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you’re a total baldy-balls.’
    The changing room turned into an echoing cavern of laughter. Only Philo and Kenny Hodgman remained silent. Sampson merged back into the mass of wide shoulders and underarm hair that was everyone else in the changing room who wasn’t Jack Sprigley.
    ‘He’s such a nong,’ said Philo.
    ‘Y-yeah,’ said Jack.
    ‘I mean, he called you “Sprogless”, and that’s not even your name.’
    Jack grabbed his backpack and headed for the toilet cubicles next to the showers. Sampson had decided one thing for him, at least. There was no way he was going to get changed out in the open now.
    ‘Where are you going?’ asked Philo.
    ‘Where does it look like I’m going?’
    ‘But why are you taking all your stuff with you?’
    ‘Oh,’ said Jack, glancing down at the open backpack. ‘Well, that’s because … I’ve got these new Nikes? They cost heaps . Probably shouldn’t let them out of my sight.’
    ‘Are you sure they’re new? They look a little worn.’
    ‘That’s … designer scuffing. It’s the new thing.’
    ‘I can watch them for you if you’re worried –’
    ‘No, really, it’s fine. I’ll just take my gear in with me. Actually, since I’m doing the whole toilet thing anyway, maybe it’d be just as easy to get into my shorts and stuff while I’m in there.’
    ‘Okay,’ said Philo. ‘I just thought you might have been worried about the … you know. The pubes thing.’
    Jack snorted. ‘I’m not worried. Why would I be worried? Sampson doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’m totally normal, pube-wise. I’m just the same as everyone else.’
    Just then, Jack caught a glimpse of Kenny Hodgman, who was doing his best to get his soccer shorts over the significant deposit the puberty fairy had recently paid into his underpants. Jack blinked in disbelief. It didn’t seem possible that one person could need to grow that much genitalia in such a short space of time. Who needed to reproduce that urgently?
    Philo waved a hand in front of Jack’s face. ‘Are you okay, Jack?’
    ‘Y-yep.’
    ‘You’ve gone a bit pale.’
    ‘I’m okay. I’ll … I’ll be out in a minute.’ Jack closed the cubicle door, dropped his backpack and leant against the wall.
    He wasn’t fooling anyone. Sampson saw right through him. Even Philo knew the score.
    Which meant Vivi and Reese and Darylyn probably saw through him too.
    The tide was rising on Pubeless Island.

    The PE double turned out to be only marginally less humiliating than the changing room. After some warm-ups, half of Mr Delphi’s combined class of 8C and 8D were sent off to practise dribbling and passing, and the rest gathered at one of the soccer nets to choose sides for a game.
    Jack hung at the back with Philo and Vivi as Mr Delphi selected captains for each side.
    ‘Oliver Sampson. Your turn again. And … let’s see –’ Mr Delphi’s eyes roved closer and closer to where Jack stood with Vivi and Philo.
    Not me, not me, not me , thought Jack. The last thing he wanted was to show the world how very far he and Sampson were from being equals.
    ‘How about young Vivi Dink-Dawson?’
    Jack breathed a sigh of relief as Vivi and Sampson stepped forward and took turns choosing their sides. Sampson’s first pick was Tom Ziyadi – an instant expert at whatever sport you threw at him.
    ‘Not the most imaginative choice,’ Mr Delphi said.
    Vivi’s first pick was Jack.
    Mr Delphi raised his eyebrows. ‘Maybe a little too imaginative there, Dawson.’
    ‘Want to go goalie?’ Vivi whispered, as Sampson made another predictably athletic choice for his second lieutenant.
    ‘Sure,’ said Jack. For one thing, it spared him the embarrassment of rubbing shoulders (or not) with the other, more advanced, male specimens out on the field. He hoped that wasn’t why Vivi had suggested it. He preferred to think of it as a vote of confidence: her way of saying she was happy for Jack to have her back.
    Once the sides were