Spurt (3 page)

‘They were … good,’ said Vivi. ‘Just, you know, thinking a few things over.’

‘Cool,’ said Jack. ‘I just wanted to check you hadn’t tried to call or anything. Because obviously I was pretty busy with all this goddamn
puberty
stuff.’

Vivi seemed distracted. She took a deep breath, tucked her hair behind her ears and leant closer to whisper to him. ‘Jack, I need to ask you something.’

‘O-okay,’ said Jack cautiously.

‘I need to ask you if we’re
friends
. I mean, really …
friends
.’

It was the same question Jack had been asking himself since about halfway through the holidays. ‘I don’t know. Are we?’

‘Well, do you think that’s what we
should
be?’

Jack nodded. It seemed like a no-brainer. ‘Oh yeah. Totally.’

Vivi nodded too. ‘So, everything else … that’s all just going to stay the way it is?’

Hopefully not
everything
else
, thought Jack, pondering the depressingly stark tundra that greeted him on his visual safari down into his pyjama bottoms every morning.

‘I guess,’ he said.

Vivi stared at him for an uncomfortably long moment, nodded again, then returned to her side of the table.

Jack was still trying to figure out what had just happened when Mr Jacobs signalled for attention. On the board he’d written ‘Term Four: Stepping Up’.

‘Okay, 8C! A couple of pieces of business before you start this new term in your usual blaze of academic fervour. This term, you begin your transition into Year 9, which means you’ll soon be choosing your subjects for next year. We’ll be talking more about the Stepping Up program in the next couple of weeks. But the main thing to remember is this: it’s time to start thinking about your futures.’

The future?
thought Jack. He wasn’t ready for the future. Especially if it was going to involve conversations like the one he’d just had with Vivi.

On the surface, it seemed like Vivi had settled Jack’s big fear. After all, she’d pretty much confirmed they were still friends. That everything was normal. That he wasn’t in danger of becoming the saddest of social outcasts at Upland Secondary. But somehow it just didn’t feel that way. Instead, it felt like the distance between them was getting wider.

‘Speaking of stepping up,’ said Mr Jacobs, ‘for those of you interested in applying for the Mayor for a Week program, the Community Engagement Committee are holding an information session tomorrow morning in the student centre. There’ll be someone from the mayor’s office explaining the selection process, and one of our own ex-participants will be there to give you a taste of what the winner can expect.’

‘Mayor for a Week?’ said Jack. ‘Sounds like a Vivi Dink-Dawson jam, most definitely.’

Vivi looked thoughtfully out the window for a moment, then turned to Jack. ‘You think?’

‘Are you serious? You’ve risen from roll monitor to international-student buddy to junior school captain. Your thirst for power is clearly unquenchable. Plus, how funny would it be to see you in those mayoral robes?’

Vivi smiled. ‘I do love me some civic regalia.’

Jack smiled back. But he was still thinking about the confusing conversation they’d had at the beginning of home room. If they were still friends, why
had
she ignored him all holidays? Had something happened that she didn’t want to tell him about? Maybe he just needed to man up and ask her directly.

‘Listen, Vivi,’ said Jack in a low voice, ‘I was just thinking. Before, when you were asking if we’re friends: I think I get it now.’

‘You do?’

Jack nodded. ‘Friends should feel like they can tell each other stuff, right?’

Vivi looked uncomfortable. ‘I guess?’

‘Well, I’m guessing maybe there’s something important you wanted to tell
me
. And I think – because I’m totally in the same place right now – I think I know what it is.’ Jack put on his most sincere face and leant closer, hoping maybe to peer into Vivi’s thoughts and divine the perfect thing to say. ‘Are you having
women’s troubles
?’

Vivi pulled away. ‘Am I having
what
?’

Jack blinked. ‘Well, we’re all in the middle of big changes in our lives, right? You, me, Reese, Darylyn … me … We’re all growing up. Our minds, our bodies. Definitely mine are.’

‘
Women’s
troubles, though? Are you from the … was there even a decade when people
said
that?’

‘I just meant: I get it. It’s a difficult period. I mean, n-not period. I mean, yes,
periods
, let’s not deny the reality here, but – wait, where are you going?’

Vivi had collected her books and was leaving the table. Apparently the bell had rung. Everyone was on their way out the door.

Jack hadn’t even noticed.

Jack barely said a word to Vivi during first lesson – and not just because Ms Liaw ran her Sociology class with a complete intolerance for socialising. So far, leaving aside one or two unfortunate word choices, he felt like his plan to convince everyone he’d hit puberty had gone pretty well. But after the weirdness with Vivi at the end of home room, he realised how easy it would be to undo all his good work. All he had to do was say the wrong thing – again – and he’d be sticking his neck under the friendship guillotine.

And that wasn’t all he had to worry about. Jack couldn’t stop thinking about what those Year 7 girls had said that morning.
Bring back Jack?
Something about a poll on the
Bigwigs
forums? Hopefully it was just some dumb thing
Bigwigs
fans did to keep themselves busy while they waited for the next season to start. What would be the point of bringing old contestants back? Past winners, sure. Runners-up, maybe. But the rest? The ones who hadn’t measured up? Why would anyone want to see
them
again?

At recess, after his Business and Enterprise special subject, Jack bumped into Darylyn as they both headed for the quadrangle.

‘So what are you thinking?’ said Jack. ‘For next year’s electives, I mean.’

Darylyn raised her eyebrows. ‘Well, I don’t want to startle you, Jack, but I think it’s very likely that my subjects for next year will include maths, computers … and computers.’

‘Right, of course,’ said Jack. ‘Computers. Good choice.’

They walked the rest of the way to the quadrangle in silence. Reese and Vivi were already there by the time Jack and Darylyn arrived. The four of them had claimed one of the tables there halfway through Year 7, and so far nobody had challenged them for it. Reese seemed especially psyched to see them – which made it all the more mysterious when he offered Jack a high five that was seriously lacking in swag. It was almost as though Reese had been looking right through him.

‘So,’ said Jack. ‘Mayor for a Week. I told Vivi she should apply for it. She’d be a certainty, right?’

‘Totally,’ said Reese.

Darylyn nodded. ‘To the extent that anything is certain, I would say hell yes.’

Vivi shrugged. ‘I don’t know. My marks haven’t been so great this year. I probably don’t need another distraction.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Jack. ‘You’re still equal top of our class, last time I checked.’

Vivi side-eyed him. ‘And you happen to know that because you’re keeping an eye on your competition, I guess?’

‘Nerds,’ coughed Reese.

Vivi put on a shocked expression. ‘Nerds? I refute that statement most strenuously.’

‘As do I,’ said Jack. ‘Do you think we’d be sitting here at the cool table if we were nerds?’

‘No,’ said Darylyn. ‘But let’s face it – we’re mostly here because of Reese’s genetically-acquired street cred.’

Reese poked Darylyn in the arm and grinned. ‘That’s racist.’

This is new
, thought Jack. Not the jesting, but the direct physical contact. Was this something male and female buddies did now? He waited a moment, then tentatively jabbed Vivi in the arm. Unsure if he’d made a decisive enough jab, he did it again, harder.

‘Ow! What the – ?’

‘Mayor for a Week,’ blurted Jack. ‘Are you going to do it or what?’

Vivi rubbed her arm and winced. ‘It depends. First of all, they might require a candidate with a full set of functioning limbs.’

‘Sorry,’ said Jack. ‘It’s all this new muscle tone I’ve suddenly got. So annoying. I guess I don’t know my own strength.’

‘Second,’ said Vivi, ignoring him, ‘since it’s just a popularity contest, they’ll probably end up giving it to someone like
her
again.’ She pointed at four Year 11s cruising through the quadrangle as though it were a beachside esplanade.

Natsumi ‘Nats’ Distagio and the Shieling twins
, thought Jack. As usual there was a random fourth member of the entourage – a budding beta-babe orbiting Nats’s inner circle.

Reese leant towards Jack. ‘Dude, is that your
sister
?’

Jack looked closer, then found himself nodding dumbly as he realised that, yes, apparently Hallie was now rolling with Upland Secondary’s topmost division of divas. One more thing that seemed to have changed between the end of Term 3 and the start of Term 4.

‘Wow,’ said Vivi. ‘You could totally work that to your advantage, Jack. Marry into the Distagio family. Become an instant millionaire. Plus, she’s so pretty.’

Jack shrugged. ‘She’s okay.’

Okay
, he thought.
Okay in the same way that flying in an F-35 stealth jet would be ‘okay’.

Natsumi Distagio’s tan was just that shade more perfect than anyone else’s. Her eyes, nose and mouth were crucial millimetres closer to ideal. Her hair had optimum bounce and lustre. Natsumi Distagio – and Jack felt this was no exaggeration – was a hottie of sufficient magnitude to be one of those models who stood at the back of the stage during the presentation of a
TV Week
Logie award.

Vivi nudged Jack. ‘So when are you going to pop the question?’

‘Huh? Why am
I
being singled out here? What about Reese? He’s a guy. Like me. We’re both guys. Both … fully grown guys.’

Vivi glanced at Reese, who flinched at the sudden attention.

‘Somehow I don’t think Reese has his eye on Nats,’ said Vivi wryly. ‘Anyway, I think it’s good you’ve got yourself a love interest.’

Good in what way?
wondered Jack. He felt it again – the feeling he’d been having the whole year, of some uncrossable gap between them, of being talked down to. When Vivi said it was ‘good’, it sounded like the sort of ‘good’ you’d say to a puppy who’d finally learnt to poop in the right spot.

‘Because it’s such a joke that I could be with someone like her …’ he muttered.

‘She
is
significantly older than you,’ Darylyn noted. ‘Though the age difference only seems so pronounced because of the wide variance of physical and emotional maturity in adolescent populations.’

There was an awkward pause. Reese glanced from side to side, then hastily unwrapped the earbuds from his battered MP3 player. ‘So … I just found out about this thing called Calypso War. It’s, like, these Caribbean singers in the 50s who went around dissing each other like total gangstas –’

Vivi poked Jack in the arm. ‘I didn’t mean to make fun of you.’

Jack shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

‘Actually, I
did
mean to make fun of you. But only in a “we’re all grown-ups and can look after ourselves” kind of way.’

That’s the problem
, thought Jack. It didn’t feel like that at all. It felt more like they were making fun of him in a ‘you can’t possibly be our equal because it seems very doubtful that you possess any pubes yet’ kind of way.