Cassie froze. ‘What girl?’ he said.
‘You know what I’m talking about. What you and your little friend did in the school toilets.’
‘We didn’t do anything,’ Cassie said. ‘She’s making it up.’
‘Why would anyone make up a thing like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cassie said. ‘She’s a freak.’
‘How do you know what I’m talking about if you didn’t bloody do anything?’ Dad stood up. ‘Get your story straight, for Christ’s sake.’
‘Cassie,’ Mum said. The muscles in her neck stuck out and I could tell she was about to cry. ‘They might be going to the police.’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
Dad slammed down his beer. ‘Don’t you lie to your mother.’
‘I’m not lying,’ said Cassie. ‘She’s making it up.’
‘Do you take us for idiots?’ Dad said. ‘You know it’s a crime, what you’ve done? People have gone to prison for far bloody less. Did you think about that?’
‘I didn’t know doing nothing was a crime.’
‘Don’t get smart with me,’ Dad said. ‘You need to grow a backbone—you’re weak as piss. Weak as piss and a bloody pervert.’
‘I’m not a pervert.’
‘Trying to impress your new friend, are you? Is that it?’
‘This is bullshit,’ Cassie said. ‘I didn’t do anything. I’m not trying to impress anyone.’
‘Jesus Christ, your grandfather would be proud, wouldn’t he?’
Mum strode over to Dad in two steps, slapped him hard on the cheek. I didn’t see it coming and probably got just as much of a fright as Dad. Mum’s hand was shaking, and she reached over and touched Cassie’s arm. ‘If he said he didn’t do anything, he didn’t do anything,’ Mum said to Dad. ‘It’s just a silly girl making up stories.’
Dad pressed his hand to his cheek, opened and closed his mouth. ‘Unbelievable,’ he said. ‘You are unbelievable.’
‘This is bullshit,’ Cassie said again.
‘Don’t swear at your mother,’ Dad snapped.
‘Piss off,’ Cassie said.
‘What’d you say to me?’
‘Nothing.’.
‘Go to your room,’ Dad said. ‘I can’t stand the sight of you.’
Cassie stormed to his room, slammed the door so hard it rattled the frame. Dad chucked his empty can into the sink.
‘You don’t have to be so hard on him,’ Mum said, her arms holding her stomach.
‘Jesus Christ, Christine, there’s a girl who’s making a pretty serious accusation.’
Mum stood in front of the sink, turned on the tap. ‘He wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘Can you hear yourself?’ Dad said. ‘Did you listen to anything I told you? What the principal said?’
‘I know my own son,’ Mum said. ‘I know he wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
‘I don’t think you bloody know your children very well at all.’
‘He’s just a boy,’ Mum said. ‘I think you forget that sometimes.’
Dad just shook his head.
I went to Cassie’s room but the door was locked again. I slipped a note under the door, asking him what had happened, why he was in trouble. By the time I went to bed he hadn’t slipped anything back.
The next morning Dad was dressed in a shirt and tie. He had gel in his hair, which was combed back from his face and slicked over his bald patch, shiny as a tomato.
When Mum had finished washing her hair she came to the kitchen. ‘Nothing to worry about,’ Mum said to Cassie, her wet hair curling like noodles. ‘Sometimes girls make up nasty things to get attention. It’ll all be cleared up soon.’
Wally padded out of our room, still in his pyjamas. ‘Why are you all dressed up?’ he said to Mum.
‘I’m not dressed up,’ Mum said.
‘Yeah you are,’ said Wally. ‘Look at your face. Are you going somewhere nice? Can I come too?’
‘To a meeting at Cassie’s school,’ Mum said. ‘Someone’s told a nasty lie about your brother.’
‘What kind of lie?’ Wally asked.
‘Shut up, Wally,’ Cassie said.
‘It’s a free country.’ Wally opened the pantry to get his Wheaties. ‘I’m allowed to ask questions.’
‘Just a nasty lie,’ Mum said.
I wanted to ask Cassie what really happened, but he was still acting weird and I knew he wouldn’t tell me.
Mum stood up and took Cassie’s plate of eggs to the sink. ‘Comb your hair, Cassie,’ she said. ‘We’ll get a bakery treat after the meeting. Have the rest of the day off, hey?’
Cassie nodded, smoothed down his hair with his palms.
I couldn’t wait to get home that afternoon, to find out what had happened at the meeting. I didn’t even go over to Tilly’s to see if she wanted to play. This seemed more important, more interesting. I was dying to know what the secret was, but when I got home everyone acted like nothing had happened. It was as though I’d invented the whole thing in my head.
Dad hardly spoke to Cassie for days. He wasn’t in trouble, but he wasn’t not in trouble either. Every time I asked Dad or Cassie what had happened at the meeting, what the meeting was about in the first place, they would tell me to stop being a busybody. Eventually I just stopped asking altogether.
I kept my ears pricked, though, listening for clues, and I didn’t have to wait long, because on Wednesday Ian’s parents came over. Ian hadn’t been around since the phone call from Cassie’s school. Mum knew they were coming. She wore her brick-coloured lipstick and told Dad to buy a packet of biscuits from the shops.
I don’t think I’d imagined Ian having parents before I saw them standing in the kitchen. Ian’s dad was wearing shiny black shoes and a name badge attached with a magnet to the front of his polo shirt. The skin around his chin was shaved smooth. It made me think of pigskin, tight and pink. Ian’s mum was wearing a pink skirt and a cardigan that matched, gold earrings that looked like wrapped chocolates. I wondered how someone as greasy as Ian could have come from people so clean.
Everyone shook hands and then went into the lounge room while Mum stayed in the kitchen. I sat at the table and watched Mum as she made cups of tea, chewing my pen so that it looked as though I was concentrating hard on my homework.
They talked about boring stuff at first, about how warm it was, and Ian’s dad’s business, and how Mum used to live in Ian’s family’s house on Daley Street when she was a girl. Mum went on and on about how she and Dermott used to dig swimming pools in the backyard, and then how it rained for days one summer and the pool got infested with toads. How their dog ate one of them, poisoned its insides. They gave the dog a funeral and buried it beneath the zigzag wattle.
‘If we’d known the house’s history we probably wouldn’t have bought it in the first place,’ Ian’s mum said with a half-laugh.
‘What history?’ Mum asked.
Ian’s parents looked at each other. They must have passed a mental message back and forth, like I did with Wally, because Ian’s dad put down the teacup that looked miniature in his man hands. ‘Well,’ he said, clearing his throat and looking at Ian’s mum, even though he talking to Mum and Dad. ‘We’re not here for social reasons unfortunately. Best sort out what to do about the boys, we thought.’ He cleared his throat again.
‘The girl said she was lying,’ Mum said. ‘If that’s what you’re talking about.’
‘Now, we know none if it’s true,’ Ian’s dad said, holding his hands up. ‘Ian made that clear. But he’s been having a bit of trouble adjusting to the move, and we think it’s best if we establish some boundaries for the boys.’
‘I second that,’ said Dad.
‘Ian’s had a hard time fitting in at school,’ Ian’s dad said. ‘Maybe if he got the chance to make some new friends…’