I can’t bloody shut it down,” said Nathan. “If I could have shut it down, don’t you think I would have? Before I called you? It’s a public website held on a server that’s not inside the house. I can’t just flick a switch. I need her log-in details. I need her password.”
“Miss Polly had a dolly!” shouted Madeline. “That’s the password. She’s got the same password for everything. Go shut it down!”
She’d always known Abigail’s passwords for her social media accounts. That was the deal so Madeline could check in any time, along with the understanding that Madeline was allowed to silently creep into Abigail’s bedroom at random moments like a cat burglar and look over her shoulder at the computer screen for as long as it took Abigail to notice she was standing there, which often took a while, because Madeline had a special talent for creeping. It drove Abigail crazy and made her jump out of her skin each time she finally sensed Madeline’s presence, but Madeline didn’t care, that was good parenting in this day and age, you spied on your children, and that was why this would never have happened if Abigail had been at home where she belonged.
“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!”