There was an ominous silence hanging over the house when Peter sat up. He wiped the drool from his cheek and wandered out into the kitchen in search of something to eat. What he found instead was his parents sitting at teh table with their heads close together, whispering conspiratorially. His faterh was gesticulating wildly despite his hushed voice and his mother was hissing responses in return with a stony calm face. They both noticed Peter at the same time and stood. Peter’s father offered him a chair silently and his mother turned to the bench and began filling the jug. Peter plopped himself down and braced himself for what looked to be an epic bollocking.

His father opened the proceedings with the typical Good Cop routine. “So, bud. Is there anything you want to talk about? How was school today? Are we going to Disneyland?”

A clatter of mugs from the other side of the kitchen warned him to choose his next words carefully. “Um, okay, well. I did great on my exams, if that’s what you’re asking?” Peter rubbed his face nervously. “But I don’t think we’re going on holiday. There was an… incident.”

“An incident you say?” His father left the question hang in the air.

Peter felt the tears start to well up in his eyes so he scrubbed them away, giving himself a moment to think. “There was a fight. Like, a real one.”

“As opposed to all those fake fights you have?” His mother interjected, staring out the window over the sink.

Peter’s dad glanced over, but chose not to respond to the interruption. “A real fight? You look remarkably unharmed for someone who was in a real fight. Does that mean you took your mother’s advice and found a responsible adult to solve the problem?”

“Um, I, er, well,” memories of the event tied Peter’s tongue. A mug slammed into the table almost hard enough to break it, sloshing hot tea onto the tabletop. Peter nearly jumped out of his skin.

His mother loomed over him. “Well? Three boys have been hospitalised. If you’re charged we’ll have to pay for their medical bills. Do you think we’re made of money?”

“N-n-no mum!” Peter squeaked, hunching against the onslaught. His stomach dropped and was replaced by a pit of eels. Or at least that’s how it felt.

Holding up a hand, Peter’s father interrupted his mother’s tirade. “Honey, we discussed this. we don’t know the whole story, Have a seat and let Peter tell us his side.” He turned to his son and motioned for Peter to continue.

“Um, well, you know the bully at school?” Peter rotated his mug on the table, looking into the drink rather than at his parents. “Well, he kinda found a way to hack the exam scores, so even if I did as good as normal he would get my scores and I would get his. Which really sucked cos you said if I failed I was in big trouble.”

“You’re lying,” Peter’s mother held up her index finger. “Nobody can hack the school. I-”

Peter father gently lowered his wife’s accusatory finger. “Honey, we don’t know that. They said we’d never crack quantum computing, but now that’s half my job. Go on, Peter, you were explaining why you got into a punch up at school.”

While his mother simmered, Peter continued his story. “I knew anyone I told would react the same way mum did. So, I found some friends who would help me study. I knew that if I got exceptional scores, no-one would believe that Billy took the test himself and he’d get investigated for cheating.” Peter took a sip from the mug, but found it scalding and burned his tongue. “So my friends helped me study super hard and I’m pretty sure I got perfect marks on every test, but Billy figured it out. Somehow. So he was going to bash us all and we defended ourselves. It’s not our fault they attacked.”

“Wait, ‘they’? Before you said it was one boy, now there’s more than one?” His mother broke in again. “You can’t keep changing your story.”

“Honey.” hsf father tried to mollify his mother once more. “We agreed we were going to get Peter’s version of events. We can’t do that if you won’t let him speak.” His father rapped his knuckles on the table so that Peter would look up at him. “Your mother’s right though. You need to be straight with us. Changing your story like that makes us think you might not be telling the truth.”

Peter nodded sorrowfully. “Sorry Dad. There were a bunch of kids, I don’t know how many, exactly. And there was Pham, Warren and I. We, well, we sorta took your advice, really. We stood up for ourselves so Billy wouldn’t see us as victims anymore.”

“You did a heckova lot more than that, bucko,” his dad shook his head. “Like your mother said, some of them are in the hospital. I told you to kick him and run.”

Taking a sip before answering, Peter thought about the fight. Those kids would have had no compunctions about putting him or his friends in the hospital and nobody would have said a thing. He pointed this out, adding “one of them locked the doors, there was nowhere to run to.”

Lost for words for the fist time since the exchange began, Peter’s mother opened and closed her mouth furiously but nothing came out. Suddenly she turned on his father and exploded at him. “This is your fault. I said this would happen when you told Peter to fight back. How would you feel if my baby boy had been the one to end up in hospital? It was your stupid advice that got him into this mess!” She stood up and rushed around the table to hug Peter, smothering him in motherly embrace. “No, you only think about yourself.”

“Uh, what?”

Just as confused about the sudden change in direction as his father, Peter squirmed around to be able to breathe. “Muuuum. Stop!”

“You know that’s not very fair,” Peter’s dad objected. “This kid, Billy, he put our son in an untenable position and he came out on top. You tried to do the right thing first, didn’t you Peter?” Peter nodded in the folds of his mother’s dress. “See? Now, the bad guys lost, the good guys won and Peter’s mostly unhurt. I think we should have his friends over for dinner one day soon, how does that sound?”

Peter’s mother relinquished her stranglehold on him, letting him drop back into the chair. “That sounds wonderful. Let’s meet these friends who helped my baby boy pass his tests so well he outed a bully and had him expelled!”

“Wait, Billy was expelled?” Peter knocked his cup over, spilling tea everywhere.

“Well of course! I’ve been on the phone all afternoon with the principal and our lawyer while you were in bed, sleepyhead. How else did you think I knew about the kids that got hurt?” His mother made no attempt to help clean up the mess, but his dad rached behind him and grabbed a tea towel from the oven handle and began sopping it up while she continued. “Now, we’re going to have to have you talk to that lawyer soon, so be sure about your story. No changing it at the last minute, no adding any extra bits. Just be brave and tell her what you told us and we’ll be all good.” With that, she swept out of the room like a duchess.

“I know I’m in a bit of trouble,” Pete took his cup and the wet cloth to the sink. “But am I getting expelled too?”

His father joined him, pouring the remainder of his own drink down the drain. “I think we can swing it so that you get a rap on the knuckles for fighting, but that’s about it. Like your mum said, be honest with the lawyer.” He rinsed his cup and dropped it on the drainer. “I’m serious about having your friends over. If half of what I heard today is true, they saved your ass.”

Peter gasped. His father never used that sort of language around him. After taking a moment to gather himself, he explained that his friends might not be able to visit for a while. “Woz is paraplegic, until the elevator is fixed it might be too hard to get him up here. Pham has some family issues that might make it a bit hard to visit too. She lives with her grandma and grandpa and I don’t think her grandma is as understanding as you are.”

“That’s the Pham Nguyen the school mentioned?” His dad turned around and leaned on the sink. “We didn’t get to talk to her grandma today, but I did hear Mr Connor, Warren’s father I assume? He seems like a typical overbearing twit.”

“I’d rather meet them online, anyway. Thanks Dad.” Peter rinsed his cup and put it on the drainer. “I’m hoping to catch up with them tonight, after dinner. We are having dinner, aren't we?” He turned around and mimicked his dad.

Looking at his watch, Peter’s father appeared to do some mental arithmetic. “I think we might order in. We hadn’t planned too far ahead, your mother and I, since we didn’t know how this was going to go. If you’d proper messed up you’d be going to bed with no dinner at all, you know.”

Peter’s stomach rumbled and he whacked it out of habit. “Can we have Indian, please?”

Ruffling Peter’s hair, his dad chuckled. “I don’t think so, it’s a bit late for that. I think your mother’s a bit hangry.”

“I noticed. So, what are we having?”

“You two are having a salad,” his mother swept back into the room. “I’ve already ordered for you. I have to go out and see the lawyer and sign some papers so I’ll grab myself something on the way.” Sure enough, she had changed into a business suit and matching shoes.

“Helen didn’t say anything about paperwork tonight on the call,” Peter’s dad looked surprised at this revelation. “Surely it can wait?

“I texted her as soon as we were confident that Peter was the victim and she asked me to pop down to her office,” Peter’s mum shuffled some sheets of paper in her purse. “I’ve printed them out, I just need her to witness me signing them. Now, how do I look?”

Not knowing what else to do, Peter gave a double thumbs up. His father made a similar gesture of approval, which seemed to satisfy his mother. She left without further ado, leaving two stunned males and a lingering scent of perfume. “Does that mean we can have Indian now?” Peter leaned in to his dad and whispered in case there were any ears in the corridor.

“I guess,” his dad shrugged. “It’ll take a while to make and deliver though, what do you want to do while we wait? TV? Read?”

While his dad ordered their dinner, Peter flopped on the couch and flicked through the movie options. None of them seemed particularly interesting or appealing. He was still prevaricating when his dad came in and shoved him playfully over and dropped into the seat beside him. The cycling thumbnails on the entertainment system flickered to a stop showing the cover of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen 3: Dr Moreau’s Revenge. Peter let the preview start to play, showing the most exciting parts of the film as they always did, but it looked interesting and very steampunky.

“I remember the first League movie,” his dad said over a particularly spectacular explosion. “It was back in the old 2D days, had an all-star cast, and yet managed to be an absolute stinker. You sure about this?”

“I’m kinda into the whole Steampunk thing these days, Dad.” Peter hit the play button and settled back. “How long until dinner?”

His dad put his feet up on the coffee table as the opening credits started to roll. “Eh. The guy said half an hour,” he looked at his watch, “plus traffic time. You starving or something?”

“Nah, just curious.”

“Hey, Champ, how about you grab us some drinks from the fridge?”

By the time Peter returned, miffed at having missed the introduction, he put his father’s drink in front of him and repaired to the recliner. Tucking his feet underneath him, he tried to enjoy the film as much as his father was. His dad was ducking and dodging along with the actors, laughing when one made a joke or quip, looking anxious when one was in trouble. For Peter, the plot was supremely uninspired. It was the usual heroes get in trouble, get out of trouble but find clues to a bigger issue, fight about it, get beaten up by the bad guy, realise they’re stronger together, and finally beat the bad guy with the help of a new friend they picked up along the way. When the doorbell rang, Peter didn’t even bother disturbing his dad, he just went and paid for dinner with his dad’s wallet and brought it back, placing the takeout container beside the untouched drink and flopping back into the recliner.

With little interest, Peter ignored the film that had his father so engrossed. The aesthetic was reminiscent of The Age of Steam and Sorcery, with Victorian age technology and magic sharing the limelight, but entwined where The Age showed them to be almost inimical. The adventure finally came to an end with Dr Moreau escaping as his laboratory collapsed in flames. His father finally realised he had food and started eating as the scene faded to black and the credits began their slow crawl from the floor to the ceiling. The fork paused, halfway to his mouth as the mid-credits scene played out, some in-joke that made Peter’s father laugh but went completely over his head. He took his container and cutlery out to the kitchen and started the clean up while the rest of the credits rolled.

“Hey Dad,” he called over his shoulder, “I’m buggered, do you mind if I crash?”

“Not at all,” his father said from beside him, nearly making him jump out of his skin. “Finish the wash up and have a shower and you can go play games all you want.” His dad dropped his empty container in the sink, the fork clattering against the metal. “Say hi to your friends for me.” He gave an exaggerated wink and went back into the lounge room again.

As per instructions, Peter tidied up, leaving no evidence of the delicious dinner for his mother to find. He went through his nightly ablutions as quickly as possible, showering at light speed and merely wetting his toothbrush and eating some toothpaste. He threw himself into bed without even turning the light on and was about to lay back and log in when he realised his mother had been gone a very long time.

“Hey Dad!” he called, levering himself up on an elbow.

His father leaned around the doorframe, popping something into his mouth. “Wash up Champ?” He manged the words, nearly losing the morsel in the process.

“Could you say goodnight to Mum for me?” Peter requested, squinting at the light outlining his father’s silhouette.

“Sure, Champ. See you in the morning.”