The square jawed gangster with the goatee took the microphone back from Kelly.
"Stacey, I'm Jeff," he introduced himself. "When we first met, you were with some boys I grew up with. I didn't get along well with them. You called me 'Biff' and said 'smell ya later' to me. Now everyone keeps calling me that and are 'smelling me later' as a joke. I think if you hadn't given me a nickname and catchphrase, nobody would have noticed me."
Now he was telling stories as well. Why was he telling stories and what did his story have to do with this situation? Couldn't he just hurry up and finish his speech so that she could go back to lie down for a bit more?
"I'm sorry that I took you for another weird superficial wallflower. I'm actually glad you aren't in the competition anymore, because if you were, you'd definitely give us a run for our money. What I want to say on behalf of all the other trainees and myself, is that we're sorry for looking down on you. We acknowledge you as our professional competition and hope that we can all be friends."
Biff bowed and all the trainees bowed with him again.
Yeah, the name Biff still suited Jeff better.
Telea dabbed at the tears on Stacey's face, surprising her. She hadn't realised when she had started crying.
"Friends," Stacey agreed. "For sure."
The mentors were all beaming and some were even looking up at the ceiling to try and prevent tears from spilling or dabbing at their eyes.
Stop crying. Everyone, stop crying. Stacey, stop crying. There's no reason to cry. There was nothing to cry over. Seriously. Why was she so moved? Why were they talking as if this was her last day on the program? It wasn't… was it?
Beryl cleared her throat and regained the microphone.
"And without further ado," Beryl cleared her throat again and announced the results of Stacey's written exams. "With her raw score of 92.43 for her HSC written exams, Stacey has passed the cut off marks set for her by the judge and has successfully escaped punishment. For the streaming exams," Beryl paused and glanced at where some crew members were carrying a wooden bench onto the stage, "there is some good news and some bad news."
The mentors looked up at the big screen. When Stacey craned her neck up to look as well, a fit of giddiness caused her to nearly fall off the chair on the side Telea wasn't sitting on. Telea grabbed her in fright, hugging her tight for a moment.
"Get up a moment. We'll turn the chair around a bit so that you can look without falling off the chair," Telea whispered.
Stacey stood up and Telea helped her readjust the angle of the chair, so that when she looked up, at least the backrest was there to prevent her from tumbling off the chair.
The screen showed the five streams with different colours and symbols, along with Tadpole symbols signifying her grade: Satisfactory, Excellent or Fail.
Acting was yellow with a white mask. Stuntwork was blue with a stringbean person in wires. Dancing had a red dancing lady with an upraised arm and flowing skirt. Individual artists showed an image of a green man with a guitar. While group artists had a purple silhouette of a group of people posing.
Acting - Satisfactory
Stuntwork - Fail
Dance - Fail
Individual Artist - Excellent
Group Artist - Excellent
Ehh. Stacey wrinkled her nose and rubbed her neck where she didn't have any makeup. It was better than she had expected.
"Unfortunately, according to the rules of your participation, Stacey," Beryl said in a somewhat awkward voice after she had read out the results, "you will have to be punished. Viewers were polled during the week as to the number of strokes and the type of corporal punishment you will undergo. Orlan."
Orlan took the microphone that Beryl passed to him. Poll graphs were shown on the screen.
"Viewers agreed that a failure warranted either five or ten strokes, as opposed to the numbers lesser than five or greater than ten. There were also a surprising number of people who participated in the polls. The number of five strokes as opposed to ten won by three votes."
Stacey swallowed, feeling sick. She closed her eyes while Telea squeezed a shoulder.
"As for the type of corporal punishment," Orlan continued, "people's opinions were almost evenly spread across the board. The three most commonly chosen punishments was a ruler to the hand, paddling the backside and hand spanking the backside, as opposed to a belting to the calves or a cane to the backside. A hand spanking to the backside won the poll by one vote more than a ruler to the hand. As a result," Orlan coughed and passed the microphone to Hugh.
Hugh had an unnatural expression on his face, while Orlan turned around to hide his coughing fit from the cameras.
"As a result," Hugh said with distaste, continuing where Orlan left off, "Stacey will be…"
Hugh started coughing as well and passed the microphone to Phineas who passed it to Melesse who passed the microphone back to Beryl. Beryl sighed and grimaced, giving her fellow mentors a slight scowl, before assuming an expressionless face.
"Stacey will be subjected to ten spankings of the hand to her backside. Five for each failed stream. In order to maintain propriety, her guardian and husband, will be welcomed on stage to do the honours. Let's welcome him."
There was scattered, weak applause.
Thieren stalked onto the stage wearing a blank face mask with downturned lips. Telea patted Stacey's shoulder and returned to resume her seat with the other mentors. Stacey didn't really notice. She watched Thieren walk up to her with a growing horror. He loomed over her, so that his shadow covered her for a moment. He knelt beside her.
"The slaps will have to be loud so that the sound can be picked up, but I'll try not to hurt you too much. There's a set pace that public punishments take, so I can't do it fast and get it over and done with," he explained in a soft voice, turning Stacey's microphone off and removing it from her. "In general, loud punishments aren't painful but they have to be loud for entertainment purposes. I will sit on that bench and turn you over my knee. Bear with it and it will be done soon. Ok? Trust me?"
Stacey stared at him with a tear streaked face. After a long moment, she nodded.
"I know you're not feeling well, so I'll carry you there. I will also carry you offstage. Ok?"
Stacey nodded again.