Spurt (10 page)

Jack sat at the kitchen table with the laptop open in front of him. His mum stood behind him, one hand resting on his shoulder as they read and re-read the email from the
Bigwigs
producers.

We’re entering an exciting new phase in the
Bigwigs
story, with the show about to enter its third year – the biggest yet – and its debut season on Network Twelve. We feel there’s no better way to celebrate where we’ve come from than to check in on our first season contestants and find out what they’re doing now. It’s the perfect opportunity to show viewers how
Bigwigs
can change lives for the better.

In the coming weeks we’ll send small crews to film our ex-contestants in their regular lives: at home, at school and in their post-
Bigwigs
media careers. These packages will air during a special live reunion episode featuring all the contestants on stage together, to kick off the brand-new season of the show.

We’d be thrilled if Jack could join us for this one-of-a-kind episode of
Bigwigs
.

Jack scrolled through a whole section of appearance fee details and disclaimers and legal terms. There was a questionnaire attached, where Jack was supposed to write down all the ways life had changed for him since he’d been on
Bigwigs
.

‘They need an answer this week?’ he asked.

‘That’s what it says,’ his mum said, looking over his shoulder. ‘It’s weird: weren’t you just asking the other day if they’d been in touch? And now this. It’s like it was
meant
to happen!’

Jack wasn’t sure he liked how enthusiastic his mum was being. He tried to appeal to her sense of parental responsibility. ‘I’d have to miss a few days of school, though, to do the live show,’ he said.

Adele glanced sideways at him. ‘That might not be
such
a bad thing.’

Despite Jack’s best efforts, his mum had eventually heard Mr Trench’s message concerning ‘the incident’ in the student centre. Luckily, the message was so full of military jargon that Adele wasn’t sure what Jack was supposed to be guilty of: inappropriate behaviour at school or invading Pakistan.

Hallie, meanwhile, had clearly heard
all
about it. ‘You don’t go anywhere
near
Nats from now on,’ she’d warned him, hauling him aside into the hallway just before dinner. ‘Don’t even
think
about her. I’m
in
with those girls, and I don’t need you
ruining it
for me.’

Jack looked through the email again. Maybe his mum was right. Doing the
Bigwigs
reunion show might be a way to take control of the story and save his reputation. A chance to steer the narrative towards ‘teenage boy makes triumphant return to semi-fame’ and away from ‘teenage boy revealed to be public pants fondler’.

Maybe it would even give him a second chance at being popular. Maybe everyone would be so starstruck by his return to TV, even just for a reunion episode, that they’d conveniently overlook how far he’d fallen behind them.

But could he really just slot back into the world of
Bigwigs
again?

Across the table, Marlene looked up from her phone, which she’d been fiddling with the whole time. ‘Can’t say I like the idea of letting all those television cameras into the house.’

‘Come on, Mum, it’s just
Bigwigs
. It’s not
Australia’s Most Wanted
.’ Adele squeezed Jack’s shoulder. ‘It might be exciting to be back on TV again, don’t you think? Catch up with all the other contestants? Reconnect? Maybe … take your mind off things?’

Would it, though?
thought Jack. For some reason, he couldn’t help thinking it might just make things worse.

As his mum poured herself another glass of wine, Jack brought up a browser window, swivelled the laptop slightly to the side, and typed ‘Bigwigs past contestants’.

Each new link he clicked on flashed up images of photo shoots and news grabs and magazine covers, some showing faces he only dimly remembered. YouTube uploads of Piers Blain’s Byteface video blogs. Hope Chanders and the infamous anarchist symbol belly-button ring that had made her lose her recording contract with EMG/Platinum. Then there was Cassie Tau’s Facebook addiction. And Mickey Santini’s slightly-too-choreographed wardrobe malfunction at the Australian Teen Music Awards. And Amit Gondra’s blossoming romance with sixteen-year-old Youth Olympics swimming hopeful Jessica Grouth. And there were others: contestants who’d become celebrity spokespeople and youth ambassadors and music video presenters and regular chat show guests.

And then there was Jack. The only one, it seemed, who’d stayed where he was. Who’d stayed normal. Stayed the same.

As much as he wanted to yank himself free from the quicksand of loserdom he’d fallen into at school, this was one lifeline he didn’t dare grasp. He was afraid that if he tried to use the
Bigwigs
reunion to rescue his reputation, he’d only sink further into a humiliation of national proportions. Because all the producers had to do was show one clip of Jack from when he’d been a contestant on the show, and the whole country would see that he looked and sounded the same as he did in Grade 6: fresh-faced and freckled, like a woodland creature in an old Disney cartoon.

The forums would melt down with hysterical disbelief. ‘Did you see that Jack Sprigley kid? What a goddamn munchkin!’ ‘I know! I heard he pretends to masturbate at school or something?’

And it wouldn’t just be the
Bigwigs
forums. The show was coming back bigger than ever. There’d be current affairs specials and newspaper columns and blogs and hashtags and comment threads all weighing in on his failure to pube it up.

The fact was, even among the former
Bigwigs
who’d had brushes with the dark side of semi-fame, nothing anyone else had done was anywhere near as embarrassing as the things Jack’s body had
failed
to do since Grade 6. So unless he was miraculously blessed with a pube-tacular growth spurt in the next week – when the
Bigwigs
people were expecting Jack’s answer – he might be signing himself up for an online mauling as well as a schoolground one.

The low battery warning flashed up on the laptop screen. The short, stubby bar showing the currently available power was completely dwarfed by the long, forbidding tube representing a full charge.

Yeah
, thought Jack.
That about sums it up.

‘I’ve pretty much decided,’ Jack said. ‘I’m not going to do it.’

Reese nodded thoughtfully. They’d just turned the corner from Peppertree Drive and were a couple of blocks from school. ‘Good call. You did go kind of weird when those Year 7s unloaded about it the other day.’

‘That?’ said Jack. ‘That was just me playing it cool.’

‘Uh-huh. Remind me to ask you more about this new definition of “cool” sometime.’ Reese paused. ‘Still, respect. No point trying to compete with those other Bigwigs, dude. Not anymore.’

Jack frowned. What did
that
mean? He turned to Darylyn. ‘What do you think, D?’

‘I think we should swap places,’ said Darylyn.

Jack stopped. ‘You want to be on TV?’

Darylyn gave Jack a look. ‘I want to walk next to Reese.’

‘Oh,’ said Jack. He put on a
whoops
face and took a step backwards so that Darylyn could slide into his place. ‘Sorry.’

Darylyn held out her hand towards Reese, who seemed paralysed for a moment. Eventually Reese reached out his own hand, averting his eyes like he was trying to pass a note in class without being seen. It was only when his hand fumbled its way into contact with Darylyn’s that Reese seemed to relax.

Great
, thought Jack.
Now they’re going to forget everything we were just talking about
. ‘Maybe I’ll ask Vivi,’ he said, as the three of them got closer to the school gate. ‘Except then I’d have to deal with her new bestie Sampson chipping in his fifty cents. I mean, what a jerk, right?’

Reese shrugged. ‘He’s okay.’

‘Are you serious? He called me a “gherkin-jerker”!’

‘Apparently you
are
a gherkin-jerker,’ said Darylyn.

Jack wanted to say that ‘gherkin-jerker’ wasn’t even the worst thing Sampson had called him. The others had no idea what had been said in the changing rooms, or on the soccer field. But what could he tell them? If he repeated Sampson’s words, he’d be inviting suspicion that he was, in fact, a ‘baldy balls’.

Plus, it felt like tattling. He remembered Denny Trimble from
Bigwigs
being sent home for bagging Hope Chanders behind her back after Blue Team’s mid-season loss in the ‘Host a Grade 1’s birthday party’ challenge. It didn’t seem like something a real man would do. A real man would settle the score one on one. But how could he possibly settle a score with someone who outmatched him as completely as Sampson did?

‘He’s still a jerk,’ Jack muttered.

‘If you want my opinion,’ said Darylyn, ‘the smacktalking merely indicates a lack of social skills.’

Reese nodded. ‘She’s right. You should probably cut him some slack, dude. I don’t think he’s had much practice just hanging with peeps.’

Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. In what reality was Oliver Sampson – winner of first division in testosterone TattsLotto – some kind of tragic social outcast?

‘Anyway,’ said Darylyn, ‘it looks like you don’t have to worry.’ She pointed to the gate, where Vivi was waiting for them – without Sampson.

Speak of the devil
, thought Jack,
and he shall … mysteriously be somewhere else.

‘Psst!’ came a voice.

The three Year 7 girls were lurking under a birch tree on the other side of the fence, next to where Jack was walking.

Jack hung back, glancing first at his friends, then back towards the Year 7s.

‘What do you want?’ he hissed.

They beckoned to him in unison. Jack wondered which one was ^kitty^cat, which one was {e-girrl}, and which one was Urchn. Then he realised he didn’t know their real names either. Maybe those
were
their real names?

Reese and Darylyn were already through the gate and catching up with Vivi. Jack looked back at the Year 7s. On Monday they’d been bubbling over with excitement; now they looked deadly serious. They beckoned again – and before he knew it, Jack was at the fence.

‘You were right,’ he told them. ‘They’re bringing back the old contestants.’

Jack thought he heard one of the girls whisper, ‘Bring back Jack’.

‘But I’m not doing it,’ he said, hurriedly. ‘I’m … almost certainly not doing it.’

‘Ignore the hater,’ said the first girl.

‘What?’ said Jack.

‘Ignore …’ said the second girl.

‘… the hater,’ said the third.

‘Wait,’ said Jack. ‘You mean on the forums?’

The three girls nodded solemnly in unison. ‘We’re already on the case to uncover their true identity,’ the first one said.

‘But we must seek help from higher powers,’ said the second girl.

‘The
Bigwigs
forum administrators,’ the third girl intoned.

‘Until then, we’ll unleash a counterstrike of annoying emojis upon them until they withdraw,’ said the first girl.

The second girl fixed Jack with an earnest stare. ‘Meet us in the car park at the end of recess. We’ll have more to tell you. Until then, remember one thing. You
will
be a Bigwig again.’

And then the three of them whispered together, ‘Ignore the hater.
Bring back Jack
.’