Spurt

by Chris Miles

  Bring back Jack, he thought. Bring back Jack.

  As soon as Jack woke the next morning he hooked his thumb under the elastic on his pyjama bottoms, closed one eye, and peered down into the netherworld under his sheets.

  Still no change.

  He’d hoped that spending his first night in his brand-new bachelor pad might have supercharged his gonads into action. That was the golden scenario: hitting his growth spurt just in time for the Bigwigs cameras to capture his sudden transformation into proper fourteen-year-old manliness.

  But it looked as though he was going to have to fake it after all, and hope that something started to happen gonad-wise in the next few weeks, before the live onstage reunion.

  He’d spent the night before making the bungalow look as spartan and stylish and bachelor pad-ish as possible. Even then, he was worried it didn’t properly signal maturity and sophistication, so he’d snuck out to the 24-hour supermarket on his bike and bought a dozen canisters of shaving cream to put on display in the bungalow’s ensuite.

  ‘There’s no discount for buying twelve,’ the cashier had told him.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ said Jack. ‘Also, can I have a bag?’

  Fake it until you make it. That was something Hope Chanders used to say back on Bigwigs, whenever Blue Team fell short in one of their assignments. She’d had no problem looking straight at the camera during a location piece and spinning some huge lie about how she’d singlehandedly produced her primary school’s newsletter, or that she’d been captain and coach of her Under 12s hockey team, just so she got the project manager gig week after week.

  That was the secret, Jack realised. Sampson seemed to think everyone would spot straightaway that Jack hadn’t changed. But what did Sampson know? He wasn’t the one who’d actually been on the show before. He didn’t know how TV worked. He didn’t know that being on TV meant you could change the way people saw you – as long as you gave the camera the right information.

  Jack hadn’t known that either the first time around. But he knew it now.

  The Bigwigs crew arrived at nine-thirty, pulling up in a rented minibus. There were three of them: a woman in her twenties (Jack guessed) with her hair in a tight ponytail, wearing a skirt, stockings, Converse pumps and a baggy striped cardigan; and two guys in black jeans and black muscle shirts. Jack peered out from behind the front curtain as they unloaded their cameras and lights and sound equipment. One of the guys – the one who was currently in the process of assembling a boom mike, and whose t-shirt was stencilled with heavy metal album artwork – had the sort of beard Jack had only ever seen worn by Jesus, and people who hung out with Jesus.

  Marlene had made herself scarce, heading off early to one of her retirees club lunches. Hallie was either out with Nats and the Shieling twins, or had locked herself in her room – Jack wasn’t sure.

  Jack watched as his mum went out to meet the crew. He wished he’d gone out instead. He realised he’d missed a prime opportunity to present himself as the man of the house. Now he needed to make a proper entrance when the crew stepped through the front door. Jack sped away to the back of the house, out through the glass door. He rushed into the bungalow, made straight for the ensuite, pawed half of the canisters of shaving cream into the crook of his arm, and raced back into the house again.

  Adele was showing the crew into the kitchen just as Jack made his breathless return to the house.

  ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ve been getting through these like nobody’s business,’ he loudly declared, tipping the canisters into the kitchen bin. ‘Shaving cream,’ he added, in case it hadn’t been obvious. He looked around at the crew and suddenly noticed how much more bristly and velvety and basically frightening the sound guy’s beard was up close. He wondered how much shaving cream it would take to get through that.

  The woman in the striped cardigan and Converse stood up and held out her hand.

  ‘Hi Jack, I’m Delilah. Delilah Trick.’ She gestured to her crew. ‘This is Todd, and over there with the camera is Brett.’

  Jack tore his eyes away from Todd’s beard and shook Delilah’s hand firmly. He gave her a brisk, manly nod. ‘Delilah. Don’t remember the name. New to Bigwigs?’

  ‘I am! This is my first year on the show.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m an old hand. Been around the Bigwigs block a few times. Stick with me, kiddo: you’ll be right.’

  There was an awkward silence. Todd and Brett exchanged glances.

  Delilah looked slightly baffled. ‘Well … thanks. Thanks Jack, I’ll do that. You know, it’s so great to be bringing you back to Bigwigs. I was just saying, we were watching some of your clips on the flight here, getting up to speed. I was backpacking through South America when your season of Bigwigs was on so I missed it the first time around. You were brilliant! And you’ve hardly changed at all! This is going to be great!’

  Great? thought Jack. His very first face-to-face contact with anyone from Bigwigs and they’d spotted within seconds that he was still the same Jack Sprigley from two years ago.

  Adele set about making coffees for Delilah and her two-man crew. Delilah checked her phone for messages. ‘It’d be great if I could get onto your wifi, Adele?’

  ‘There’s wifi out in the pad,’ said Jack, nonchalantly. ‘Five bars.’

  Delilah seemed to remember something. ‘Right!’ she said. ‘Your mum was saying you have your own bungalow out the back. That’s so cool! Maybe that’s where we should do the first piece-to-camera?’

  Excellent, thought Jack. He needed to make a good first impression.

  This part, at least, was going to plan.

  Jack had left the ensuite door open wide enough that the remaining shaving cream canisters could be seen sitting in the bathroom cabinet. He checked out where Brett the cameraman was setting up, hoping the canisters would be in shot.

  ‘So, Jack, we never actually got your questionnaire back,’ said Delilah, glancing at her phone. ‘About how things have changed since Bigwigs.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Jack. ‘It’s just … there were too many changes for one questionnaire, really. I mean, obviously there’s this …’ He gestured around the bungalow.

  Delilah looked around, swiftly scrutinising every corner like a detective gathering evidence. She turned back to Jack. ‘You know, Piers Blain is about to move into his own place too.’

  ‘Is he?’ Jack rolled his eyes. ‘About time! Seriously, the first thing I did after Bigwigs was spend my prize money on fixing this place up –’ (Totally true, he thought to himself.) ‘– and then I moved straight in.’ (Totally not true, he thought to himself.) ‘Yeah, I’ve been doing the bachelor pad thing for quite a while now.’ He paused. ‘Wait, you’re filming this?’

  Brett nodded.

  Jack didn’t remember the camera lens seeming so intimidating, like it was peering into his soul. He must have got used to it quickly, the first time. He’d been able to be himself. That wasn’t an option this time.

  ‘So … this bachelor pad business. Tell us more about that.’

  They’d been filming in stops and starts for half an hour. Delilah had started off chirpy and interested, but Jack got the feeling she was starting to get bored.

  ‘Um …’ He looked around the room, trying to think of something interesting to say.

  ‘I guess I’m thinking more of the “bachelor” part,’ said Delilah. ‘I’m sure everyone will want to know: is Jack Sprigley looking for love? Or is there already someone on the scene?’

  Jack thought of Amit Gondra and Jessica Grouth. He thought of his unexpected encounter the day before. ‘Well, it’s early days …’

  Delilah looked searchingly at him and smiled. ‘But?’

  Jack started to sweat. ‘But … yeah? There … might be someone?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Delilah, conspiratorially, her interest suddenly sparked. ‘And does this mystery girl or boy have a name?’

  ‘Her name,’ said Jack. ‘You want to know her name. Well,
that’s kind of an interesting story … because … actually, I know it seems weird, but she doesn’t technically have a name.’

  Todd and Brett turned to each other. Delilah raised her eyebrows. ‘She doesn’t have a name?’

  Jack mentally face-palmed himself. ‘No, I mean, obviously she does have a name. That would be … insane, if she didn’t. So the name, that she has, is … well, it’s Nats.’ He cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘Natsumi.’

  ‘Natsumi?’ Delilah tapped something into her phone. ‘I have to say, Jack, that’s quite a long way from not having a name! It’s actually a very interesting name.’

  ‘Yep,’ said Jack, nodding in agreement. ‘It is an interesting name.’ What’s particularly interesting, he thought, is how I just said it out loud. On camera. For the whole country to eventually hear. He leant towards Delilah and whispered, ‘Off the record, you’re not going to use all the stuff we’re filming here, right?’

  Delilah shrugged. ‘Somehow or other we probably will. You know how this works. Obviously we’ll do some cutting –’

  ‘Maybe you could just cut all of it!’ Jack suggested with a laugh. He noticed the camera was still rolling.

  ‘Why?’ said Delilah, frowning. ‘It’s going great! We’re getting to know you! Maybe Natsumi would like to be on camera at some stage too?’

  Jack was sure she would. But being wrongfully outed as a fourteen-year-old’s pretend girlfriend probably wasn’t what she had in mind.

  ‘The bachelor pad thing is really cool, by the way. It’s like you’re a feudal lord in your castle.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Well, it’s a big responsibility, being man of the house. And a burden, I guess, if I’m being honest. I kind of need my man-space. So I can do my … man-things.’

  ‘But you’d rather you didn’t have to?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘What I mean is, do you feel like you’ve had to grow up too fast? Because of your dad not being around? You said it felt like a burden.’

  Jack swallowed. He hadn’t expected Delilah to ask about his dad. He hoped it wasn’t going to be like Bigwigs season one, with the whole sob-story angle. He tried to play it cool. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s true. I guess I have grown up fast. That’ll be … pretty obvious to everyone watching this, I hope. But a burden?’ He tried to look reflective. ‘Only in the sense of having a lot more to carry downstairs all of a sudden, if you know what I mean.’

  Delilah glanced around the room, as if searching for a trapdoor somewhere. ‘There’s a downstairs?’

  ‘You know what? Forget I said that. The point is, I’m okay with it. Stepping up. Being the man of the house. It’s all good.’

  An image of his dad’s dressing gown and slippers flashed into Jack’s head. He froze. His throat went tight. No, it wasn’t all good at all. The times when he did stop to think about it, he couldn’t decide what was worse: his dad being gone, and how much that hurt, or the fact that sometimes he let himself forget. Either way, the camera was still on him. He had to keep faking it.

  ‘So there hasn’t been anyone else? Your mum hasn’t …’

  Delilah must have noticed Jack trying to look away from the camera, trying to wriggle out from under the glassy stare of the lens.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to …’ She glanced at Todd and Brett. ‘I think we can wrap up there for now.’

  Jack was relieved to see the red light on the camera switch to black. He asked Delilah if she had everything she needed.

  Delilah bunched her mouth up, looking apologetic. ‘I’d kind of like to get some more vision of you around the house, with your family, if that’s okay? I’m thinking, for dinner: do you usually have a sit-down meal or –’

  ‘Probably a barbecue,’ said Jack, without thinking.

  ‘A barbecue?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit of a weekend tradition. Me, cooking snags on the barbie. It turns out I’m quite the tong-master.’

  Delilah turned to her crew. ‘We could film a barbecue. Yeah, that could actually work out well. Nice visual.’

  ‘Great,’ said Jack through a tight smile. ‘That’s … really great that we’re doing that.’ He nodded, and clapped his hands together. ‘Well. I guess we’ll be needing sausages.’

  Jack had tried to suggest that a visit to the supermarket to get sausages possibly wasn’t exactly what Bigwigs fans would be craving when they tuned in to the big reunion special, but Delilah said they needed all the vision they could get. ‘It’s all part of the story,’ she’d told him.

  He had to pretend to pay for the sausages four times for the camera. The first time, the cashier had giggled nervously and ruined the shot; the second time, Jack fumbled his change and dropped it all over the floor; and the third time, old Davo had wandered past in his green-and-gold silk tracksuit, stuck his head into the shot and shouted, ‘What are ya doin’, buyin’ sausages, are ya?’

  With the sausages finally secured, Delilah had asked Jack if they could get some footage of him walking down the main street. Luckily, because it was Sunday, the main street was relatively free of onlookers. Those who did crowd around were expertly kept at bay by Delilah, without them actually noticing they were being kept at bay. They gazed at Jack with mild awe, as though the fact that he had a camera pointed at him meant that he couldn’t possibly be an ordinary mortal.

  Embarrassing as it was, Jack also kind of enjoyed the feeling it brought back: the feeling of being big. It was exactly why he’d signed on to do the reunion show. To show everyone he was bigger than –

  ‘Sampson!’ said Jack, stopping dead in his tracks.

  Delilah’s ears seemed to prick. Brett looked up from his viewfinder. Whispers spread through the small crowd.

  Sampson had stepped out of the newsagent two doors down and was staring over at Jack and the crew. Jack noted with a satisfied smirk that he looked slightly daunted by the sight of the camera and the boom mike.

  Delilah seemed to be assessing the situation. She nodded at Brett, who hoisted his camera up again and focused on the viewfinder.

  ‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Delilah.

  Jack realised he needed to get the upper hand quickly. He took a deep breath, remembering what the Year 7 girls had told him about Sampson trying to get onto Bigwigs the year after Jack – and failing.

  ‘We’re just starting to know each other!’ he said. ‘Starting to get to know a-l-l kinds of things about each other.’

  ‘I … know Jack from school,’ Sampson mumbled. ‘High school … and primary school.’

  Jack found it hard to remember that Sampson had even been to primary school, he’d seemed fully grown for so long.

  ‘Oh!’ said Delilah. ‘So you’d probably remember Jack being on Bigwigs?’

  Sampson shook his head. ‘Never watched it.’

  Lies, thought Jack. ‘Oh, you really missed out,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve seen some of the old contestants on TV, though,’ said Sampson, sounding more confident all of a sudden. He narrowed his eyes at Jack cunningly. ‘You know, Piers Blain on YouTube and stuff. And Hope Chanders is a VJ on ‘Chart-urday Morning’, right? Wow, they’ve all gone on to bigger and better things, haven’t they? Well, most of them.’

  Delilah tapped something into her phone. ‘What was your name again?’

  ‘Sampson. Oliver Sampson.’

  Jack realised that Sampson had probably dreamt of saying his name in front of the Bigwigs cameras. He wondered if this was how he’d always pictured it.

  ‘So, Oliver: were you surprised when Jack didn’t show up on our screens again after Bigwigs?’

  Sampson snorted. ‘No. I wasn’t surprised at all.’

  Jack glanced back and forth down the street. He needed a Davo to ruin the take. He turned to Brett behind the camera. ‘H-how’s the battery going there, chief? We’ve done so much filming already it’s bound to be running low –’

  ‘We’re good,’ said Brett.

  ‘We might stop there anyway
,’ said Delilah. ‘But Oliver, can I get some details from you? You’re under sixteen, right?’

  Come on, thought Jack. He doesn’t look that old. Then he thought for a moment longer and realised that, yes, Sampson actually did look that old.

  Sampson nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ said Delilah. ‘In that case, I’ll need to forward a release form to a parent or guardian.’

  Delilah quizzed Sampson to get his address. Jack felt a stab of fear, mixed with a pang of something else. Maybe … jealousy?

  He hadn’t counted on Sampson barging into his Bigwigs shoot like this. Jack hoped he hadn’t just given Sampson exactly what he wanted.

  Jack’s mum had some bad news when Jack and the others returned home from the sausage-buying mission.

  ‘How can we not own a barbecue?’ said Jack.

  Adele held out her hands.

  ‘I don’t know how to answer that! If you’d told me that was what you were doing, instead of being Mr “I’m In Charge”, I could have warned you!’ She looked in the supermarket bag sitting on the kitchen bench. ‘And why did you buy five kilos of sausages?’

  ‘It’s okay, Bigwigs paid for it.’

  ‘It’s not about who paid for it. We’re never going to get through that many sausages! I can barely convince Hallie to eat anything these days.’

  ‘Delilah said we might need extra, in case they don’t get the footage they need. They’re basically stunt sausages.’

  Adele sighed. ‘Well, you’ll have to just cook them on the stove inside.’

  ‘Not exactly “man conquers nature”, is it?’ said Jack.

  Adele’s face softened. She looked at Jack as though she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind.

  ‘I think there’s an old camping stove in the shed,’ she said, finally.

  Brett and Todd waited around while Delilah made some phone calls from the van out the front. Jack rummaged in the kitchen cupboards for a frying pan large enough to cook the apparently excessive number of sausages he’d bought, but not so large that it would crush the legs of the flimsy kerosene burner beneath it. Meanwhile, the manliest apron he’d been able to find had orange and white diagonal stripes across it and reached all the way down to his shins.