Spurt (27 page)

‘Wait, Nats said she doesn’t want to be on TV anymore?’

Hallie nodded.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, exactly. Maybe you should ask her.’

‘Really?’ said Jack. ‘You’d be okay with that?’

Hallie had shrugged and pulled out her phone. ‘Need her number?’

Jack had tried to look nonchalant. ‘Already got it.’ Then he remembered wiping it after bailing on the festival. ‘Wait! I deleted it.’ He gave a knowing smile. ‘Lovers’ tiff.’

Hallie rolled her eyes. ‘Oh god.’

Jack had texted Nats later that day. To his surprise, she’d called him right back. ‘Jack! Don’t tell me I’m speaking to you live from the
Bigwigs
studio?’

When Jack had told her the filming for the reunion episode was still a few days away, Nats had asked him if he was feeling nervous. The truth was, he wasn’t sure
what
he felt. He hadn’t seen the footage Delilah had cut together at that point. Until he saw that, he wouldn’t know if he’d succeeded in turning himself into the man he’d wanted everyone to think he was.

Not that he was too worried about measuring up to the other Bigwigs anymore. Or anyone else. He was more worried about measuring up to the Jack he’d been before.

‘Anyway, it wasn’t
Bigwigs
I wanted to talk to you about,’ said Jack. ‘I wanted to apologise. For the whole “fake girlfriend” thing. Vivi was right. I was kind of treating you like a prize, instead of an actual person.’

There was silence on the other end of the line.

‘Hallie says you’re giving up on the TV presenter dream?’ said Jack, wondering if she was still there.

‘Not giving it up, exactly,’ said Nats after a moment. ‘More like, giving it second thoughts. Actually, I’m kind of glad I never got my big moment on camera at the festival.’

‘Again,’ insisted Jack, ‘
really
sorry about that whole thing. I know how embarrassing it would have been, pretending to be going out with a Year 8 and having it recorded
on film
.’

‘No,’ said Nats. ‘It’s not that. I mean, yes, obviously that would have made me a total laughing stock –’

(
Could have given that a
little
sugar-coating
, thought Jack.)

‘But the thing is, Jack, once people see you a certain way, it turns out it’s pretty hard to convince them you’re actually something else. If I do end up on TV, I want to make sure it’s the
real
Nats that people are seeing. Not the fake one.’

The next day, when Delilah had skyped Jack to show him the package she was putting together, Nats’s words had still been echoing in his head.

Jack realised his mum was still talking to him.

‘You’d better get a move on,’ she said, getting ready to turn the keys again. ‘It’s nearly seven o’clock.’

Jack sat there for a moment, not moving. ‘It’s weird. He probably never thought I’d end up being on TV, like him.’

‘Your dad?’

Jack nodded. ‘He never got to see me turn into who I am now.’

‘No. But the Jack you are now isn’t so different from the Jack you were then. And I think you’ve already figured out that’s not such a bad thing.’

Jack collected himself, then slid out of the car with a snack-laden backpack slung over his shoulder and a large brown paper gift bag in his hand. ‘Thanks for the lift,’ he said. He shut the door, poked his head through the open window and, with a goofy look on his face, added, ‘Enjoy the big show!’

His mum narrowed her eyes. ‘You haven’t told them, have you?’

Jack didn’t answer.

Sampson had dragged an old couch and some beanbags into the garage and set them up in front of the big-screen TV. The garage had been his bedroom for the past two years. He’d been banished from the house when his early growth spurt had hit, like a monster locked away in a dungeon.

Vivi, Reese and Darylyn were on the couch, haggling over the pizza menu. Philo poured Sultana World Sparkling Soda into plastic cups.

‘That’s a Skyhawk Gladiator,’ said Sampson, pointing to a model fighter jet with a pair of giant torpedoes bolted beneath its wings. The model sat on a shelf in an old metal locker, along with dozens of other planes, cars and tanks, all painstakingly painted and assembled.

‘These are really good,’ said Jack.

‘Thanks,’ said Sampson. ‘That was what I wrote down on my
Bigwigs
application. “Model skills”. But I had to stop building them after … you know.’ He held up his hands. ‘Couldn’t get through a single kit without snapping a wing or busting an axle.’ He paused. ‘That’s why I never made it on to
Bigwigs
, I think. They must have taken one look at my photos and decided I looked too old.’

Jack thought back to the start of Year 7, when all the guys in the changing room had gazed up at Sampson in awe. Except he was starting to understand that maybe it didn’t feel like that to Sampson. All Sampson would have felt was
different
.

‘I haven’t told anyone this,’ said Jack. ‘But when I got sent home from
Bigwigs
in the first week of the finals? It wasn’t because Hope Chanders got more ringtone downloads than I did. They flat-out told me. They said I wasn’t “right”.’

‘What does that mean?’

Jack shrugged. ‘I guess they already knew who they wanted. Because it wasn’t just about
Bigwigs
: it was about everything that comes after. They wanted someone who could be the face of
Bigwigs
forever. Someone not too old, but not too young, either. Someone who’d “grown” as a contestant, so they had a story to tell.’

Sampson shook his head. ‘Neither of us ever stood a chance.’ He checked his watch. ‘Okay, time to log on to the forum. Part of the whole pre-show ritual. By the way, thanks for not telling the others about those stupid posts I made. And, also, thanks for not getting too pissed about all those stupid posts I made.’

‘Didn’t take any notice,’ said Jack with a shrug. ‘Though if it wasn’t for those posts on the forum, I probably wouldn’t have found out you’d been rejected from
Bigwigs
, so I probably wouldn’t have signed on for the reunion show and been a jerk to lots of people and had a pair of giant testicles dangled in front of my face with the whole town watching. But whatever.’

Sampson nodded absent-mindedly. ‘Cool,’ he said, then went to find his laptop.

‘Look at you two, best of friends all of a sudden.’

Jack turned to see Vivi standing behind him. In her hands was a pair of plastic cups full of Philo’s fizzy purple liquid.

‘This stuff is gross, by the way,’ she said, handing him a cup.

‘Speaking of gross,’ said Jack, taking a sniff, ‘that’s pretty much how I’ve been acting lately. Especially to you. Which is why …’ Jack opened up the brown gift bag he’d been holding on to since he arrived, and reached inside. ‘Just some civic regalia. To say sorry.’

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.