by Chris Miles
With everyone busy talking to Sampson, Jack knelt down and threw the merkin into the bottom of his backpack, burying it beneath a pile of books.
With his hands and pockets finally free of pubic hairpieces, he grabbed his phone and checked his messages.
A missed call, a voicemail message and a bunch of texts, all from his mum.
I’m serious Jack! said the latest text. Call me back NOW!!
Mr Trench had obviously called home already. Which meant the following conversation was going to be awkward.
Jack turned his back on Vivi and the others for a moment, took a deep breath, and pressed ‘Dial’.
His mum’s voice was high-pitched and breathless when she answered. ‘Jack?’
He sighed. ‘Hi, Mum.’
There was a pause. ‘Well?’
‘I … don’t really know what to say.’
‘No, that’s pretty much exactly how I felt!’ said his mum.
‘I guess they called you then.’
‘Yes, and they’re going to send through an email with more details.’
Jack frowned. More details? ‘Wait, w-what sort of details did they give you?’
‘Just the basics. When, where, how much.’
‘How much?’
‘Then there’s the big question, which is whether you want to do it again.’
Do it again? Jack’s brows drew together in confusion. He’d expected the conversation to be weird – but not this weird.
‘It’s your choice, obviously. I don’t want you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But I just think, despite the way things ended up, you actually did have a lot of fun the first time, right?’
Jack couldn’t believe what he was hearing. With the others still talking, he hunched over his phone and whispered, ‘Mum, this is kind of awkward …’
‘Okay. Let’s talk it through properly tonight.’
‘Or … let’s not?’
‘Well, you’ll have to decide sooner or later. But I understand. It’s a lot to think about. But if you do decide to put yourself out there again, we’ll have forms and things to fill out, so we’d want to get onto that asap.’
‘Forms?’
‘Well, you’ll need parental permission. Consent forms. They said they’ll want to film you at school, at home, that kind of thing.’
‘Film me?’ Was he being monitored now?
‘Just a small crew. Then they want you to come on stage.’
‘Um –’
‘I know, it could be a bit full-on with an audience and everything, but it’s not a competition and you won’t be on your own. There’s going to be a whole bunch of you doing it, apparently.’
‘Wait wait wait wait wait,’ said Jack, putting a hand to his forehead. ‘The school wants to film me doing … that?’
Suddenly the others were looking his way. There was a pause on the other end of the phone. ‘Huh? Not the school, Jack.’
‘Well, who?’
‘The Bigwigs people.’
‘Bigwigs?’ said Jack.
‘I told you. They want you to be on the show again. For this reunion thing they’re doing. Didn’t you listen to my message?’
Suddenly the whole conversation made a lot more sense – and had become roughly ten thousand times less disturbing.
‘N-no,’ said Jack, breathing a sigh of relief. ‘No, sorry … I thought you were talking about something … totally different.’
‘What did you think I was – wait a minute, I’ve got another call coming through.’
Jack realised it was probably Mr Trench calling. ‘Don’t answer it!’ he blurted. He’d already suffered through one half of an awkward conversation – he wasn’t sure he could repeat the experience with both sides fully briefed and up to date. ‘T-tell me more,’ he said, desperate to stop her answering the call.
He looked up at the others. ‘Tell me about this Bigwigs thing.’
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.’
Jack found a carrel at the back of the library and slipped his laptop from his backpack.
An online hater. Just the thought of it made him feel jumpy. It was bad enough having Sampson lurking around, talking about Jack’s fatal lack of pubes in front of everyone. Now there was some anonymous weirdo writing stuff about him on the internet. Why now, all of a sudden?
The Year 7s had said they were looking into it. But first Jack wanted to know exactly what was being said about him.
He’d just loaded up the Bigwigs fan forum when he heard a familiar voice from the next carrel. ‘What do you mean, “Search not allowed”?’
Jack rose from his seat and looked over the partition.
‘Philo?’
Philo glanced up from his laptop, looking surprised. ‘Oh! Jack!’ He folded down the laptop screen slightly. ‘Um … hi!’
‘Having a problem?’
‘No,’ said Philo, shrugging. ‘No problem. Just doing some … research.’
This was worrying. ‘What sort of research?’
Philo bit his lip. ‘Nothing.’
Jack sighed. ‘Not more merkins, Philo, please. Not after the trouble the last one got me into.’
Philo closed the laptop and gathered it up off the desk. ‘No, not more merkels, Jack. But I’ve got a good feeling that things might be about to look up for you soon. In the pubes area, I mean! Sorry I can’t stay and chat, though. I’ll be in touch!’
Jack took a deep breath and sat back down. Whatever Philo was up to, it didn’t sound good, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now. He had a hater to track down.
Activity on the Bigwigs forum was building as the new season approached. The hardcore fans obviously knew about the past contestants coming back for some sort of reunion, but there were only guesses about when it might happen – at the start of the new season? Midway through? Just before the finals? There was also fevered speculation about who’d be returning and who wouldn’t.
Jack was tempted to log on and tell the world that he was one ex-Bigwig who definitely wouldn’t be. But then, in a random comment, Jack saw the word ‘Sprogless’ scroll by.
He looked at the username attached to the post.
‘ModLSkillz’.
It didn’t mean anything to him.
I heard that’s what they call him at school. lmao srsly
Jack looked at ModLSkillz’s profile. Whoever they were, they’d been a member of the forum for two years, but had only started posting the day before. Since then, ModLSkillz had written nearly a dozen posts, all in the same underhand, sneering tone, and all with the same target: Jack Sprigley.
Jack closed the laptop and stared blankly at the wall, thinking over what he’d seen.
The only person who’d ever called him ‘Sprogless’ was Oliver Sampson. But surely there was no way Sampson would’ve made an account on the Bigwigs forum two whole years ago. It couldn’t be Sampson. Could it?
Jack met the girls as planned in the far corner of the staff car park. The bell had rung for third period, and the school grounds were slowly emptying again as Upland Secondary’s students and teachers marshalled themselves for the next stretch of the day.