Square jaw. Bulging biceps. Rippling abs.

‘Need help?’ asked the chemist’s assistant. She chewed her gum at Jack and blinked.

Jack backed away from the shelf of protein powder cans. ‘No, I was just …’ The row of identically muscular titans on the labels of the cans glowered back at him. Jack turned away from them and rolled his eyes at the assistant. ‘Wow. What sort of loser would buy this stuff?’

‘You have to be fourteen or older,’ said the assistant. ‘Sorry.’

‘I am fourteen,’ said Jack.

The assistant raised her eyebrows. ‘Really?’

Jack sighed and handed over the prescription. ‘I need to pick this up for my gran,’ he said. He felt waves of testosterone emanating from the wall of protein powder. Oliver Sampson’s taunt played over and over in his head.

‘You could’ve saved that if you were bigger.’

Well, he had been bigger, once upon a time. He’d been a bigger deal than anyone at Upland West or Upland Secondary. But now he’d stepped so far out of the spotlight that no-one even seemed to remember that anymore.

Jack followed the assistant over to the counter. ‘I used to be on TV,’ he heard himself say.

The chemist’s assistant looked up at him, blank-faced. ‘My second cousin was in an ad for Sultana World when she was in Grade 2. She got paid, like, two hundred dollars.’

Jack looked apologetic. ‘Um, my thing was kind of a bigger deal than an ad for Sultana World, actually.’

‘Avocado World? That is a pretty big deal, I guess.’ She handed Jack a white paper bag.

Jack pulled out the $50 note his gran had given him that morning. ‘Ten thousand dollars. That’s how much I won.’

The assistant stopped chewing her gum. ‘Wow. You could buy our entire shelf of muscle powder with that.’

Jack headed straight for his gran’s bungalow when he got home.

Jack’s gran, Marlene, had moved into the bungalow behind the house two years ago. Her unit on the other side of Upland had been slowly falling to pieces ever since Jack’s step-granddad, Clive, had run off with all of Marlene’s savings. Jack had wanted to do something useful with his Bigwigs winnings (or ‘losings’, as he called them), so he’d put the prize money towards renovating the bungalow for his gran to live in. For a while there, he’d felt like he was doing his bit. Like he really was the man of the house.

‘Knock, knock,’ he shouted. He waited a moment, then pushed open the door.

Marlene was lounging on her bed, an old-generation iPhone with a turquoise case in one hand and a clunky grey dumbphone resting on the bedspread next to her.

Hallie had handed the iPhone down to her a few weeks ago. ‘Just because I don’t have thousands of dollars to give away,’ she’d said, ‘doesn’t mean I can’t be generous if I want to.’

Marlene squinted at one phone and then the other through her glasses. The radio (loud) and TV (muted) were both playing in the background.

‘Gran?’

Marlene looked up. ‘Jack!’ She tossed the iPhone aside as though she’d been caught shoplifting. ‘Home already? Gosh, time flies.’

‘I’ve got your stuff from the chemist,’ he said, handing her the white paper bag. ‘Is everything okay with the phone?’

‘What phone, dear?’

Jack paused. ‘Hallie’s old phone. The one you just had in your hand.’

‘Oh!’ said Marlene, glancing down at the iPhone in surprise. ‘Yes. I’ve just been copying my numbers over.’

‘Do you need a hand – ?’

‘No,’ said Marlene sharply. ‘No, I’ll manage, dear. Thank you.’

Jack felt his phone buzz in his pocket. The noise sent Marlene lunging for the iPhone she’d just tossed aside.

‘Um, I think that was me,’ said Jack.

‘Right,’ said Marlene, nodding casually and edging back across the bed. ‘Good-o.’

Jack’s phone buzzed a second time. Marlene eyed the iPhone on the bed nervously.

‘I guess I’ll find out who that is,’ said Jack.

‘What?’ said Marlene, ashen-faced.

‘I mean, I’ll … find out who’s texting me.’

‘Oh,’ said Marlene. ‘Yes, that’s a better idea.’

Jack turned to leave, but found himself lingering at the doorway.

‘Wait,’ he said, turning around, ‘so what did you – ?’

Marlene quickly crossed her arms and jammed the iPhone – which she appeared to have picked up again the moment Jack had turned his back – into her left armpit. ‘What now?’

Jack paused. ‘Never mind.’

Jack dumped his backpack by the kitchen door, grabbed a Sultana World grape juice from the fridge, then checked the messages on his phone.

It was Vivi who’d texted him.

Where were u after school? said the first text.

U didn’t wait for us, said the second.

Jack turned his phone off and went to grab his laptop from his backpack. Of course he hadn’t waited. Why remind them yet again of the several anatomically significant reasons why he completely failed to fit in with them anymore?

And anyway, there was somewhere else he’d decided he needed to be. A place he’d never dared go before.

Jack put his laptop on the kitchen bench. He opened a new browser window and navigated to the page he wanted, wondering if this was really a good idea.

Before he knew it, his fingers were on the keyboard. He glanced at his switched-off phone, took a deep breath and typed three words.

Bring back Jack.