Spurt (14 page)

‘Probably a barbecue,’ said Jack, without thinking.

‘A barbecue?’

‘Yeah, it’s a bit of a weekend tradition. Me, cooking snags on the barbie. It turns out I’m
quite
the tong-master.’

Delilah turned to her crew. ‘We could film a barbecue. Yeah, that could actually work out well. Nice visual.’

‘Great,’ said Jack through a tight smile. ‘That’s … really great that we’re doing that.’ He nodded, and clapped his hands together. ‘Well. I guess we’ll be needing sausages.’

Jack had tried to suggest that a visit to the supermarket to get sausages possibly wasn’t exactly what
Bigwigs
fans would be craving when they tuned in to the big reunion special, but Delilah said they needed all the vision they could get. ‘It’s all part of the story,’ she’d told him.

He had to pretend to pay for the sausages four times for the camera. The first time, the cashier had giggled nervously and ruined the shot; the second time, Jack fumbled his change and dropped it all over the floor; and the third time, old Davo had wandered past in his green-and-gold silk tracksuit, stuck his head into the shot and shouted, ‘What are ya doin’, buyin’ sausages, are ya?’

With the sausages finally secured, Delilah had asked Jack if they could get some footage of him walking down the main street. Luckily, because it was Sunday, the main street was relatively free of onlookers. Those who did crowd around were expertly kept at bay by Delilah, without them actually noticing they were being kept at bay. They gazed at Jack with mild awe, as though the fact that he had a camera pointed at him meant that he couldn’t possibly be an ordinary mortal.

Embarrassing as it was, Jack also kind of enjoyed the feeling it brought back: the feeling of being big. It was exactly why he’d signed on to do the reunion show. To show everyone he was bigger than –

‘Sampson!’ said Jack, stopping dead in his tracks.

Delilah’s ears seemed to prick. Brett looked up from his viewfinder. Whispers spread through the small crowd.

Sampson had stepped out of the newsagent two doors down and was staring over at Jack and the crew. Jack noted with a satisfied smirk that he looked slightly daunted by the sight of the camera and the boom mike.

Delilah seemed to be assessing the situation. She nodded at Brett, who hoisted his camera up again and focused on the viewfinder.

‘Do you two know each other?’ asked Delilah.

Jack realised he needed to get the upper hand quickly. He took a deep breath, remembering what the Year 7 girls had told him about Sampson trying to get onto
Bigwigs
the year after Jack – and failing.

‘We’re just starting to know each other!’ he said. ‘Starting to get to know
a-l-l
kinds of things about each other.’

‘I … know Jack from school,’ Sampson mumbled. ‘High school … and primary school.’

Jack found it hard to remember that Sampson had even
been
to primary school, he’d seemed fully grown for so long.

‘Oh!’ said Delilah. ‘So you’d probably remember Jack being on
Bigwigs
?’

Sampson shook his head. ‘Never watched it.’

Lies
, thought Jack. ‘Oh, you
really
missed out,’ he said.

‘I’ve seen some of the old contestants on TV, though,’ said Sampson, sounding more confident all of a sudden. He narrowed his eyes at Jack cunningly. ‘You know, Piers Blain on YouTube and stuff. And Hope Chanders is a VJ on ‘Chart-urday Morning’, right? Wow, they’ve all gone on to bigger and better things, haven’t they? Well,
most
of them.’

Delilah tapped something into her phone. ‘What was your name again?’

‘Sampson. Oliver Sampson.’

Jack realised that Sampson had probably dreamt of saying his name in front of the
Bigwigs
cameras. He wondered if this was how he’d always pictured it.

‘So, Oliver: were you surprised when Jack didn’t show up on our screens again after
Bigwigs
?’

Sampson snorted. ‘No. I wasn’t surprised at all.’

Jack glanced back and forth down the street. He needed a Davo to ruin the take. He turned to Brett behind the camera. ‘H-how’s the battery going there, chief? We’ve done
so
much filming already it’s bound to be running low –’

‘We’re good,’ said Brett.

‘We might stop there anyway,’ said Delilah. ‘But Oliver, can I get some details from you? You’re under sixteen, right?’

Come on
, thought Jack.
He doesn’t look
that
old
. Then he thought for a moment longer and realised that, yes, Sampson actually
did
look that old.

Sampson nodded.

‘Okay,’ said Delilah. ‘In that case, I’ll need to forward a release form to a parent or guardian.’

Delilah quizzed Sampson to get his address. Jack felt a stab of fear, mixed with a pang of something else. Maybe … jealousy?

He hadn’t counted on Sampson barging into his
Bigwigs
shoot like this. Jack hoped he hadn’t just given Sampson exactly what he wanted.

Jack’s mum had some bad news when Jack and the others returned home from the sausage-buying mission.

‘How can we not own a barbecue?’ said Jack.

Adele held out her hands.

‘I don’t know how to answer that! If you’d
told
me that was what you were doing, instead of being Mr “I’m In Charge”, I could have warned you!’ She looked in the supermarket bag sitting on the kitchen bench. ‘And why did you buy
five kilos
of sausages?’

‘It’s okay,
Bigwigs
paid for it.’

‘It’s not about who paid for it. We’re never going to get through that many sausages! I can barely convince Hallie to eat
anything
these days.’

‘Delilah said we might need extra, in case they don’t get the footage they need. They’re basically stunt sausages.’

Adele sighed. ‘Well, you’ll have to just cook them on the stove inside.’

‘Not exactly “man conquers nature”, is it?’ said Jack.

Adele’s face softened. She looked at Jack as though she wanted to say something, but then changed her mind.

‘I think there’s an old camping stove in the shed,’ she said, finally.

Brett and Todd waited around while Delilah made some phone calls from the van out the front. Jack rummaged in the kitchen cupboards for a frying pan large enough to cook the apparently excessive number of sausages he’d bought, but not so large that it would crush the legs of the flimsy kerosene burner beneath it. Meanwhile, the manliest apron he’d been able to find had orange and white diagonal stripes across it and reached all the way down to his shins.

He did not have a good feeling about ‘the sausage segment’.

He set the camping stove up on a trestle table in the backyard and did his best to balance the frying pan on it. By this time Delilah had returned. She murmured instructions to Brett as he tried to get a few different angles on Jack’s struggles with his improvised barbecue.

Eventually Jack gave up. He looked up at Delilah, hoping the pleading look in his eyes didn’t come across as being too pathetic. ‘Um, this really isn’t working.’

Delilah shared a look with Brett, then nodded. ‘Okay, let’s mercy kill this one.’ She gave Jack a shrug and a smile. ‘It’s okay, we’ve got plenty of time. We’ll get some great vision tomorrow at school, I’m sure.’

Jack nearly dropped his tongs. ‘School?’

‘Tomorrow’s Monday, right?’

‘Yeah, but …’ Jack swallowed hard. His stock had fallen drastically low at school. What if someone shouted out ‘Jack Spankley’ while the camera was rolling? How would he explain
that
away? Then again, maybe all the other students would fall silent as soon as they saw the cameras and sound equipment, the way the onlookers on the main street had done. Maybe the glare of the TV spotlight would eclipse all of his past embarrassments.

But there was still the Natsumi Distagio situation. Somehow he had to keep her away from Delilah and the whole
Bigwigs
thing – at least until he’d had a chance to somehow warn her about the massive lie he’d blurted out on camera. Warn her – or maybe convince her to go along with it?

Better still, make her his
actual
girlfriend.

‘Are you okay, Jack?’

Jack snapped back to reality. Delilah was staring at him.

‘Yeah. Sure. Just … well, I don’t know if they actually
allow
filming at the school. There’s forms and things, probably.’

‘It’s all been cleared,’ said Delilah. ‘Trust us! We’re professionals. We’ve got all the right permits. We know what we’re doing.’

I’m glad someone does
, thought Jack. He was starting to wonder if he’d made a massive mistake agreeing to do the reunion show.

‘That Sampson guy seems interesting,’ said Delilah, casually, as she leant over to look into the camera viewfinder, inspecting the day’s footage. She looked up at Jack. ‘It’d be good to include him in the filming tomorrow somehow. What do you think?’

I think I’ve definitely made a massive mistake
, Jack said to himself.