella!” she said. “What’s going on?”
It was like Jane wasn’t there, or as though she were another child.
“Everything is fine, Harper,” said Jane coldly. She put her arm around Amabella and pointed behind Harper. “Your oranges are going everywhere.” Turtle Corner was at the top of a small slope, and Harper’s box had tipped on one side. A cascade of oranges slid down the playground toward where Stu was listening to another kindergarten child read near the Starfish Wall.
Harper’s eyes stayed fixed on Amabella, ignoring Jane in such a pointed, deliberate way, it was almost laughable, except for the fact that it was also breathtakingly rude.
“Come with me, Amabella.” Harper held out her hand.
Amabella sniffed. Her nose was running into her mouth in that heedless, disgusting way of five-year-olds.
“I am right here, Harper!” said Jane as she pulled a packet of tissues from her jacket pocket. This was infuriating. If she’d had just another minute with Amabella she might have been able to get some information out of her. She held the tissue over Amabella’s nose. “Blow, Amabella.”
Amabella obediently blew. Harper finally looked at Jane. “You have obviously been upsetting her! What have you been saying to her?”
“Nothing!” said Jane furiously, and her guilt over her desire to shake Amabella only made her angrier still. “Why don’t you go collect a few more signatures for your nasty little petition?”
Harper’s voice rose to a shout. “Oh yes, good idea, and leave you here to keep bullying a defenseless little girl! Like mother, like son!”
Jane stood up from the turtle and kicked at the sand with her boot, just barely managing to stop herself from kicking it in Harper’s face. “Don’t you dare talk about my son!”
“Don’t you kick me!” yelled Harper.
“I didn’t kick you!” yelled back Jane, surprising herself with the volume of her voice.
“What on earth . . . ?” It was Stu, dressed in his blue plumber’s overalls, his hands full of the oranges he was rescuing from the playground. The little boy who had been reading with him was standing next to him, an orange in each hand, his eyes saucer-like at the sight of two mothers yelling.
At that moment there was a high-pitched yelp as Carol Quigley, hurrying back from the music room with her spray-and-wipe bottle held aloft, slipped over a stray orange and fell slapstick-style on her bottom.
Carol: I had a very badly bruised tailbone, in fact.
51.
Gabrielle: Next thing I hear, Harper is accusing Jane of assaulting her in Turtle Corner, which seems unlikely.
Stu: Harper carried on like a pork chop. She didn’t look like she’d been assaulted. I don’t know. I’d just gotten a call about a blown water main. I didn’t have time to deal with two mothers fighting it out in the sandpit.
Thea: And that’s when some of the parents decided to report matters to the Department of Education.
Jonathan: . . . which obviously freaked poor Mrs. Lipmann out. I think it was her birthday too. Poor woman.
Mrs. Lipmann: I will say this: We couldn’t possibly have suspended Ziggy Chapman. The only time he’d even been accused of bullying was at the orientation day, when he wasn’t even a student. After that it was all just conjecture on the part of the parents. I have no idea if it was my birthday. That is of no relevance.
Miss Barnes: Those parents were crazy. How could we possibly have suspended Ziggy? He was a model student. No behavioral issues. I never had to put him on the Sad Chair. In fact, I can’t remember even giving him a red dot! And he certainly never got a yellow card. Let alone a white one.
The Day Before the Trivia Night
Madeline worked on Fridays, which meant that she mostly missed the Friday-morning school assembly. Ed normally made an appearance if one of the kids was performing or receiving a merit award. Today, however, Chloe had begged Madeline to come because the kindergarten class was reciting “The Dentist and the Crocodile” and Chloe had a line to say all on her own.
Also, Fred’s class was performing on their recorders for the first time. They were going to play “Happy Birthday to You” to Mrs. Lipmann, which would be a painful experience for all concerned. (There was a general feeling around the school that Mrs. Lipmann might be turning sixty, but no one could confirm or deny.)
Madeline had decided to go to the assembly and then work late next Monday afternoon, something she didn’t used to be able to do on a Monday because she took Abigail to basketball practice while Ed took the little kids to their swimming lesson.
“Abigail probably doesn’t need to go to basketball training anymore,” she said to Ed as they got out of the car with their take-out coffees. After they’d dropped the children off they’d zipped down to Blue Blues, where Tom was doing a roaring trade from all the Pirriwee Public parents in need of caffeine to get through a recorder performance at the assembly. “Maybe Nathan is coaching her now.”
Ed chuckled warily, probably worried she was about to launch into another rant about the cancellation of the math tutor. Her husband was a patient man, but