‘Ah, Sprigley. I’ve been looking through your file.’

Mr Trench was Upland Secondary’s vice principal and student counsellor. Before coming to work at the school, he’d been in the army reserve. Jack secretly doubted that Mr Trench was trained in anything even resembling twenty-first century counselling techniques. The only techniques he seemed to be trained in were techniques for exploding things at various distances.

‘Close the door and sit down.’

Jack had never been in this kind of trouble before. He sat down in the chair opposite Mr Trench before his legs turned to soup beneath him.

‘Now,’ said Mr Trench, looking up from his desk. ‘I gather you’ve been caught abusing yourself in the student centre.’

Jack felt his face burn red with embarrassment. ‘No!’

‘Well, obviously you were caught, or you wouldn’t be here.’

‘But I wasn’t abusing myself!’

‘Wasn’t abusing myself, sir,’ said Mr Trench. ‘The point is, Sprigley, you were doing something – and doing it quite vigorously, as I understand it.’

Jack felt sick. Vivi. Sampson. Nats. They’d all seen it. ‘No, sir. I definitely wasn’t.’

‘Mr Jacobs and Ms Liaw seem pretty certain you were. Mrs Hogarth was so disturbed by the news she’s been forced to relocate her lunchtime Zumba class.’

Jack couldn’t stand it anymore. ‘Sir, I swear, nothing happened. The truth is … nothing could have happened.’

Mr Trench fixed his gaze on him. ‘Explain.’

Jack hesitated, wondering exactly how he was going to communicate his embarrassing private details to a man who was so prehistoric that he probably thought women shouldn’t be allowed to drive cars.

Jack swallowed. ‘Well, sir … the thing is, physically, I haven’t actually … got that far. You know, down below.’

Mr Trench seemed genuinely confused. His fuzzy eyebrows bunched together. ‘But you’ve got all the right arsenal, haven’t you?’

Jack paused. He wasn’t totally on board with the increasingly personal and military-themed direction in which the conversation was headed.

‘Now, don’t be coy,’ said Mr Trench. ‘It’s a sign of maturity to talk about these matters openly and honestly.’

Or at least in army metaphors, thought Jack. He struggled to think of something to say, some answer that wouldn’t be horribly embarrassing – but Mr Trench had already picked up the phone.

‘Bear with me, Sprigley, I’m going to have to call in reinforcements on this one.’

Reinforcements? thought Jack.

‘Hello? Yes, it’s Rodney Trench here. I’ve got Jack Sprigley from 8C with me. Have I come through to Ms Porter?’

Jack buried his head in his hands. Ms Porter had started at the school at the beginning of the year. Unlike the previous Health Ed teacher, she was young enough to potentially remember what sex was actually like. Which meant there was at least one desperate attempt each class from one or another of the Year 8 boys to get her to supply anecdotes from her own personal history.

‘Right,’ said Mr Trench, speaking into the phone. ‘Well, I wonder if you might help me clarify something. It’s concerning the physical development of the typical adolescent male.’

Jack barely registered what Mr Trench was saying as he discussed the ins and outs (mostly outs) of what was normal for a fourteen-year-old boy. He stopped listening altogether after he heard the words ‘Sprigley here insists he’s totally lacking in ammunition’.

‘I see,’ said Mr Trench, nodding thoughtfully. ‘Thank you.’ He put the phone down and turned to Jack. ‘Well, then. According to the intelligence I’ve just received, there are two commonly accepted markers that indicate whether a boy is, in fact, on the path to being a man. One: the testicles begin to enlarge. Two: the target acquires what’s known as “pubic hair”.’ He paused. ‘So. Sprigley. Any testicular enlargement to report? Any “pubic hair” on the radar?’

‘Negative, sir. I mean, no. Sir.’

‘Well, let’s not abandon hope. You’re sure to experience the opening salvos of “Operation: Manhood” sooner or later.’

‘Well, if Ms Porter says so.’

‘Ms Porter? No, she wasn’t available as it happens.’

Jack frowned. ‘Then … who were you talking to just now?’

‘Good question. I could hear some vacuuming going on in the background, so it might have been one of the cleaners.’

So it’s worse than my private business being discussed with the Sex Ed teacher, thought Jack. It’s being discussed with the cleaning staff. The younger of whom, according to Jack’s sister, Hallie, sometimes bought alcohol for the Year 11s and hung out with the Year 12s, trading school gossip.

Mr Trench regarded Jack for a moment. ‘I can see you’re concerned, Sprigley. And perhaps quite rightly. So what if I were to suggest something that might help you advance the front line, so to speak?’

Jack had a feeling things were about to get even weirder.

‘Manhood, you see, is not something that just happens. It’s something that has to be taken charge of. There’s a whole army of male sex hormones lying idle within you, Sprigley. An undisciplined rabble just waiting for a general to marshal them into action. It’s you who must lead the charge. You must act like a man in order to become a man.’ Mr Trench peered over his glasses at the papers on his desk. He picked them up and shuffled them nervously for a moment. ‘Now, I see from your file that you might be … well, let’s say, “lacking a strong male influence”. Your father, I gather he – ?’

‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘When I was eight.’

There was silence for a moment. ‘And … what did he do?’ Mr Trench looked down at the paper again. ‘“Peter”.’

‘He did the weather report on the local news,’ said Jack.

Mr Trench frowned. Jack couldn’t tell if he was trying to offer sympathy, or if he was just disappointed that Jack’s dad hadn’t been a policeman or firefighter or a tank commander or something.

When he was very young, Jack thought his dad actually controlled the weather – that the forecast he read out at the end of the news each night was a heavenly pronouncement. That he had the power to clear the skies or summon the rain or hurl down thunderbolts like a god. The story had passed into family lore: a little in-joke that had briefly lifted the mood at the funeral.

Then Jack had made the mistake of mentioning it on camera during Bigwigs, and the producers had run the clip over and over whenever they needed a contestant sob story. It didn’t matter how many workplace challenges he led his team through; every time they played that stupid clip, it made him look like a dumb kid who believed his dad had superhuman powers.

‘Terrible business,’ said Mr Trench, after a pause. ‘But what makes the situation all the more tragic is the way this “modern” world denies young chaps like yourself a clear-cut path from boyhood to manhood. That’s why I founded the Lionheart Tigerwolf Self-Discovery Adventure Camp. Haven’t looked back. Every month we go off camping in the Woodrose State Forest – sons, fathers, grandfathers – and hunt and fish and wrestle and just generally get in touch with our inner animal.’

‘Lionheart Tigerwolf?’ said Jack. ‘That’s a lot of inner animals to get in touch with, sir.’

Mr Trench opened his drawer and held up a sheet of paper. ‘Sign-up form’s right here if you’re interested.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Jack.

‘Very well,’ said Mr Trench. ‘In the meantime, there’s still the matter of this morning’s incident in the student centre. You seem to be claiming it was a misunderstanding. So answer me this, Sprigley: if you weren’t gratifying yourself in front of your fellow pupils, what exactly were you doing?’

Jack sighed. ‘I was getting my phone out of my pocket. That’s all. But something got stuck to my hand.’

‘Stuck to your hand?’

Jack realised he faced a dilemma. If he wanted to acquit himself of the public masturbation charge, he had to introduce Exhibit A: Pube Wig. ‘P-pardon?’ he said, playing for time.

‘What was it that got stuck to your hand?’

Jack took a long deep breath. Things were already embarrassing enough without him pulling a homemade pubic thatch from his pocket. What sorts of embarrassing questions would Mr Trench ask then? And as angry as Jack was with Philo for introducing the fateful merkin to his life, he didn’t want to get the heir to Sultana World in trouble.

‘I take it all back,’ said Jack. ‘It wasn’t a misunderstanding. I actually was … doing what you said. Gratifying myself.’

Mr Trench gazed at him across the desk, his expression unreadable. Then he looked down, shuffled the papers on his desk, and said, ‘Oh well.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘Nothing to be ashamed of.’

‘P-pardon?’ Jack said again, hardly believing what he’d heard.

Mr Trench shrugged. ‘As I said, manhood is something you must take into your own hands. In future, though, try not to take that advice quite so literally.’

‘So … does that mean I can go?’

‘Permission granted. No disciplinary action required – though we will have to contact your mother, as a matter of formality.’

‘Really?’

‘I’m afraid so. Until then, Sprigley, it’s between you and me.’

And the junior school’s best and brightest, thought Jack. And the staff-room cleaners, thanks to Mr Trench. And, if Hallie was right about the alcohol-buying thing, possibly all of senior school.

Not that it mattered who heard it now. Vivi had been right there in front of him.

Finally, Jack had proved to her that he really was too embarrassing to stay friends with.