“Why don’t I just take the boys back to my place for a while? Perry can pick them up from there on his way home,” said Madeline. She looked back at her car in the driveway. The smashed headlight stared at her reproachfully and expensively. She’d left Abigail crying in the front seat and Fred and Chloe squabbling in the back (and she’d also noticed Fred giving his head a good, vicious scratch, and she knew from horrible experience exactly what that probably meant; it would be just absolutely marvelous if she also had to deal with a nit outbreak right now).

“No, no, that’s nice of you, but I’m fine,” said Celeste. “I let them have unlimited screen time on Friday afternoons. They’ll just be ignoring me anyway. Thank you so much for picking them up.”

“Do you think you’ll be OK for the trivia night tomorrow?” asked Madeline.

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” said Celeste. “Perry is looking forward to it.”

“All right, well, I’d better go,” said Madeline. “Abigail and I were shouting at each other in the car line and I ran into the back of Renata’s car.”

“No!” Celeste put her hand to her face.

“Yes, I was shouting because Abigail is auctioning off her virginity online in a bid to stop child marriage,” continued Madeline. Celeste was the first person she’d been able to tell; she was desperate to talk about it.

“She’s what?”

“It’s all for a good cause,” said Madeline with mock nonchalance. “So I’m fine with it, of course.”

“Oh, Madeline.” Celeste put her hand on her arm, and Madeline felt like she might cry.

“Take a look,” said Madeline. “The address is www.buymyvirginitytostopchildmarriageandsexslavery.com. Abigail refuses to take it down, even while people are writing the most disgusting things about her.”

Celeste winced. “I guess it’s better than prostituting herself to finance a drug addiction?”

“There is that,” said Madeline.

“She’s making one of those grand symbolic gestures, isn’t she?” mused Celeste. She pressed one hand to the back of her head again. “Like when that American woman swam the Bering Strait between the US and the USSR during the Cold War.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was in the eighties. I was at school at the time,” said Celeste. “I remember thinking that it seemed so silly and pointless to swim across icy waters, but apparently it did have an effect, you know?”

“So you think I should go ahead and let her sell her virginity? Is this virus making you delirious?”

Celeste blinked. She seemed to sway a little on her feet and put out a hand to the wall to steady herself. “No. Of course not.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I just think you should be proud of her.”

“Mmmm,” said Madeline. “Well I think you should go and lie back down.” She kissed Celeste’s cool cheek good-bye. “Hope you feel better soon, and when you do, you might want to check your kids for nits.”

65.

Eight Hours Before the Trivia Night

It had been raining steadily all morning, and as Jane drove back into Pirriwee it got so heavy she had to turn up the radio and put the wipers on fast, panicky mode.

She was on her way back from dropping Ziggy off at her parents’ house, where he was going to stay the night so that Jane could go to the trivia night. It was an arrangement they’d made a couple of months back when the invitations for the trivia night had first come out and Madeline had gotten all excited about planning fancy dress costumes and putting together a table with the right mix of accumulated knowledge.

Apparently her ex-husband was known for his pub trivia skills (“Nathan has spent a lot of time in pubs, you see”) and it was very important to Madeline that their table beat his. “And obviously it would be nice to beat Renata’s table,” said Madeline. “Or anyone with a gifted and talented child, because I know they all secretly think their children inherited their genius brains from them.”

Madeline had said that she herself was hopeless at trivia, and Ed didn’t know anything that happened after 1989. “My job will be to bring you drinks and rub your shoulders,” she’d said.

With all the dramas going on over the last week, Jane had told her parents she wouldn’t go. Why put herself through it? Besides, it would be a kindness not to go. The petition organizers would see it as a good opportunity to collect more signatures. If she went, some poor person might find themselves in the embarrassing predicament of asking her if she’d like to sign a petition to have her own child suspended.

But this morning, after an excellent night’s sleep, she’d woken to the sound of rain and a strange sense of optimism.

Nothing was sorted yet, but it would be.

Miss Barnes had e-mailed back, and they’d arranged a time to meet before school on Monday morning. After the hairdresser yesterday, Jane had texted Celeste and asked her if she wanted to meet for coffee, but Celeste had replied that she was sick in bed. Jane was in two minds about whether to try to tell her about Max before Monday. (The poor girl was sick. She didn’t need to hear bad news.) Perhaps it wasn’t necessary. Celeste was too nice to let it affect their friendship. It would all be fine. The petition would discreetly disappear. Maybe, once the news got out, some parents might even apologize to Jane. (She would be gracious.) It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, was it? She didn’t want to hand her bad-mother title over to poor Celeste, but people would react differently when they knew it was Celeste’s child who was the bully. There wouldn’t be a petition for Max to be suspended. Rich, beautiful people weren’t asked to leave anywhere. It was going to be distressing for Celeste and Perry, but Max would get the help he needed. It would all blow over. A storm in a teacup.

She could stay in Pirriwee and keep working at Blue Blues and drinking Tom’s coffee. Everything would be fine.

She knew she was prone to these bouts of crazy optimism. If a strange voice said “Ms. Chapman?” on the phone, Jane’s first thought was often something ridiculous and impossible, like, Maybe I’ve won a car! (Even though she never entered competitions.) She’d always quite liked this particular quirk of her personality, even when her insane optimism proved to be once again unfounded, as it invariably did.