by Chris Miles
He handed Vivi a set of mayoral robes. He’d had them made by the same seamstress Delilah had used to sew Jack and Sampson’s balloons for the festival – but he’d made sure to be very, very specific about the design.
‘You were right,’ he said. ‘I totally stole Mayor for a Week from you. And it was selfish. And self-serving. And back-stabbing. All true.’
Vivi laughed and pulled the robes over her head. ‘I love them! I should have worn these to the luncheon.’ She must have noticed Jack looking confused. ‘The Mayor for a Week luncheon?’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise, but Natsumi Distagio does this thing each year where she hires out a room in one of her dad’s restaurants and invites all the past Mayors for a Week.’ She paused. ‘I just figured you weren’t there because you’d already flown down to film the Bigwigs thing.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Totally. Bummed I couldn’t make it. But, you know. Already had my hands full …’
Vivi brushed down her new mayoral robes. ‘I think I might’ve misjudged Nats, actually. Turns out it was her idea to have an essay competition to choose the Mayor for a Week this year. She felt like it was all too much of a popularity contest. I think I probably owe her an apology.’ She looked up at Jack. ‘And while we’re talking apologies … there’s one other thing you haven’t said sorry for.’
‘What’s that?’
Vivi fixed him with a stare. ‘Ditching me over the holidays.’
Jack opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish who’s just heard something particularly gobsmacking. ‘Wait – what? I didn’t ditch you! You guys all ditched me!’
‘Well, yeah, Reese and Darylyn were always going to drop off the radar, once it was obvious they’d hooked up.’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘That … obvious thing that happened.’ He paused. ‘So when did you figure that out, exactly?’
‘Hmm … halfway through last term, maybe?’
‘Oh,’ said Jack, doing his best to look surprised and sympathetic. ‘That late, huh? I guess I am pretty good at picking up on these things …’
‘So that wasn’t why you were avoiding me over the holidays, then? I thought you might have been … worried.’
‘Worried about what?’
‘That … everyone would make the obvious assumption?’
Jack looked at her blankly.
Vivi rolled her eyes. ‘You know. Four of us. Four divides into two pairs. Reese and Darylyn make one pair, so …’
Jack felt his cheeks turn red. All he managed to say was ‘Um’ – and even that took him a few attempts.
Vivi shrugged. ‘But then we had that chat in home room when school came back and it turned out we were all cool with the way things were, and then Sampson started hanging out with us and four became five, and you can’t divide five into pairs, so the numbers didn’t point so obviously to … you know. All that stuff.’
‘That stuff,’ said Jack, nodding in furious agreement.
‘Which is something I’m definitely not ready for,’ said Vivi, firmly.
‘S-o-o-o-o not ready,’ said Jack. ‘I mean, if you measured how ready I am for that stuff, I’d be, like, zero per cent ready. I guess what I’m saying is, if the standard unit of measurement for that stuff was, like, pubes? I’d be a total baldy-balls. In terms of readiness. For that stuff.’
Vivi frowned. ‘You know that’s a really weird thing to measure anything by, right?’
Jack grinned. ‘I’m starting to realise that, yeah.’
‘Dudes!’ Reese called out. ‘It’s starting!’
The frenzied blare of the pre-show commercial break gave way to the blaring frenzy of the new Bigwigs intro. Everyone gathered around the TV.
Jack settled back on the couch next to Vivi. His heart was beating fast. The moment had finally come.
None of them knew what was about to happen. None of them seemed to have figured it out.
None of them seemed to realise they were about to see a completely different Jack.
Sampson sat perched on a pair of beanbags, laptop resting on his knees, staring open-mouthed at the TV. ‘What the hell?’
‘Dude …’ said Reese.
‘Where were you?’ said Vivi.
‘Bigwigs sucks,’ said Darylyn.
‘They cut you out!’ said Sampson. ‘They completely cut you out!’
‘What are you talking about?’ said Philo. ‘Jack won the whole thing, didn’t you see? They put him on the Bigwigs Board! It all turned for the best!’
Reese turned to him. ‘Dude, that was Piers Blain.’
‘“WHERE WAS JACK?! WHERE WAS JACK?”’ Sampson read aloud from the laptop. ‘Huh. At least they’re not attacking me this time. Some of those emojis were really mean.’ He read from the screen again. ‘“Also, Bigwigs is all different now and we don’t like it. We don’t even care that our stupid parents wouldn’t let us go and be in the audience. We’re watching Junior Animal Surgeons now, which is way cooler and has horses.”’
Vivi shook her head. ‘I can’t believe they put you through all that stress and flew you down and didn’t even include you in the show. Not even a mention! Did you know they were going to do that?’
‘Guys,’ said Jack. ‘It’s all cool. I skyped with Delilah last week, and she showed me the footage she’d been editing. They’d turned me into a completely different Jack. I looked like the biggest man in town. And that was when I decided.’
The others looked at each other.
‘Decided what?’ said Vivi.
‘That it wasn’t me. That I didn’t want to fake it after all. I didn’t want to be a completely different Jack. So I pulled out. I didn’t do the reunion show. I’m done with being a Bigwig.’
‘You what?’ cried Sampson.
‘Um, didn’t you sign a contract?’ said Darylyn.
‘Delilah found a loophole,’ said Jack. ‘She realised there might have been a problem anyway, as soon as she saw me on Skype.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Vivi, looking stunned. ‘What problem?’
Jack’s ears felt warm. ‘Well, she wasn’t sure it would match. All the stuff we filmed. She thought people might … notice.’
‘Dude, notice what?’ said Reese.
‘Just that, since the start of filming, I guess I’d kind of started to … change?’
In retrospect, Jack thought, I probably should have waited until after the Skype call to do the unscheduled pube check.
But there it had been. The proof. The dash was underway. The charge had begun.
The cork had finally popped.
Jack scratched his neck nervously as the others tilted their heads and looked him up and down.
‘Oh yeah,’ said Darylyn. ‘I guess so.’
A less than monumental silence followed. Jack couldn’t believe it.
‘You didn’t even notice that I’ve finally hit my growth spurt? You really weren’t paying any attention to how far behind I was from the rest of you?’
‘I was.’
‘Apart from Sampson?’
Reese shrugged. ‘Dude, we’ve all had our own stuff going on.’
‘Wait,’ said Vivi. ‘So if you didn’t fly down to do the reunion show, and you didn’t come to the Mayor for a Week luncheon, what exactly have you been doing this whole time?’
Jack paused. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, that’s no biggie. I just took a few days off school. Things have been pretty crazy lately, so –’
‘You didn’t even tell us?’ said Reese.
‘Seriously,’ said Sampson. ‘You guys are the worst at communicating with each other.’
Jack held his hands out defensively. ‘Guys, what can I say? I was busy.’
Vivi narrowed her eyes. ‘What kind of busy?
Jack pretended he hadn’t heard the question. ‘Huh?’
‘I said, what kind of busy? What were you doing all week?’
Jack feigned innocence. ‘Nothing.’
‘You were doing literally nothing,’ said Vivi.
Jack shrugged. ‘Yeah. Pretty much. Just, you know. Taking stock.’
Sampson sniggered. ‘Yeah. Taking stock of your balls.’
‘Dude,’ said Reese. ‘That doesn’t even make sense.’
Darylyn stared at Jack, wide-eyed.
Vivi wore a freaked out ‘ew’ face. ‘Is that true?’ she said.
Philo seemed to have tuned out of the whole conversation, but then he turned to Vivi and said, ‘Is what true?’
‘Nothing,’ said Jack.
Philo nodded thoughtfully. ‘Interesting philosophical point you’ve raised there.’
Sampson sniggered again. ‘Speaking of points being raised.’
‘Sampson, you’re so immature,’ said Vivi.
‘Let’s just forget the whole thing,’ said Jack. ‘Bigwigs is over and done with, I tried to get Sampson out of a tricky situation by accepting who I am, I’ve made my apologies, everyone’s friends again, and nobody’s been shut away in their room masturbating for days on end.’
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the sound of Reese saying ‘Dude …’ under his breath.
Jack blinked. ‘I said “masturbating”, didn’t I?’
Everyone nodded.
Well I guess that’s that, thought Jack.
Things hadn’t really changed that much. This was how it was going to be.
Now that he’d hit the big time.
Thanks to my commissioning editor Marisa Pintado for her wit, wiles and wisdom in nudging me towards writing a ‘straight’ book instead of something with, you know, aliens in it. Thanks also to Karri Hedge, Sarah Magee, Niki Horin and everyone else at Hardie Grant Egmont for their commitment to and enthusiasm for this book. It is extraordinarily humbling.
Thanks to Myke Bartlett, Leanne Hall and Andrew McDonald for workshopping get-togethers, invaluable advice and writerly chats. You guys are like Bigwigs of the YA world to me. To desk-sharing writer-buddies Mat Larkin and Andrew McDonald (no relation to the previous Andrew McDonald, except for the fact that they are the same person), thanks for keeping me honest and indulging my cravings for Lebanese pies.
Thanks to television’s Kynan Barker and Josie Steele for invaluable early notes about ‘the biz’ (including patiently explaining that nobody really calls it ‘the biz’).
Thanks to Simon Haines, Cristina Pink-Charlton and Sabdha Pink-Charlton for reading early versions of Jack’s adventures and kindly refraining from saying terrible things about them.
Thanks to Jeremy Daly for dipping into his seemingly bottomless well of knowledge and producing the Calypso War phenomenon that Reese tells Jack about, and to Chris Gemmill for advising me on the logistics of modern Phys Ed. Thanks also to Peter Anderson for helping me choose the right wheels for Collinson Wade – a character who alas did not make the final draft. (Hopefully he will park his rented SsangYong Chairman in a future tale.)
Thanks to my mum and my late dad, my sister and my daughter, for putting up with a son, a brother and a father who spent – and spends – way too much time in his own head.
And lastly, everlasting thanks to Nikki for being my companion on this long road to publication – and more importantly, my companion on the journey toward the getting of wisdom, and everything else that lies ahead.
Spurt
published in Australia in 2014 by
Hardie Grant Egmont
Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street
Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia
www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au
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eISBN 9781743582381
Text copyright © 2014 Chris Miles
Cover design copyright © Hardie Grant Egmont
Cover illustration and design by Mike Jacobsen
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