Spurt (6 page)

Jack had seen the anti-bullying ads. ‘Being a bully doesn’t make you a big person,’ Piers said earnestly into the camera. ‘Being a big person means having a big responsibility. A responsibility to be
awesome
.’

The only time Jack had ever been the public face of anything was just before the start of high school, when he was invited to open the Upland South Childcare Centre alongside the town’s sixty-year-old bachelor mayor, Neville Perry-Moore. (The newspaper headline:
Caring For Tomorrow’s Bigwigs
.) His mum and his gran had come along as well, and the whole thing had just felt massively dumb and awkward. Jack couldn’t imagine doing that kind of thing week in, week out, the way Piers Blain seemed to. Maybe that was why Piers Blain had his own apartment and Jack didn’t.

Since when did fourteen-year-olds acquire patches of prime beachfront real estate, anyway? It was hard enough growing a visible patch of
pubic hair
.

Jack wondered if any of the other ex-
Bigwigs
who’d found fame and fortune had even
tried
to go back to a normal life again. Maybe trying to be normal, like Jack had done, was the total opposite of normal.

He closed the laptop. He was none the wiser about this ‘bringing back past contestants’ thing. Which, if he was honest, was kind of a relief. As small as he felt now, going anywhere near
Bigwigs
again was guaranteed to make him feel even smaller.

‘Jack, you’re home.’

Jack looked up and saw his mum stepping over his backpack. She usually came home for a few hours in the afternoon before heading off to the golf club to set up for some party or event. She dumped her handbag on the bench, spilling keys, tissues, mints and loyalty cards everywhere.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Jack drummed his fingers on the laptop. ‘Weird question, but you’d tell me if the
Bigwigs
people had been in touch, right?’

Adele opened the fridge and reached into the crisper for an apple. ‘
Bigwigs
? Of course. Why? Is there extra prize money they forgot to give us? Please let it be that.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Speaking of money, I saw your sister down the street. Looks like she’s started hanging out with one of Bruno Distagio’s girls.’

‘I know,’ said Jack.

Adele bit into the apple. ‘You could marry into the family and make us rich.’

Jack’s hand tightened around the empty juice bottle. ‘Why does everyone think that’s so goddamn
funny
?’

Adele paused, then shut the fridge door. ‘It wasn’t meant to be – Jack, is something the matter?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ He slammed the Sultana World bottle down on the bench and crossed his arms. ‘Obviously it’s just
hilarious
that I’m the smallest guy in Year 8 – and everyone knows it. Do you realise how much of a
loser
that makes me? Half of the Year 8 guys look like freaking
bushrangers
.’

‘You’re not a loser, Jack.’

‘Well, I lost
Bigwigs
, didn’t I? And now I’m losing at everything else.’

His mum frowned at him. ‘Is that really what you think?’ she said quietly. ‘That you
lost Bigwigs
?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Jack muttered.

‘This isn’t why you were avoiding Vivi and the others over the break, is it?’

‘I wasn’t avoiding them. They were avoiding
me
.’

‘I’m sure they weren’t.’

Jack gave her a look.

‘Well, if you really want to show everyone how mature you are, just let them know how you’re feeling. There’s nothing more grown-up than that.’

Easier said than done
, thought Jack. Hallie was the only one in the Sprigley household who seemed okay with telling everyone how she was feeling – but hers was more of a megaphone-and-skywriting approach, which was just as bad.

His mum must have noticed the sceptical look on his face. ‘All I’m saying is, it’s got to be better than getting yourself into a panic and assuming the worst.’

‘Uh-huh,’ said Jack. His mum didn’t get it. He’d already spent the first day back at school trying to convince everyone he was a fully paid-up member of the reproductive organs brigade. He couldn’t just confess that he’d committed perjury with respect to the status of his pubes.

And anyway, he was pretty sure that real men didn’t take advice from their mums. If a real man needed advice, he’d get it from a manlier source. He’d get it from … well, a man.

Or at least someone who was considerably closer to being a man than Jack could claim to be.

Jack got up early to take a detour to Reese’s house before school.

It was more a fact-finding mission than anything else. Jack had almost convinced himself he’d missed some kind of secret initiation ceremony into the world of pubes. Maybe it was something as simple as knowing which brand of undies to wear to bed. Maybe you weren’t supposed to wear undies at all. Or maybe it was a chicken-and-egg situation, and he wasn’t trying hard enough with the whole masturbation thing.

Yes, that’s a great idea
, thought Jack.
I’m sure Reese would not be at all fazed if I ask him for a one-on-one MASTURBATION tutorial.
(‘Dude,’ Jack imagined him saying, ‘you should
not
need to use two hands.’)

Obviously he wouldn’t take it that far. Just a few well-placed questions, and a bit of low-key, information-based male bonding. And maybe, if it happened to come up in conversation, he could subtly seek Reese’s reassurance that he was still part of the gang and not just a pathetic hanger-on.

The spring breeze made the flowering bushes on the nature strip sway like hula dancers as Jack turned the corner into Peppertree Drive. He was only a few steps down the road when he saw Reese vault one-handed over the low gate at the end of his driveway onto the footpath.

Jack checked his watch. 8.15 a.m.
Kind of early to be leaving for school
, he thought.

One of Reese’s earbuds had popped out in the jump over the gate. Jack went to call out, hoping to get Reese’s attention before he put the earbud back in, when he noticed someone waving at Reese from the other side of the street.

It was Darylyn.

Without knowing exactly why, Jack instinctively slunk back the way he’d come. Darylyn hadn’t seen him yet. In fact, as she and Reese stared at each other across the street, they seemed to be suspended in a world of their own.

Jack ducked back behind the wonky wooden fence that ran alongside the house on the corner of the street. He watched as Darylyn checked for traffic. It was almost like they were doing a drugs drop-off or something.

Darylyn crossed the street to where Reese was waiting for her, holding out the spare earbud. And Darylyn
smiled
. Jack couldn’t believe it. It was basically like looking at a completely different person. Then this quasi-imposter version of Darylyn let herself be joined to Reese via earbud cable, and together they walked to school.

Jack crept out from behind the fence. It wasn’t a drugs drop-off, he realised grimly.
What it looks like
, thought Jack,
is a lovey-dovey drop-
in.

He took a few steps after his friends, then saw Reese reach for Darylyn’s hand.

Then Darylyn reached for Reese’s hand. Their hands touched, and the two of them leant in towards each other –

And then, at the last moment, Reese stopped, as if he’d sensed something. He turned to look over his shoulder …

And that was when Jack – quick-thinking, problem-solving, reality-TV-show contestant Jack Sprigley – made the split-second decision to dive into a lavender bush.

Jack waited outside his classroom for first period alone.

Reese and Darylyn had apparently been so caught up in their private hand-holding, earbud-sharing love-zone that they hadn’t even waited at the school gate for him.

Meanwhile, Vivi had been a no-show in home room that morning.

Where are you? Jack texted. He switched his phone off silent so he’d be sure to get her reply as soon as she sent it.

How long has this Reese and Darylyn thing been going on?
he wondered. They’d been friends since primary school, before Jack even knew them, so it wasn’t weird that they’d walked to school together. But the hand-holding and the almost-kissing was definitely weird.

He wondered if Vivi knew. Maybe she did. Maybe Jack was doomed to be the last one to find out – possibly because he’d been the last one to join the gang, but more likely because he was the only one who hadn’t sprouted functioning sex parts yet.

The rest of 8C milled about the corridor. Jack picked out some of the faces he’d known since Upland West Primary: people he’d sat next to in class, people he’d played sport with, people he’d been
friends
with, even. But then there’d been
Bigwigs
, and the start of high school, and meeting Vivi and Reese and Darylyn. Everyone had outgrown the old bonds from primary school.

He wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake, turning away from his
Bigwigs
semi-fame. He should have cashed it in as a kind of popularity insurance policy. Maybe then it wouldn’t have been so easy for everyone to leave him behind. As it was, he felt like an embarrassing leftover from another time.

A time before pubes.

‘Jack!’ said a voice behind him. Jack turned to see Philo standing in the corridor, grinning eagerly. ‘Hi! You’ve got lavender in your hair!’

Jack tipped his head forward and finger-combed the purple flowers out of his fringe. ‘Hi, Philo.’

‘Speaking of hair …’ Philo reached into his satchel.

Jack glanced at Philo warily. Speaking of
hair
? This did not sound good.

‘That’s right: I think I might have the solution to your problem!’

Jack shook his head. ‘I don’t have a –’

‘Ta-da!’

Philo handed Jack a flap of beige-coloured cloth with a dense mass of black, wiry strands stitched to it. Underneath the cloth were several strips of carefully positioned double-sided tape.

Jack stared at it for a moment. Then he stared at it a moment longer.

‘Is this what I think it is?’ he whispered, wide-eyed with horror. He looked up at Philo in a panic. ‘Is this … holy crap, is this a
merkin
?’