30 Thirty - First day of classes

Beryl entered the stage first, singing a slowed down version of what sounded like a pop song in Tadpole. She was joined by a dancing Phineas who harmonised with her last few lines before the beat sped up. Hugh and Orlan leapt onto the stage to act as background dancers while Phineas took over the stage with a transition to a different song and Beryl backed him up. Hugh and Orlan took turns taking centre stage until an ethereal voice sang a wordless countermelody to their song, eventually transitioning to a slower paced ballad.

Melesse was revealed walking onto the stage in an elegant dress while the others gave way. Then the music skipped a beat and Telea slid onto the stage to sing a reprise of the upbeat song the men had sung earlier.

How did they all sing and dance without losing their breath?

Stacey recognised the program's theme song.

"What are they singing about?" she nudged Ken.

"Oh. This is a popular song by Triple B-Bounce called Burn Up. It's about blazing with passion, charging through the difficulties and refusing to give up. It's pretty good, huh?" he nodded to the catchy beat.

"Oh."

It was certainly a fiery, explosive song. It would be better if Stacey could understand the lyrics. The song was in Tadpole with the occasional English word thrown in.

The mentors' presentation ended with a bang.

Stacey stood up with all the other trainees to applaud and cheer. The mentors' chests heaved as they maintained their finishing poses. The lights changed and the mentors regained their breath while the stage was rearranged. The mentors took a seat on the sub stage just in front of the main stage. The mentors sat facing the main stage, just like all the trainees.

Orlan stood up first, standing on the main stage to give a pep talk. Next, Hugh told them a few housekeeping rules about maintaining respect for one another by keeping things neat and clean - especially the shared areas, like practice rooms, toilets and bathrooms. Finally, Beryl told them their timetable for the day.

All trainees would be cycling between classes taught by the mentors for this first week for intensive study in specific areas. Trainees numbered themselves off to be randomly allocated into different classes.

When Stacey's turn came, before she could call out her number, Orlan spoke up. Stacey was slightly relieved at not having to call out the number in Tadpole that Ken had been trying to teach her to pronounce.

"Not you, Stacey," Orlan said, shaking his head. "You won't be joining the main classes with everyone else yet. You have different classes to attend, so that you can get up to speed on the basics. You need to learn Tadpole first and complete your foundational studies. Because there's going to be so much for you to catch up on, your timetable will be different. Otherwise you won't be able to fit everything into the limited amount of time we have. You have to also pass the High School Certificate exams before the end of the program or you will lose your place in the competition. Everyone else has already done theirs, while an exception has been made for you due to your situation. Ken, you continue the count."

Ow. That hurt.

Stacey looked down with gritted teeth, balling her hands into fists. She could hear a few jeers and murmurs of surprise coming from around her. The other trainees probably felt more free to express their thoughts out loud because they weren't mic'd up. Otherwise they'd probably be silent or be making sugary sweet encouraging comments that they didn't mean.

"So even the mentors know how dumb she is."

"She doesn't know Tadpole? What hole has she been living in?"

"Couldn't they hire her an interpreter? Separating her in this way isn't very nice, is it?"

"Why are they giving her so much attention? Has she made a fishy deal under the table?"

"Maybe she slept with someone to get in and pass the auditions."

"Don't tell me they actually found a real lost kid."

"Are they going to give her special training so that she can surpass us and take all the screen time?"

"Don't tell me they've already chosen her as the winner and this whole competition is just a scripted farce."

"Is there even any point to her being in this competition? There's no way she's going to be able to do anything. She'll be the dud in any group she's in and get in everyone else's way."

"She's so 'special', isn't she? How 'precious'."

"Stacey," Endo turned around to put his arm around her shoulders, speaking loudly and clearly for others around them to hear. "You aren't a dud."

"That's right," Flail said. "You contributed equally to our group yesterday."

"No, you idiots. She was the one who contributed the most, yesterday. She has a more solid grasp of music theory than us and she has almost perfect pitch," Ken poked both Endo and Flail in the foreheads. "She was the main singer. It was her song too. Remember?"

"Oh."

"Oh yeah."

Flail and Endo rubbed their foreheads and gave Stacey cheerful grins.

"Anyway, we believe in you," Endo told her. "Respect! You've got this!"

"Thanks, guys."

"Not knowing Tadpole and school stuff doesn't mean anything," Flail said. "Don't listen to what those cynics are saying."

"We believe you'll catch up in no time at all," Ken reassured her. "I guess we'll see you at lunch."

Thank goodness for good friends, even if she'd only just met them a few hours ago. They had soothed the sourness she had felt from being looked down on and told how far behind she was from all the other trainees.

"Yeah," Stacey sighed.

The trainees finished numbering off and were given directions on where to go next. Stacey watched her friends jostling each other as they left her behind. She plodded her way down out of the stands, feeling abandoned and lonely. Being on her own felt strangely like she had been exposed to the scrutiny of more eyes and made vulnerable now there was no crowd of teenagers to hide in.

On the auditorium floor, she was met by two of the tutors she had noticed marking her papers yesterday. The main stage with its decorations was being taken apart and put away. It all happened so quickly that Stacey was amazed at how muh more space there suddenly was.

Once all the other trainees and people were gone, Stacey was left in the empty auditorium with the cleanup crew, a few of the cameramen and the production crew who had stayed behind to film part of her classes. In this way, the auditorium became Stacey's private classroom.

Stacey dutifully greeted her tutors after they introduced themselves to her, while watching staff setting up a whiteboard and various props that looked like they might be teaching tools. The two tutors smiled at her.

"First, we'll teach a song and dance to help you learn the cuneiform Tadpole alphabet and their sounds. You will have to strike the correct toned drums in rhythm to the dance. The drums all have a picture of the correct letter of the alphabet on them. Let us demonstrate."

The female tutor's skirt blossomed out while she whirled and danced with whirling drumsticks to strike the drums arranged around the stage when the corresponding alphabetical letter was projected onto a drumskin. A drum had to be struck twice a beat. That meant Stacey only had a quaver's length of time to listen, recognise, locate and strike the correct drum.

No way. They were starting the bar at such a high level?

Come to think of it, if they made this into a teaching video for little kids just starting school, it'd be a hit. The only problem was that kids would probably pick this up quickly, having already been exposed to the Tadpole language and culture. As for her, she had to learn everything from scratch.

Stacey rubbed her face. She couldn't remember the letters of the alphabet, let alone the footwork and movements. The only thing she remembered was the tune. At least the tune was relatively simple. It was just a variation of 'twinkle twinkle little star'.

The tutors patiently taught her using a mixture of English and Tadpole. They guided and led her through the song and dance step by step, gradually speeding it up as she began to remember the alphabet better. The repetition eventually drilled the song and dance into her head. From there, they moved onto simple vocabulary using what seemed to be rhyming children's songs and other dances.

Stacey wondered if Mindy would write the filming of her classes today into a children's education program. No adult would want to watch her clumsy stumbling and poorly pronounced words, that was for sure. Her tutors had even started calling her Classmate Stacey, but that made her feel even more like she was being treated like a little kid. Sometimes looking younger than your actual age was not a blessing.

By the end of the morning, Stacey's brain was buzzing with all the information that had been stuffed into it. Her muscles felt sore. She was so busy reinforcing what she had learnt in the morning in her mind that she didn't seem to notice anyone or anything at lunch. All she knew was that lunchtime had been noisy. She didn't remember what she ate - if she had eaten anything at all.

It was a habit and a problem of hers. When she put her mind to learning something seriously, she ended up focussing so intently that she neglected all else until she was satisfied that she had fully comprehended and remembered everything that she had been taught. To people who didn't know her well, they'd think she was being proud and aloof, ignoring them on purpose. In reality, she was just going over things in her mind with no spare attention to deal with anything else.

Hopefully Ken, Endo and Flail wouldn't mind and would understand - if they had been present at lunch. Stacey wasn't sure. She couldn't recall. A staff member had guided her by the elbow from place to place for her classes, not daring to let her go, because she kept spacing out in the corridors instead of following them.

After lunch, she had a math and geography combined lesson, following which she was sent to the gym to participate in the massed fitness training. While they afterwards had special exercises, Stacey was being taught basic strength and flexibility exercises. This was all while learning and singing simple tunes. If Stacey's voice wavered, the exercise count was started again.

Then there was a basic class on falling and tumbling safely. The mentors took turns teaching her basic lessons while the other trainees were performing far more difficult physical activities combined with voice lessons.

The trainees had free time after that to shower and prepare for dinner, while she had to revise her day's lessons to her tutors' satisfaction before she was allowed to have eat. Somebody had eventually led her floating body to a chair and forced her to sit on it.

The boys had pretty much fed her because her mind kept drifting. She often paused in the middle of chewing or stopped with her spoon midway to her mouth. Stacey had only noticed their presence because they had forcibly helped bring her spoon the rest of the way to her mouth multiple times or tried to shake her out of her inner world of revision, laughing.

While the other teenagers had an evening class and then more free time after dinner, Stacey was being taught to read the music notation and studying basic Tadpole music theory. To help her understand and remember, she translated the music notation into staves and bars in her head. She missed supper because she had been wrapped up in her studies after her tutor had left her alone in a classroom. Ken and Endo had interrupted her to have a drink with them when they had come to check on her. To tell the truth, they had splashed a glass of water in her face to bring her back to reality and then forced her to drink a cup of juice with them. They had stayed with her to help answer a few questions but then they had disappeared. Stacey didn't know when they had left.

By bedtime, Stacey felt like she had lost contact with the ground. Some people had pulled her up from her seat and put away the books while she had been revising. She'd been almost dragged back to the bedroom feeling bewildered, not really understanding what was happening. She didn't remember washing up or getting into bed or whether the mentor ladies had been there or not. People had pushed and pulled her, doing whatever they liked to her body, but Stacey had barely noticed. Someone had patted her head and another person had hugged her, but she didn't know who. She didn't even remember getting into bed and falling asleep. Stacey had been too busy concentrating on her studies.