‘Guys!’

Vivi, Reese and Darylyn were just about to disappear through the school gate. As Jack got nearer, he noticed Vivi tighten her grip on the strap of her schoolbag, as if it were a ripcord she could pull to parachute herself out of the situation.

‘Hey, Jack,’ she said. ‘We were going to wait for you …’

‘No need,’ said Jack. ‘I caught up. T-o-o-tally caught up.’

Darylyn swept her fringe out of her eyes.

‘I got your text about the laptop.’ Darylyn always spoke super fast, as though the act of speech were like ripping off a bandaid. She glanced sideways at Reese, who kept his eyes stubbornly fixed on his black-and-white checked Volleys. ‘It would appear I forgot to reply.’

Jack shrugged. ‘That’s cool. ’Cos, yeah. It turns out I was too busy to use the computer much anyway.’

‘Busy?’ said Vivi.

‘Yeah,’ said Jack, staring manfully into the distance and nodding. He turned back to the others. ‘Sorry if I kind of … dropped off the radar.’

Vivi frowned. ‘What kind of busy?’

‘Just … you know,’ Jack said significantly. ‘Going through a bit of man stuff.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Vivi.

Jack froze. What did he mean? ‘You know. Just your typical guy stuff. Reese, you know what it’s like.’

If Darylyn Deramo was a fast talker, Reese Rasmus was the opposite. He was inclined to think very deeply about things. In fact, sometimes he thought so deeply about things that listening to him speak was a bit like listening to someone trying to invent the whole concept of language from scratch.

‘Um …’ he said.

Jack nodded understandingly in a ‘we’re both in this testosterone thing together’ kind of way. ‘Look, it’s cool if you don’t want to go into detail. You know, with the ladies present.’

‘It’s not that, dude,’ said Reese, frowning. ‘I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Jack sighed. ‘Come on, guys. It’s obvious what I’ve been doing. We’re all perfectly normal teenagers going through all the normal changes that normal teenagers go through at this age. You know?’

Vivi frowned. ‘Not reall–’

‘Masturbating,’ said Jack, desperately.

Vivi’s mouth dropped open. Darylyn took an involuntary step backwards. Reese’s brow crinkled. ‘Dude …’ he said.

Jack faltered. It was clear he’d brought out the big guns too soon. But he was committed now. There was nothing to do but keep firing away. ‘Y-yeah. Just … a whole ton of masturbating, really.’

There was a difficult pause. Jack thought he heard Reese say ‘Dude’ again under his breath.

Jack shrugged and tried to act casual. ‘That’s pretty normal, though. I mean, we’re all growing up so goddamn fast, right? Half the time we can’t even control what our bodies are doing. It’s like … UFOs could land and I’d be concentrating so hard on masturbating myself silly I wouldn’t even notice. I’d look up and be all, “Wow, first contact with aliens. Yeah, I get that it’s important and everything, but this wanking’s not going to do itself!”’

Jack tried to ignore the looks he got from the group of Year 12s who’d overheard him as they walked through the gate. ‘So … yeah. I guess I’ve been pretty busy with all that. H-how were your holidays?’

The electronic chime of the home room bell rang out across the grounds of Upland Secondary.

Saved by the bell, thought Jack.

If the bell had rung at some point before he’d said the word ‘masturbating’.

Reese steered Jack aside as they followed Vivi and Darylyn down the palm-lined main driveway towards the school hall. ‘Dude. All holidays?’

Jack chose to view the question as a positive sign. So far nobody had questioned his biological capacity for a fortnight of fapping. He had to be careful from now on, though. He didn’t want to blow it all by making it obvious he had no idea what he was talking about.

‘Oh yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Twenty times a day.’ Seems plausible, he thought.

Reese frowned. ‘So … you weren’t hanging out with Vivi, then?’

‘Well, no,’ said Jack. ‘Be a bit weird, wouldn’t it? With all that masturbating going on. I mean, I’m no expert on girls –’

‘Nah, me either,’ Reese said quickly. Then he seemed to catch himself, slowing his voice back down to regular Reese speed. ‘I mean, me either … dude.’

‘Wait,’ said Jack, ‘so you didn’t see Vivi all holidays either?’

Reese didn’t seem to know where to look. ‘Um … maybe? When didn’t you see her?’

‘The whole time,’ said Jack, surprised that Reese even had to ask. ‘The primary reason being the nonstop masturbating.’

‘Dude, can you stop saying that?’

Jack took a moment to review the evidence. Did this mean there wasn’t a conspiracy to ditch him? ‘So, wait … did you see Vivi or not?’

Reese hesitated. ‘S-sure. I guess we probably saw her … around?’

‘We? Meaning you and Darylyn?’

Reese stopped. ‘Huh?’

‘You said “we”.’ Jack noticed Reese looking fidgety. ‘And … now you’re acting weird about it.’

Reese seemed to be wrestling with something inside. He ran his hand through his fauxhawk and screwed up his face. ‘Listen, Jack, there’s something I should –’

‘There he is!’ someone squealed.

Jack and Reese looked up to see three Year 7s in wind-cheaters and pleated skirts racing towards them across the asphalt of the school carpark. They nudged Reese aside and huddled around Jack, sucking noisily on the plastic straws of their dome-lidded smoothie cups.

One of the girls pawed at Jack’s sleeve with her free hand. ‘We’ve been voting for you!’ she squeaked.

Voting for me? thought Jack. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘A poll, on the Bigwigs forum,’ said the second girl, so excited she could barely stand still. The other two blew into their straws, making the sickly green smoothies bubble like the contents of a cauldron. ‘We stayed up clicking “Jack, Jack, Jack” until it was time to go to bed!’

The third girl looked up from her smoothie and fixed Jack with a beady stare. ‘Nine thirty-five p.m. on school nights,’ she said in a deadly serious monotone.

‘But … I’m not on Bigwigs anymore,’ said Jack.

The first girl rolled her eyes. ‘It’s to see which finalists they should bring back, dummy!’

‘Bring back – ?’

The girls looked at each other, eyes wide, and shouted, ‘Bring back Jack! Bring back Jack!’ in ear-piercing disharmony. Then they were gone, in a whirl of gingham and fleece.

Vivi waited with Darylyn while Jack and Reese caught up with them again. ‘Fans of yours?’ she asked Jack.

Jack shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘They were clearly talking about Bigwigs,’ said Darylyn.

Jack feigned innocence. ‘Were they?’

Darylyn blinked. ‘It’s impossible that you failed to hear that.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Vivi. ‘Why do you always freak out as soon as anyone brings up Bigwigs?’

Jack put on a look of false innocence. ‘I don’t!’

‘You do. Like last year, when they started showing the ads for the new season.’

The show had only been on for two years, but they’d already changed the format and gone all meta. As well as kids going into real-life workplaces to do adult jobs, there’d been a mini-arc where the contestants had to produce an episode of Bigwigs itself. It had basically been the reality-TV equivalent of the movie Inception. Jack could only imagine what new schemes they were planning for the upcoming season.

‘I didn’t freak out,’ he said.

‘You did,’ said Vivi.

Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess I just feel weird about it because it’s a stupid kids show. I’ve moved on. I’ve matured.’ He cast a meaningful glance downwards. ‘Big time.’

Darylyn retreated behind her fringe and stared at the ground. Reese stuck his hands in his back pockets, cleared his throat and looked away into the distance. Vivi just looked kind of puzzled and disappointed somehow.

‘Anyway,’ said Vivi, after a short pause, ‘let’s not go there again.’

Jack was only half tuned in as everyone else started talking about what they were going to get for lunch later on. Mostly he was thinking about what the Year 7 girls had said.

Bring back Jack?

What was that about?