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desperate!’
    ‘There’s prize money for the finalists, yes,’ said Ms Aria. ‘But I think it’s the experience – the opportunity to use your talents – that you’ll find most rewarding. It’s a competition, there’s no denying that, but I think you’ll find it’s best not to focus on that side of things.’
    Adele nodded. ‘I’ll be proud of you no matter how far you get. And … your dad would have said the same.’
    Even after three years, Jack still wasn’t used to hearing ‘your dad’ in the past tense. He looked at Ms Aria. ‘Everyone would still treat me like normal, right? It wouldn’t be … weird afterwards?’
    ‘People might treat you a little differently at first,’ said Ms Aria. ‘But of anyone in our Grade 6 group, Jack, you’re the one I think is most likely to handle whatever … recognition might come from being on the program.’
    ‘You mean, he’s not some ego-crazed maniac,’ said Adele.
    Ms Aria smiled. ‘Jack is definitely not an ego-crazed maniac, no.’

    Jack took a swig from his Sultana World juice and scanned the search results.
    Even as a contestant he’d fought the urge to take a peek at the Bigwigs forums. He remembered Mickey Santini having some sort of mini nervous breakdown after reading what the fans had said about his make-it-up-as-you-go-along approach to the week three pet food commercial challenge, when Yellow Team had been sent to work at the Normington-Price advertising agency. Jack mentally high-fived his Grade 6 self for exercising superior self-restraint.
    It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for.
    Me and my friends go to school with Jack Sprigley and he’s super hot! wrote ^kitty^cat on the ‘Next Season News’ thread. Nobody knows anything about him and he’s all mysterious. Not like Piers Blain who’s in all the magazines all the time. Boring! BRING BACK JACK!
    Jack had never thought of himself as mysterious. It wasn’t like he’d been deliberately secretive or enigmatic or anything. Sometimes you just couldn’t control how other people saw you.
    BRING BACK JACK! wrote {e-girrl}. Piers Blain is boring and also gross. He has little bits of hair in his armpits and even some on his chest. O__o.
    Immediately after that, Urchn weighed in.
    Yeah, we like Jack because he’s super huggy and you could have him for a sleepover and not have to worry because he’s like a little teddy bear or something. But not hairy like a teddy bear. Not hairy at all! BRING BACK JACK!
    Jack nearly spat out his juice. He was about to close the laptop when the title of one of the other forum posts caught his eye.
    Reality TV Champion Blain Scores $1m Luxury Apartment
    One of the forum members – obviously more of a fan of Piers Blain than ^kitty^cat, {e-girrl} or Urchn – had posted a link to a recent news article.
    Former Bigwigs star Piers Blain spent his holidays approving the finishing touches on a harbour-side apartment, which he’ll take occupancy of next month.
    ‘The main thing was fine-tuning the self-dimming lights in the X-box room,’ said Blain, 14. ‘And choosing the right beanbags. These ones are designed by the guy who invented Shane Warne’s latest skin tone.’
    Blain will have his own live-in chaperone and tutor, and has said he intends to ‘party responsibly’ while also focusing on ‘blitzing’ his final few years of high school, reviewing games for the Byteface videoblog, and continuing his appearances as the public face of the ‘Be Cool To Each Other’ anti-bullying campaign.
    Jack had seen the anti-bullying ads. ‘Being a bully doesn’t make you a big person,’ Piers said earnestly into the camera. ‘Being a big person means having a big responsibility. A responsibility to be awesome .’
    The only time Jack had ever been the public face of anything was just before the start of high school, when he was invited to open the Upland South Childcare Centre alongside the town’s sixty-year-old bachelor mayor, Neville