Jack stared at himself in the ensuite mirror. He held his skinny, bare arms out in front of himself, and wondered if Delilah could buy him some muscle powder from the chemists, to really complete his onscreen transformation.

She kept telling him how great the firing range and fishing boat stuff was going to look on TV. And he did feel different, somehow. When he’d laid hands on the rifle and the fishing rod, it felt a bit like taking hold of a flame passed down to him by the earliest, manliest cavemen. The problem was that it was all on the inside. Nobody watching the reunion show was going to notice that.

Maybe it was time to get that tattoo he’d been thinking about. A rifle and fishing rod, crossed like clashing swords. Or ‘wig’ on the knuckles of one hand, and ‘big’ on the other. Something to distract everyone from the tragic shortage of biceps and body hair his tank top and gym shorts were guaranteed to reveal.

Tracksuit, he thought. Tracksuit bottom and hoodie. A fleecy armour to hide inside. He’d be like a warrior in a sheepskin cloak. Let the Bigwigs viewers imagine the rippling, muscular powerhouse underneath.

Jack opened his chest of drawers and rummaged through the piles of clothes Philo had stashed away for him during the move.

And that was when he saw it. The thing that kept following him around, finding its way back to him.

Like Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings, but made of pubes.

There was one other difference between Sam Gamgee and Philo’s merkin. Frodo Baggins needed Sam. Jack most definitely did not need –

Then he thought for a moment. And he thought for a moment longer. Then, after a further moment of thought, he reached in, fingers like forceps, and extracted the merkin from the drawer.

With a quick glance over his shoulder to check that nobody was about to walk in on him, Jack padded back into the ensuite and stood in front of the mirror. With one hand he dangled the merkin out in front of him, and with the other, he tugged down the neck of his tank top to bare his hairless chest.

Could he? Would it be too obvious? Too up-front? He cocked his head and squinted as he draped the merkin across his pectorals, trying to imagine how it would look on camera.

Probably how it looks in the mirror, he thought.

Like pubes.

Maybe there were other options. Less visible options. Options that would still give off an overall impression of manliness.

He peeled the merkin from his chest, lifted one arm in the air, and inched the wiry black thatch tentatively towards his armpit. If he cut the merkin in half –

‘Jack?’

He spun around to see his mum standing in the bungalow doorway. ‘Mum!’ He whisked the merkin behind his back. ‘Some privacy, please! I’m … rehearsing!’

‘Pardon me, Mr De Niro!’ Adele craned her neck slightly, as if she were trying to see over Jack’s shoulder. ‘I thought you should know. Delilah just called. She wants to come over.’

Jack frowned. ‘What, tonight? Why?’

‘Something about a change of plans? It sounds urgent.’

Jack wondered what it could have been. Had Kenny Hodgman blabbed to the press about being the one to hit bullseye instead of Jack? Had the media got hold of the ‘fake fish’ story?

Calm down, thought Jack. A change of plans, his mum had said. ‘Maybe we’re not filming at the gym tomorrow after all,’ he wondered aloud, trying his best to sound disappointed.

Adele looked doubtful. ‘I think it might be bigger than that. She said something about rethinking the whole reunion show.’

Behind his back, Jack clenched both his hands, giving the merkin an anxious squeeze. Did rethinking the reunion show mean what he thought it meant? Was Bigwigs about to be taken away from him again? Sampson would have a field day with that news. He realised how tightly he was clutching the merkin. He wanted to fling it away, but his mum was still standing in the doorway.

‘Oh! I forgot to tell you, Philo stopped by earlier in the week while you were out with Delilah. He said he had something he wanted to drop off for you?’

Jack went pale. Had Philo made another merkin? A second-generation model with twice the sticking power and double the pubes? He’d been cagey about what he’d been researching when Jack had found him in the library, but he’d insisted it wasn’t another merkin. So what was it? On past form, it was guaranteed to be massively embarrassing. After all, Philo had started off with fake pubes. The next logical step was …

Oh my god, thought Jack. It’s going to be fake junk. He had a vision of a huge papier-mâché dong springing out from a drawer like something from an X-rated pop-up book. But surely his mum would have noticed Philo walking that through the house?

‘This thing Philo dropped off,’ Jack said, trying to sound calmer than he felt. ‘Was it big? Was it small?’

Adele shook her head. ‘I was on my way out to work, I wasn’t really paying attention.’ She frowned. ‘What’s the matter? You’re acting like he’s hidden a snake in your room or something.’

A trouser-snake, maybe, thought Jack darkly. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll just … finish up here, then I’ll come in for dinner.’

Adele craned her neck again, obviously hoping for a glimpse of whatever Jack was holding behind his back. Luckily, Jack’s body seemed to be blocking the reflection of his merkin-clutching hands in the ensuite mirror.

‘Okay,’ said his mum, pausing at the door on her way out. ‘You’ll never guess what we’re having.’

‘Great,’ said Hallie. ‘Sausages again. I’ll pass.’

Jack drummed his fingers nervously on the kitchen table. As soon as his mum had left, he’d upturned his entire bachelor pad. He yanked out drawers and flung t-shirts and socks and underpants over his shoulder in a desperate search for Philo’s new pube-prop.

Nothing. His room was a mess, and he’d found nothing.

Philo must have suffered one of his typical brain-fades and had forgotten to actually leave the mystery item for Jack to find. It was the only explanation Jack could come up with.

‘When did Delilah say she’s coming?’

‘Soon,’ said Adele from the kitchen. She rolled another spatula-load of sausages onto a plate.

Marlene looked up from her phone. ‘I’d like to be excused, if it’s all the same to everyone. The whole house feels like it’s under bloomin’ surveillance. I had to shoo three very peculiar young ladies off the front lawn the other afternoon.’

Hallie threw a look at Jack. ‘Yeah, and Nats won’t stop going on about Bigwigs being in town. Yaz and Stace are getting super bitchy about it and blaming me.’

‘I get it,’ Jack said, rolling his eyes at his sister. ‘I’m the worst. Anyway, it sounds like this whole Bigwigs reunion thing’s going to be cancelled anyway. That’s probably my fault too, for not being a big exciting celebrity like all the other contestants. So that’s good news for you.’

‘We don’t know that it’s going to be cancelled,’ said Adele. ‘Let’s wait and see what Delilah says before we go overreacting.’

Marlene leant over to Jack and touched his arm. ‘I don’t mean to be such a grouch, Jack. I’m just having a little trouble controlling my temper at the moment. And you know, I have been evicted from my own bungalow and so forth.’

Jack felt Marlene’s grip on his arm get tighter and tighter. It was alarmingly strong, as though he were being pawed at by an angry gorilla and not a seventy-year-old woman. She didn’t seem to realise she was doing it; she just kept smiling sweetly at him as she applied more and more pressure. ‘Anyway, hopefully everything will be back to normal soon,’ she continued. ‘That’ll be nice, won’t it Jack?’

As she spoke, her voice suddenly pitched downwards, as though it had been treated with some kind of demonic auto-tune. At first Jack thought she was making fun of him, deepening her voice to sound like the man that Jack definitely wasn’t. But then he saw the look of shock and embarrassment on her face.

Hallie had heard it too. She shot Jack a ‘What the hell was that?’ glance.

The only person who hadn’t heard it was Adele, who was busy dousing the greasy frying pan in soapy dishwater.

Jack felt the blood rushing back to his arm as Marlene released her grip and retreated into awkward silence.

Adele carried the sausages to the table. ‘Everyone’s gone very quiet,’ she observed.

‘Just … in awe of tonight’s tower of sausage,’ said Hallie, eyes still wide with alarm.

‘Y-yeah,’ said Jack. He clasped his hands together and bowed his head. ‘We give you thanks, Almighty Lord, for these almighty snags …’

As he made the pretend prayer, he wondered if he should mention something about his gran apparently being possessed by Satan.

Jack was halfway through the first of his four sausages when the doorbell rang.

‘I’m really sorry to interrupt your dinner,’ said Delilah, as Adele welcomed her in. She nodded towards the table. ‘Still getting through those sausages, I see.’

‘Only half a kilo to go,’ said Adele. ‘How’s the filming going? Jack’s being very tight-lipped about it all.’

Hallie and Marlene took the opportunity to make their exit.

Delilah looked distracted. ‘The filming? It’s going great. Jack’s segment’s certainly going to be … different.’

Jack was relieved. Unless he was imagining things, it didn’t sound like the show was being cancelled after all. ‘Different, but still “as good as”, right?’

‘You’re talking about it as though it’s still a competition …’ said his mum, warily.

‘Actually, that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about,’ Delilah cut in excitedly. ‘There’s an idea I’ve been pitching to the execs. It’s been on my mind ever since we started talking about this reunion special. A fresh angle. Something that takes the episode to a whole new level.’

Something about the way Delilah was speaking took Jack back to when he was twelve again, during the first week of the Bigwigs finals. He and Hope Chanders had been pitted against each other in a challenge to produce a ringtone that viewers could download. He remembered sitting there, just before the recording of the results show, listening to the producers explaining exactly how the Bigwigs finals were going to pan out. A cold, constricted feeling grew in his stomach.

‘What I want to do – what the whole team wants to do – is make this reunion more of a contest. Sure, everyone’s going to tune in to see the new batch of Bigwigs, and they’ll be curious to see the original contestants come back on the show for a lap of honour. That’s all great. But what if we could give them something more? These packages we’re doing: what if they’re not just little “Where are they now?” segments? What if they were more like auditions?’

‘Auditions for what?’ said Adele.

Delilah looked like a proud parent. ‘For a permanent spot on the Bigwigs Board.’ She caught Jack’s eye. ‘A regular, paying gig as a full-time cast member.’

Jack’s apprehension turned to nervous excitement. The Bigwigs Board was the judging panel that decided each week who would stay and who would go. It was a massive responsibility. Jack would basically decide the fate of the next batch of contestants. It wouldn’t be just a one-off reunion appearance. There was a chance that Bigwigs might want him back for good.

Sampson would absolutely spew if he had to watch Jack on the show every single week.

Plus, Jack liked how it sounded. Bigwigs Boardmember. It had a certain manly gravitas to it.

‘I don’t know,’ said Adele. ‘That’s a much bigger deal than just going back for a reunion …’

‘You’re right,’ said Delilah. ‘It is a much bigger deal. What do you think, Jack? The segments we’re filming, they’ll have to show everyone why you’d be a good choice for the Bigwigs Board. They’ll need to show you can be a leader, that you can make the tough decisions like sending contestants home. That you’re comfortable with that kind of power.’

Jack stared down at his plate of sausages. So far all he’d proved was that he could hit a target (not really) and catch a fish (not really). But Delilah seemed to be on his side. She’d master-minded the firing range and the fishing boat. She’d given him a masculinity makeover for the cameras. She’d done her best to turn him into the man he kept telling everyone he was.

Now he needed to prove he had what it took to be a Bigwigs Boardmember. And it had just occurred to Jack that there was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate his leadership skills right there for the taking. The more he thought about it, the more perfect it seemed. The Bigwigs producers wouldn’t be able to refuse him the position. Not after Delilah turned him into the biggest man in town.

For a week.