Mayor Perry-Moore frowned. ‘What did you say?’

‘That’s right,’ said Jack. He jabbed at his own unconvincing excuse for a chest with his thumb. ‘It was me who knocked you over. I found out about you and my gran sexting each other and I was super pissed about it.’

Vivi and the others swapped confused (and slightly grossed-out) glances.

Jack swallowed nervously. Somehow he didn’t think juvenile detention would be quite as easy for him as it would for Sampson. High school was hard enough.

‘So …’ Jack went on, ‘So I was all, like, “Yeah, I’m going to smack that old man-whore across the head!”’ He flashed Neville Perry-Moore his meanest glare. ‘I took you down, yo!’

The mayor looked Jack up and down. ‘You? Don’t be ridiculous. You’re … you’re so small.’

Bingo, thought Jack. It was exactly the reaction he’d wanted.

‘Yeah, and I still took you down. “There’s Neville Perry-Moore,” they’ll say. “He might’ve been the big man in town once upon a time, but then he let himself get smacked down by a kid.” I mean, dude … I haven’t even got pubes yet.’

There were gasps. (Not-very-shocked gasps, Jack couldn’t help noticing.)

‘So, sure,’ he said. ‘Press charges if you want. That is, if you want everyone in town knowing you couldn’t even defend yourself against pubeless Jack Sprigley. In which case: I’ll see you in court!’

There was an awkward silence.

‘O-o-o-r,’ said Vivi, side-eying Jack, ‘another reason you might not want to press charges, Mr Mayor, is that your “special lady friend” might not be so keen to swap texts with the man who sent her grandson to jail?’

Right, thought Jack. Clearly a far superior tactic. Which meant he’d just confessed to being a pubeless freak in front of everyone for nothing. ‘Y-yeah,’ he said. ‘That, too.’

Mayor Perry-Moore glared at Vivi for a moment with narrowed eyes. Jack held his breath.

‘Well,’ said the mayor eventually, ‘maybe I was a little hasty. But don’t think you’re completely off the hook. You might be able to throw a lucky punch, but it’s obvious that you still have a lot of growing up to do.’

‘Hmm,’ said Darylyn, cocking her head slightly. ‘That alarm you can hear? That would be the Hypocrisy Scale hitting the big 10 point 0.’

Jack relaxed a little. Darylyn was right. Mayor Perry-Moore had just demonstrated his distinct lack of maturity in the way he handled the whole situation – but at least he’d stopped talking about pressing charges.

Sampson, meanwhile, was looking at Jack in complete awe of what had just happened. Not that Jack had long to savour it. Neville pushed past him and was hobbling out of the bungalow.

Reese reached after him. ‘Dude, are you sure you’re okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ he grumbled. ‘I fell off the ferris wheel at the opening of Sultana World World and lived to tell the tale. I think I can cope with a black eye. I’m a man.’ He drew himself as tall as he could. ‘A red-blooded, stout-hearted man.’

Vivi took out her phone. ‘We’ll call you a taxi.’

‘Yes please,’ whimpered Neville. He limped gingerly down the bungalow steps and headed down the side passage to the front of the house.

Jack and Vivi and the others followed after him.

‘Tidy work, stepping in to save Sampson’s bacon,’ Vivi whispered.

‘Yeah,’ said Jack. He glanced back at Sampson, who was dawdling behind them, looking sheepish. ‘I thought I’d finally found a way of making the “late bloomer” thing pay off. Your plan was better.’

Vivi shrugged. ‘Better. But not as brave. Anyway, he never would have pressed charges. Not unless he was willing to explain to the police what he was doing at your house.’

Reese leant over to Jack. ‘Dude. Sexting? Really?’

Jack nodded. ‘Being a weirdo pervert runs in the family, I guess.’

‘You’re not that much of a weirdo pervert,’ said Darylyn.

It was one of the nicest things anyone had said to Jack in a long time.

Philo frowned at his phone. ‘This stupid thing doesn’t even have a sexting button.’

Ahead of them, Neville paused briefly at the window to Jack’s old room. It was dark inside. Jack figured his mum and Hallie were still at the hospital, dealing with the fallout from Marlene’s hormonal rampage.

Vivi reached down and picked up the roses Jack had trodden on earlier. Jack picked up the smashed phone, then turned to the mayor. ‘Why were you sneaking around out here, anyway?’

Neville reached out for the crushed flowers, staring sadly at them for a moment. ‘Marlene and I were supposed to meet at the river for a moonlight picnic. We’ve been texting and talking for months, ever since I came and spoke at one of her retirees’ lunches. But she never arrived. She’s been so unlike herself lately. Typing her messages in capital letters, that kind of thing.’

Philo nodded. ‘It was probably the side effects. You know, from the tes–’

Jack was about to tackle Philo to the ground when the side passage was flooded with light as a car pulled into the driveway. The sound of the car engine rumbled away into silence and the headlights flicked off. Jack’s eyes adjusted to the darkness again.

It was his mum’s car. With his gran in the front passenger seat.

Jack and the others spilled out of the side passage and into the carport. Neville limped out after them.

‘Mum!’ said Jack. ‘Gran!’

‘Marlene!’ Neville cried.

Adele stepped out of the car, looking exhausted. Marlene sat frozen for a moment, a dressing on her forehead, her hair sticking out in all directions.

She looked like a lipsticked werewolf on the morning after a full moon.

‘Jack? Shouldn’t you be at the festival?’ Adele noticed the mayor standing next to Jack and the others. ‘Wait a minute, why is – ?’

But before Adele could say anything more, Marlene had burst out of the car like a freshly cuffed perp trying to make a break for it. She’d seen the mayor too – and was tearing straight towards him.

‘No!’ Jack cried.

Marlene pounced on Neville in what seemed to be a doomed attempt to wrap her legs around his waist. His legs instantly buckled underneath him and they both toppled backwards. Neville’s skull was about to hit the concrete for the second time that night when Sampson caught him under the arms and lifted the writhing mass of geriatric lust upright. Marlene snapped back to reality and clambered down from Neville again.

Adele looked on in shock. ‘Is someone going to explain why the mayor is at our house? And why my mother has just attempted to grind him?’

Another flood of headlights washed over them all as a bright-green hatchback pulled into the driveway. Nats and Hallie got out. Jack swallowed nervously. Here he was, face-to-face again with the girl he’d hoped to fool the world into thinking was his girlfriend.

‘Oh my god,’ said Hallie. ‘Is that Mayor Perry-Moore?’

Jack racked his brains, trying to think of a clever lie to tell his mum and Hallie about why the mayor had visited Gran – some innocent explanation that would spare Marlene and Neville from having to confess to their telephonic tryst. Because you weren’t supposed to be sexting at sixty. Just like you weren’t supposed to be pubeless at fourteen.

‘Things don’t always happen when they’re supposed to,’ said Jack, shrugging. He turned to Marlene and Neville. ‘You should tell her.’

‘I can’t deal with this,’ said Adele. ‘Whatever’s going on, I don’t want to know about it. I’ve just had to convince a taxi driver not to press charges against my mother for nearly breaking his arm.’

‘I thought he was attacking me.’

‘He was helping you into the taxi.’ Adele glanced at the roses Neville was holding. Her eyes grew wide. ‘Mum, have you been secretly dating the mayor?’

Neville put a hand on Marlene’s shoulder. Jack wasn’t sure if he was trying to lend her the strength to be honest, or just trying to keep himself steady after the onset of a mild concussion.

Marlene looked up at Neville, then turned and reached out towards her daughter.

‘Adele,’ she said. ‘Love. We didn’t … I just didn’t think it was fair. For me to be happy. When you …’

Adele covered her mouth with her hand. ‘I am happy,’ she insisted.

Marlene shuffled forward and took Adele in her arms.

Jack relaxed. Everything was out in the open. Everyone could start behaving like grown-ups.

Or at least pretend to.