Some time later, a bell rang, calling all the teenagers back to the auditorium.
"Have you all finished preparing? I hope you all show us what you've got with this mini competition," Hugh held the microphone, while the rest of the mentors moved their seats to the side. "We'll call you up in your groups. When you come up, introduce yourselves and the name of your piece. All right. Group One. The stage is yours."
"What group number are we?" Stacey asked Ken quietly. "When did we get a group number?"
"Earlier, while you were still asleep," Ken grinned. "We're number fourteen. There are twenty-three groups altogether.
"Man, they're all so good," Endo said after having watched a few groups perform.
"They're good, but we're pretty good too," Flail reassured. "We're gonna be fine. Don't freak out on us now. It'll be our turn soon."
"Do you think I'll ever be able to dance like that one day?" Stacey asked.
"You wanna do a sexy dance?" Endo leaned over Ken.
"No. I'm just saying - like everyone else. They've all obviously had a lot of training and it shows," Stacey said. "If they're all so good, what are people like me who don't know anything doing here?"
"Hey, you can play the piano," Ken gently punched her arm. "You can sing. You learned the dance we made earlier really fast. You can do flips. Your acting blew my mind earlier today - it's better than Endo and my acting and we've had classes. You're pretty much an all rounded natural at performing arts."
Stacey wrinkled her nose at him.
"It's true," Ken said. "If you think you don't know anything, you'll make Endo and I feel bad. We've had to work real hard to get here. You don't remember anything and you're already almost perfect. It's really not fair competing against someone like you, you know?"
"I'm the one who insisted on coming here," Endo pushed Ken back so he could lean over easier, "but this guy is way more talented than I am. I have to work, like, twice as hard as him. I'm the one who should be complaining about how unfair the world is. Flail - you can't talk. You've already got runner up in your district's beatboxing competition."
"You're better at dancing than me," Stacey snorted, pushing Endo off Ken.
"Yeah, but for how long?" Endo made a crying face at her. "Maybe you got trained before and sent here on purpose?"
"You guys shut up and watch," Ken hissed.
Their turn came soon enough.
"We are the Eyerollers," the group introduced themselves, standing sideways to the audience and snapping their heads to the side in unison while giving a big eye roll. A few members of the audience rolled their eyes at them in return with a laugh. After the individual introductions, Ken introduced the song.
"It's a song Endo and I heard Stacey sing and play for her audition. The rest of you might not have heard it before. It's called 'I'm a Show Off'."
Flail started the song off while the group danced in unison. Each member of the group made their way to the front to sing a section of the song while the others backed up with simple harmonisations that Ken and Stacey had worked out. Once it got to Flail's rap section, the others continued the beat he had begun earlier with his beat boxing by clapping their chest, arms, thighs or hands. Or even each other, while they vied with Flail for centre stage. Their flips and tricks were made to the beat, since they had no music.
Stacey flipped Endo over her shoulder. Ken then rolled her at Flail who jumped over her. Endo took over a part of the rap while Stacey and Flail covered him from view and Ken sang together in time with the rap. They ended with Endo sliding out from under Stacey and Flail's legs, followed by Ken's slide from the side, so that the group ended up with everyone's arms around each other's shoulders.
They panted in their final pose while their audience cheered and applauded.
"Well, that was quite the surprise," Beryl smiled. "Brave for you to pull off an acapella performance. Very amusing. You fought without fighting and you maintained the cohesiveness of the group without making it appear too crowded. I loved it."
"I'd like to know who was the main choreographer," Phineas stood up. "That was excellent choreography and I'm surprised you managed to achieve such a high standard with only one hour of preparation time."
The group looked between themselves and then Stacey gestured for Ken to speak. She still hadn't caught her breath yet.
"Actually, we all played a part in the choreography," Ken said. "It was a very collaborative approach and it wasn't as complicated or difficult as I had initially expected it to be. We kind of just threw all our ideas out and then worked out together what did and didn't work."
"Well done, all of you," Phineas sat down with raised eyebrows. "I've got my eye on all of you now."
"I liked the mix of song and rap. Very well done with maintaining the rhythm and beat through the song," Hugh said. "It was very catchy. There were quite a few of your fellow trainees who were helping you with the beat. Absolutely loved your performance. I have to say, your group is my favourite so far."
"I'm curious to see how you'd all perform with a less explosive style too. Considering I heard Stacey has never learnt dance before," Orlan nodded his appreciation, "I'm surprised at how well she did. Especially with some of those tricks. I'm really looking forward to see how you all go in our first fight class tomorrow. I believe you'd all look very good performing a sword dance."
"You all definitely have talent and potential," Melesse smiled. "I loved the song. The only downside was that there were a few missed beats and Stacey was sometimes half a beat behind in her dance. Other than that, I think I agree with Hugh. Definitely my favourite performance so far."
"Hugely entertaining," Telea grinned. "I'm glad to see Stacey is looking a lot better now. Take care of your health, alright?"
"Alright. It's time for you all to place your votes," Beryl called out. "Let's see what the Eyerollers' total score is. Mentors, turn your cards around… aaaand congratulations. Your group has achieved the second highest score. Well done. You can all take your seats again and we'll welcome Group Fifteen up onto the stage."
Jeff the bully's group was up on stage next and they performed a powerful song but lacked the lung power and accurate timing to really pull off the performance and take it to the next level. Jeff's group only scored a total of 76 and he glowered at Stacey's group when he was returning to his seat afterwards. Stacey ignored him. He seemed to be the only biased boy in the group. Stacey didn't see anyone else taking this little competition so seriously. Maybe he just had an excessively competitive streak when it came to Ken and Endo.
"What's his deal?" Flail muttered to himself.