by Chris Miles
‘Oliver Sampson. Your turn again. And … let’s see –’ Mr Delphi’s eyes roved closer and closer to where Jack stood with Vivi and Philo.
Not me, not me, not me, thought Jack. The last thing he wanted was to show the world how very far he and Sampson were from being equals.
‘How about young Vivi Dink-Dawson?’
Jack breathed a sigh of relief as Vivi and Sampson stepped forward and took turns choosing their sides. Sampson’s first pick was Tom Ziyadi – an instant expert at whatever sport you threw at him.
‘Not the most imaginative choice,’ Mr Delphi said.
Vivi’s first pick was Jack.
Mr Delphi raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe a little too imaginative there, Dawson.’
‘Want to go goalie?’ Vivi whispered, as Sampson made another predictably athletic choice for his second lieutenant.
‘Sure,’ said Jack. For one thing, it spared him the embarrassment of rubbing shoulders (or not) with the other, more advanced, male specimens out on the field. He hoped that wasn’t why Vivi had suggested it. He preferred to think of it as a vote of confidence: her way of saying she was happy for Jack to have her back.
Once the sides were picked, the players jogged out onto the field, leaving Jack alone in the goal square. For ten, then fifteen minutes, he watched the game play out in the distance. Jack didn’t want to complain about his team’s unexpected prowess against Sampson’s pack of supermen, but he was starting to get bored. He was just wondering if he’d ever get involved in the action when Sampson suddenly burst free from a misjudged tackle from Philo and streaked out in front of the rest of the field. Startled, Jack inched forward, trying to guess which way Sampson would strike.
Sampson locked eyes with Jack – and shot for goal.
Jack made a desperate lunge towards the ball, but he couldn’t get his hands to it in time. The shot went right through his defences.
A whistle blew. There were muted grunts of victory from out on the field, as though the result had never been in doubt. Sampson threw a look over his shoulder.
‘You could’ve saved that if you were bigger, Sprigley.’
The match finished one–nil. One winner.
And one loser.
Square jaw. Bulging biceps. Rippling abs.
‘Need help?’ asked the chemist’s assistant. She chewed her gum at Jack and blinked.
Jack backed away from the shelf of protein powder cans. ‘No, I was just …’ The row of identically muscular titans on the labels of the cans glowered back at him. Jack turned away from them and rolled his eyes at the assistant. ‘Wow. What sort of loser would buy this stuff?’
‘You have to be fourteen or older,’ said the assistant. ‘Sorry.’
‘I am fourteen,’ said Jack.
The assistant raised her eyebrows. ‘Really?’
Jack sighed and handed over the prescription. ‘I need to pick this up for my gran,’ he said. He felt waves of testosterone emanating from the wall of protein powder. Oliver Sampson’s taunt played over and over in his head.
‘You could’ve saved that if you were bigger.’
Well, he had been bigger, once upon a time. He’d been a bigger deal than anyone at Upland West or Upland Secondary. But now he’d stepped so far out of the spotlight that no-one even seemed to remember that anymore.
Jack followed the assistant over to the counter. ‘I used to be on TV,’ he heard himself say.
The chemist’s assistant looked up at him, blank-faced. ‘My second cousin was in an ad for Sultana World when she was in Grade 2. She got paid, like, two hundred dollars.’
Jack looked apologetic. ‘Um, my thing was kind of a bigger deal than an ad for Sultana World, actually.’
‘Avocado World? That is a pretty big deal, I guess.’ She handed Jack a white paper bag.
Jack pulled out the $50 note his gran had given him that morning. ‘Ten thousand dollars. That’s how much I won.’
The assistant stopped chewing her gum. ‘Wow. You could buy our entire shelf of muscle powder with that.’
Jack headed straight for his gran’s bungalow when he got home.
Jack’s gran, Marlene, had moved into the bungalow behind the house two years ago. Her unit on the other side of Upland had been slowly falling to pieces ever since Jack’s step-granddad, Clive, had run off with all of Marlene’s savings. Jack had wanted to do something useful with his Bigwigs winnings (or ‘losings’, as he called them), so he’d put the prize money towards renovating the bungalow for his gran to live in. For a while there, he’d felt like he was doing his bit. Like he really was the man of the house.
‘Knock, knock,’ he shouted. He waited a moment, then pushed open the door.
Marlene was lounging on her bed, an old-generation iPhone with a turquoise case in one hand and a clunky grey dumbphone resting on the bedspread next to her.
Hallie had handed the iPhone down to her a few weeks ago. ‘Just because I don’t have thousands of dollars to give away,’ she’d said, ‘doesn’t mean I can’t be generous if I want to.’
Marlene squinted at one phone and then the other through her glasses. The radio (loud) and TV (muted) were both playing in the background.
‘Gran?’
Marlene looked up. ‘Jack!’ She tossed the iPhone aside as though she’d been caught shoplifting. ‘Home already? Gosh, time flies.’
‘I’ve got your stuff from the chemist,’ he said, handing her the white paper bag. ‘Is everything okay with the phone?’
‘What phone, dear?’
Jack paused. ‘Hallie’s old phone. The one you just had in your hand.’
‘Oh!’ said Marlene, glancing down at the iPhone in surprise. ‘Yes. I’ve just been copying my numbers over.’
‘Do you need a hand – ?’
‘No,’ said Marlene sharply. ‘No, I’ll manage, dear. Thank you.’
Jack felt his phone buzz in his pocket. The noise sent Marlene lunging for the iPhone she’d just tossed aside.
‘Um, I think that was me,’ said Jack.
‘Right,’ said Marlene, nodding casually and edging back across the bed. ‘Good-o.’
Jack’s phone buzzed a second time. Marlene eyed the iPhone on the bed nervously.
‘I guess I’ll find out who that is,’ said Jack.
‘What?’ said Marlene, ashen-faced.
‘I mean, I’ll … find out who’s texting me.’
‘Oh,’ said Marlene. ‘Yes, that’s a better idea.’
Jack turned to leave, but found himself lingering at the doorway.
‘Wait,’ he said, turning around, ‘so what did you – ?’
Marlene quickly crossed her arms and jammed the iPhone – which she appeared to have picked up again the moment Jack had turned his back – into her left armpit. ‘What now?’
Jack paused. ‘Never mind.’
Jack dumped his backpack by the kitchen door, grabbed a Sultana World grape juice from the fridge, then checked the messages on his phone.
It was Vivi who’d texted him.
Where were u after school? said the first text.
U didn’t wait for us, said the second.
Jack turned his phone off and went to grab his laptop from his backpack. Of course he hadn’t waited. Why remind them yet again of the several anatomically significant reasons why he completely failed to fit in with them anymore?
And anyway, there was somewhere else he’d decided he needed to be. A place he’d never dared go before.
Jack put his laptop on the kitchen bench. He opened a new browser window and navigated to the page he wanted, wondering if this was really a good idea.
Before he knew it, his fingers were on the keyboard. He glanced at his switched-off phone, took a deep breath and typed three words.
Bring back Jack.
‘We think Jack stands a very good chance of getting onto the program,’ Ms Aria said to Jack’s mum. ‘He’s got a lot of charisma. He’s very popular here at Upland West. And he’s clever, obviously.
He has an excellent head for solving problems within a team and bringing out the best in others.’ Ms Aria smiled. ‘I really do think this would be a terrific opportunity for him.’
Ms Aria opened up her laptop and played a clip from a mock quiz show they’d filmed during the school camp the year before. ‘Remember this, Jack?’
‘Yes, Ms Aria.’
‘Jack played the quizmaster,’ Ms Aria explained. ‘You can see what a natural he is. The producers have been asking local schools to suggest candidates who tick all the boxes, who might be good ambassadors for Upland. They’re looking for someone quick-thinking as well as someone who comes across well on camera. We think Jack’s a good bet.’
Jack’s mum, Adele, leant forward in her chair, leafing through the forms. Her eyes flicked up and down each page. It was a relief for Jack to see something other than an abandoned, empty look in her eyes. She looked up at him. ‘What do you think, Jack?’
‘It sounds … totally awesome,’ said Jack, trying to sound enthusiastic. It hadn’t been his first thought, when Ms Aria had started talking about this Bigwigs thing. But he would’ve done or said anything to keep that sad look from his mum’s face.
Jack turned to Ms Aria. ‘Is there prize money?’
His mum looked embarrassed. ‘Don’t do it for money, Jack! We’re not that desperate!’
‘There’s prize money for the finalists, yes,’ said Ms Aria. ‘But I think it’s the experience – the opportunity to use your talents – that you’ll find most rewarding. It’s a competition, there’s no denying that, but I think you’ll find it’s best not to focus on that side of things.’
Adele nodded. ‘I’ll be proud of you no matter how far you get. And … your dad would have said the same.’
Even after three years, Jack still wasn’t used to hearing ‘your dad’ in the past tense. He looked at Ms Aria. ‘Everyone would still treat me like normal, right? It wouldn’t be … weird afterwards?’
‘People might treat you a little differently at first,’ said Ms Aria. ‘But of anyone in our Grade 6 group, Jack, you’re the one I think is most likely to handle whatever … recognition might come from being on the program.’
‘You mean, he’s not some ego-crazed maniac,’ said Adele.
Ms Aria smiled. ‘Jack is definitely not an ego-crazed maniac, no.’
Jack took a swig from his Sultana World juice and scanned the search results.
Even as a contestant he’d fought the urge to take a peek at the Bigwigs forums. He remembered Mickey Santini having some sort of mini nervous breakdown after reading what the fans had said about his make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach to the week three pet food commercial challenge, when Yellow Team had been sent to work at the Normington-Price advertising agency. Jack mentally high-fived his Grade 6 self for exercising superior self-restraint.
It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.
Me and my friends go to school with Jack Sprigley and he’s super hot! wrote ^kitty^cat on the ‘Next Season News’ thread. Nobody knows anything about him and he’s all mysterious. Not like Piers Blain who’s in all the magazines all the time. Boring! BRING BACK JACK!
Jack had never thought of himself as mysterious. It wasn’t like he’d been deliberately secretive or enigmatic or anything. Sometimes you just couldn’t control how other people saw you.
BRING BACK JACK! wrote {e-girrl}. Piers Blain is boring and also gross. He has little bits of hair in his armpits and even some on his chest. O__o.
Immediately after that, Urchn weighed in.
Yeah, we like Jack because he’s super huggy and you could have him for a sleepover and not have to worry because he’s like a little teddy bear or something. But not hairy like a teddy bear. Not hairy at all! BRING BACK JACK!
Jack nearly spat out his juice. He was about to close the laptop when the title of one of the other forum posts caught his eye.
Reality TV Champion Blain Scores $1m Luxury Apartment
One of the forum members – obviously more of a fan of Piers Blain than ^kitty^cat, {e-girrl} or Urchn – had posted a link to a recent news article.
Former Bigwigs star Piers Blain spent his holidays approving the finishing touches on a harbour-side apartment, which he’ll take occupancy of next month.
‘The main thing was fine-tuning the self-dimming lights in the X-box room,’ said Blain, 14. ‘And choosing the right beanbags. These ones are designed by the guy who invented Shane Warne’s latest skin tone.’
Blain will have his own live-in chaperone and tutor, and has said he intends to ‘party responsibly’ while also focusing on ‘blitzing’ his final few years of high school, reviewing games for the Byteface videoblog, and continuing his appearances as the public face of the ‘Be Cool To Each Other’ anti-bullying campaign.
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.