My dad taught me: A kid hits you, you hit him back. Simple. It’s like everything these days. A trophy for every kid in the soccer game. A prize in every bloody layer of Hot Potato. We’re bringing up a generation of wimps.
Thea: Renata must surely have blamed herself. The hours she worked, she barely saw her children! My heart just goes out to those poor little mites. Apparently they’re not coping well at the moment. Not coping well at all. Their lives will never be the same again, will they?
Jackie: Nobody says anything about Geoff working long hours. Nobody asks if Geoff knew what was going on with Amabella. It’s my understanding Renata had a higher-paid, more stressful job than Geoff, but nobody blamed Geoff for having a career, nobody said, “Oh, we don’t see much of Geoff at the school, do we?” No! But if the stay-at-home mums see a dad do pickup, they think he deserves a gold medal. Take my husband. He has his own little entourage.
Jonathan: They’re my friends, not my entourage. You have to excuse my wife. She’s in the middle of a hostile takeover. That might be why she’s coming across a bit hostile. I think the school has to take responsibility. Where were the teachers when all this bullying was going on?
36.
Renata Klein has discovered that her daughter, Amabella, has been the victim of systematic, secret bullying over the last month,” said Mrs. Lipmann without preamble as soon as Jane sat down opposite her. “Unfortunately Amabella won’t say exactly what has been going on or who is involved. However, Renata is convinced that Ziggy is responsible.”
Jane gulped convulsively. It was strange that she still felt shocked, as though some crazily optimistic part of her really had believed that Ziggy was about to be put into some sort of special class for marvelous children.
“What sort of . . .” Jane’s voice disappeared. She cleared her throat with difficulty. She felt as though she were playing a role for which she wasn’t properly qualified. Her parents should be at this meeting. People of the same era as Mrs. Lipmann. “What sort of bullying?”
Mrs. Lipmann made a little face. She looked like a lady who lunched; a society wife with good clothes and an expensive skin care regime. Her voice had that crystal-clear don’t mess with me quality that was very effective, apparently, even with the famously naughty Year 6 boys.
“Unfortunately we’re a little short on details,” said Mrs. Lipmann. “Amabella does have some unexplained bruises and grazes, and a . . . bite mark, and she has only said that ‘someone has been mean to her.’” She sighed and tapped perfectly manicured nails on the manila folder in her lap. “Look, if it weren’t for the incident on the orientation day, I wouldn’t have called you in until we had anything more definitive. Miss Barnes says that incident appeared to be a one-off. She has observed Ziggy closely, because of what happened, and she describes him as a delightful child, who is a joy to teach and appears to be very caring and kind in his interactions with the other children.”
The unexpected kindness of those words from Miss Barnes made Jane want to weep.
“Now, obviously we have a zero tolerance policy for bullying at Pirriwee Public. Zero. But in the rare cases where we do find cases of bullying, I want you to know that we believe we have a duty of care both to the victim and to the bully. So if we do find that Ziggy has been bullying Amabella, our focus won’t be on punishing him, but on ensuring the behavior stops, obviously, immediately, and then on getting to the bottom of why he is behaving this way. He’s a five-year-old boy, after all. Some experts say a five-year-old is incapable of bullying.”
Mrs. Lipmann smiled at Jane, and Jane smiled back warily. But wait, he’s a delightful child. He hasn’t done this!
“Apart from what happened on orientation day, have there ever been any other incidents of this sort of behavior? At day care? Preschool? In Ziggy’s interactions with children outside the classroom?”
“No,” said Jane. “Absolutely not. And he always . . . Well.” She’d been about to say that Ziggy had always steadfastly denied Amabella’s accusation from orientation day, but perhaps that just confused the issue. Mrs. Lipmann would think he had a history of lying.
“So there is nothing out of the ordinary in Ziggy’s past, his home life, his background,