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.

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.