Spurt (23 page)

The shuttle bus from the showgrounds pulled up at the Bernadino Mall. Jack was the only passenger. Everyone else was heading towards the festival, not away from it.

Jack squeezed his way out through the front door as passengers bound for the festival piled on board. None of them seemed to recognise him, or wonder why the Mayor for a Week was leaving the festival when he was meant to be launching it. As far as they knew, the kid leaving the bus was just that: a kid.

The shuttle bus pulled away, and the mall was left dark and empty. Jack cut a dazed path past the shopfronts, wandering from one end of the mall to the other. All the doors that had seemed open to him just a few days ago were closed.

Jack crouched in the arcade where he and Nats had rehearsed being girlfriend and boyfriend. He rested his head in his hands.

And he sat there for a long, long time.

Nobody had come after him. He wasn’t surprised. Vivi and Reese and Darylyn had been desperate to ditch him since before the start of term. Nothing he’d done since then had changed that. If anything, he’d made things worse. First by
still
not growing pubes, and then by everything else he’d done.

He’d half expected Delilah to send her cameras after him, though, to capture a dramatic grab for the reunion show. He imagined her pitching the scene. (‘“See how far a Bigwig can fall.” It’ll be great vision.’) But she’d obviously decided that Sampson deserved the spotlight more than Jack.

Nats had abandoned him too. Only a couple of days ago she’d put her number in his phone. Who knew where things might have gone from there? But as it turned out, they’d gone nowhere.

Typical for some family crisis to screw things up. Jack felt a twinge of guilt about his gran, but he pushed it aside. It was all Philo’s fault, anyway. It wasn’t like Jack had
asked
for the testosterone cream that had turned Marlene into Granzilla.

Jack sighed and took out his phone. No messages.

With a feeling of grim satisfaction, he went into his contacts and deleted Nats’s number – smiley and all.

The next number in the list was Oliver Sampson’s. Jack felt a flash of hot anger. He wished he could delete Sampson from more than just his phone.

His finger hovered above Sampson’s name, ready to swipe him into oblivion, when a call came through.

Jack stared at the screen in disbelief as the phone kept ringing and buzzing in his hand. The name that had come up as the caller was the very same one he had been poised to delete.

What was Oliver Sampson doing calling him? Only Jack’s prepubescent lack of physical strength kept him from crushing the phone in his hand.

How?
he thought. How did Sampson
always
manage to appear just at the right moment to make things worse? First he’d stolen Jack’s friends, then he’d stolen
Bigwigs
. What was he hoping to take from Jack now?

Maybe he was just angry and wanting to give Jack a piece of his mind. Jack had denied Sampson the chance to completely humiliate him in the balloon race. He’d ruined Sampson’s big moment in front of the
Bigwigs
cameras.

Jack hit ‘Reject Call’, and then deleted Sampson from his contacts.

Another call. This time, the caller came up as just a number, with no name attached.

Jack hit ‘Reject’ again.

Another call.

Jack was genuinely tempted to throw the phone away. He didn’t need it. Nobody was ever going to call him again anyway. He hit ‘Reject’.

Again, like a jab in the arm, the phone rang. Jack hit ‘Answer’ and unleashed his pent-up rage into the phone. ‘
What
? What do you want? Why won’t you leave me alone?’

‘Sprigley?’

Jack felt the heat rise off him into the night air. ‘Oh, it’s Sprigley now, is it? Not “Sprogless”. Not “baldy-balls”.’

‘Jack?’ Sampson’s voice sounded low and quiet. It sounded small.

‘Yes! Of course it’s me! What do you even want? Shouldn’t you be breaking records in your knob-zeppelin by now?’

‘I’m not at the festival,’ whispered Sampson. ‘I left.’

Jack presumed it wasn’t out of solidarity, or flattery by imitation. Still, he was mildly curious. ‘You left?’

‘I got your address out of that Dawson weirdo and I took a taxi straight from the festival.’

Jack sat bolt upright. ‘What? You’re at my
house
?’

‘I’m in your
bungalow
.’

Bachelor pad
, thought Jack, instinctively. ‘What the hell? Are you
stalking
me?’

‘Well, I was pissed at you for spoiling everything tonight,’ Sampson admitted. ‘Like, “I’m Jack Sprigley, I’ve already been on
Bigwigs
, I can just walk away from the camera whenever I want”. It’s okay for
you
. You’ve
had
your chance.’

‘What, so this is some kind of showdown? I ruined your starring role on
Bigwigs
, and so you came to my house to get revenge? Tonight was supposed to be
my
big moment!’

There was silence for a moment. ‘Jack, I need your help.’

Jack paused. There was definitely something wrong. Surely Jack was the last person someone like Sampson would ask for help?

‘Something’s … happened,’ he said.

‘Is it my gran?’ Jack pictured Marlene breaking free of her police guard, hurling hospital staff through the air with her superhuman strength, so she could reclaim by force the bungalow that was rightfully hers. He pictured her towering over Sampson, crouched in terror in the corner, and tried not to feel too gleeful at the idea. ‘Are my mum and my sister there?’

‘It’s not your gran. It’s … Sprigley, I seriously need your help.’

Jack was starting to worry now. ‘What the hell’s going on, Sampson?’

‘I can’t tell you. Just come.’

Jack wondered if it was some sort of trick. Was Delilah going to be there waiting for him, hidden camera-style, for some big ‘gotcha’ moment?

‘Why can’t you tell me?’

‘Someone might be listening,’ whispered Sampson.

‘Who would be listening?’

‘I don’t know!’ said Sampson, his voice almost rising to a whinny. ‘Spies?’

‘Spies? How old are you?’

‘Just come,’ Sampson repeated. ‘I need you to fix this. I need …’ He paused. ‘I need a Bigwig.’

Jack turned the corner into his street. There was no sign of his mum’s car in the driveway. There were no lights on in the house. The side passage that led to the bungalow was cloaked in darkness.

Jack stepped on something squishy and brittle as he passed the window to his old room. He stopped, squinted, and saw that he’d trodden on a bunch of red roses wrapped in paper.

A phone lay next to the roses, its cheap plastic casing split down the side, its screen shattered. Like the flowers, it looked like it had been dropped.

Something weird was going on.

He hurried the rest of the way down the side passage, bounded up the bungalow steps, and threw the lights on as he burst inside.

The first thing he saw was Oliver Sampson standing in the middle of the bungalow, one finger pressed to his lips, the other pointing at Jack’s bed.

Lying on the bed, in a baby-blue blazer and pressed slacks, his silver hair in disarray, was Upland’s mayor, Neville Perry-Moore.

For a moment Jack wondered if this was part of the Mayor for a Week deal that nobody had seen fit to tell him about. Nobody had said anything about the mayor and Jack
literally
swapping places.

Then Jack noticed the terrible black bruise around the mayor’s eye.

‘I think he’s unconscious,’ whispered Sampson.

Jack closed the door and moved closer. His first thought was that his gran had attacked the mayor. First a taxi driver, then the mayor – was nobody safe from her testosterone-powered rage?

But even if that were true, it didn’t go anywhere
near
explaining what Neville Perry-Moore was doing
in Jack’s bed
.

‘What the – ? Was he like this when you got here?’

Sampson grimaced. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Wait.
You
did this? You
attacked
the mayor?’

‘He was creeping around your house!’

‘So were you!’

Sampson put his hand to his brow. ‘I … I thought he was a burglar or something. I didn’t know it was the
mayor
. Although, technically, he’s not really the mayor at the moment. Right? You are. So it’s actually not as bad as it looks. Right, Sprigley?’

‘What do you mean? Of course he’s still the freaking mayor!’ Jack realised Sampson was getting desperate. Not even Darylyn would have argued
that
technicality. He lowered his voice to a hiss. ‘I can’t believe you
punched
the mayor in the
face
!’ Jack’s outrage couldn’t completely eclipse the question of what the mayor had been doing at his house in the first place, but he ignored it for now.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Sprigley. I didn’t punch him. He hit his head on the wall after I tackled him.’

‘Oh. Well. That’s probably fine, then. I’m sure the courts won’t consider it assault if it was just a
tackle
.’

The mention of assault turned Sampson even paler. ‘But it wasn’t my fault! It was an accident! I didn’t think, I just …’ He looked distressed. ‘I don’t know my own strength.’