Big Little Lies(112)

“I’ve tried ‘Miss Polly had a dolly,’” said Nathan heavily. “It’s not that.”
“You mustn’t be doing it right. It’s all lowercase, no spaces. It’s always—”
“I told her just the other day that she shouldn’t have the same password for everything,” said Nathan. “She must have listened to me.”
“Right,” said Madeline. Her anger had cooled and solidified into something mammoth and glacial. “Good one. Good advice. Great fathering.”
“It’s because of identity theft—”
“Whatever! Be quiet, let me think.” She tapped two fingers rapidly against her mouth. “Have you got a pen?”
“Of course I’ve got a pen.”
“Try ‘Huckleberry.’”
“Why Huckleberry?”
“It was her first pet. A puppy. We had her for two weeks. She got run over. Abigail was devastated. You were— Where were you? Bali? Vanuatu? Who knows? Don’t ask questions. Just listen.”
She listed off twenty potential passwords in quick succession: bands, TV characters, authors and random things like “chocolate” and “I hate Mum.”
“It won’t be that,” said Nathan.
Madeline ignored him. She was filled with despair at the impossibility of the task. It could be anything, any combination of letters and numbers.
“Are you sure there is no other way to do this?” she said.
“I was thinking I could try to redirect the domain name,” said Nathan, “but then I still need to log in to her account. The world revolves around log-ins. I guess some IT genius might be able to hack into the site, it’s just a Google-hosting account, but that would take time. We’ll get it down eventually, but obviously the fastest way is for her to do it herself.”
“Yes,” said Madeline. She’d already pulled her car keys from her bag. “I’m going to get her out of school early.”
“You, I mean, we, we just have to tell her to take it down.” Madeline could hear the keyboard clattering as he tried the different passwords. “We’re her parents. We have to tell her there will be, er, consequences if she doesn’t listen to us.”
It was sort of hilarious hearing Nathan using modern parenting terminology like “consequences.”
“Right, and that’s going to be so easy,” said Madeline. “She’s fourteen, she thinks she’s saving the world and she’s as stubborn as a mule.”
“We’ll tell her she’s grounded!” said Nathan excitedly, obviously remembering that’s what parents did to teenagers on American sitcoms.
“She’d love that. She’ll see herself as a martyr to the cause.”
“But I mean, for God’s sake, surely she’s not serious,” said Nathan. “She’s not really planning to actually go through with this. To have sex with some stranger? I just can’t . . . She’s never even had a boyfriend, has she?”
“As far as I know, she hasn’t even kissed a boy,” said Madeline, and she wanted to cry, because she knew exactly what Abigail would say in response to that: Those little girls haven’t kissed any boys either.
She squeezed the keys tight in her hand. “I’d better rush. I’ve only just got time before I pick up the little kids.”
She remembered then that Perry had called earlier to ask if she’d pick up the twins because Celeste was sick. Her left eyelid began to twitch.
“Madeline,” said Nathan, “don’t yell at her, will you? Because—”
“Are you kidding? Of course I’m going to yell at her!” yelled Madeline. “She’s selling her virginity on the Internet!”

Chapter 61
61.

Jane drove Ziggy up to the school after their morning tea at Blue Blues.
“Will you tell Max to stop hurting Amabella?” he said to her as she parked the car.
“A grown-up will talk to him,” said Jane as she turned the key in the ignition. “Probably not me. Maybe Miss Barnes.”
She was trying to work out the best way to handle this. Should she march straight into the principal’s office right this minute? She’d prefer to speak with Miss Barnes, who would be more likely to believe that this wasn’t a case of Ziggy simply deflecting the blame by pointing the finger at someone else. Also, Miss Barnes knew that Jane and Celeste were friends. She would know this was potentially awkward.
But Miss Barnes was teaching right now. She couldn’t drag her out of the classroom. She would have to e-mail her and ask her to call.
But she wanted to tell someone now. Perhaps she should go straight to Mrs. Lipmann?