On the night of the elimination challenge, Stacey performed a children's lullabye in Tadpole. It was one about getting soundly walloped before bed every night in order to help children sleep well and grow. Each smack was counted as a wish for something. The original song only contained seven smacks, but Stacey managed to extend it all the way to twenty-five.
The audience had quite mixed reactions to her pointed performance, with some not knowing whether to feel sad for her or laugh out loud. The auditorium also had split reactions.
Stacey's tongue in cheek replies to some of the mentors' questions and comments that made herself the butt of most of her jokes, endeared her to the majority of the online audience, garnering a high number of votes. But then everyone saw a glitch in the counting system and the rising vote numbers reversed until she was once again at the bottom of the list.
"What a bummer," Stacey commented without surprise or a change in expression, making people laugh. "Just what I wanted. More attention on my lack of a booty. I estimate that by the end of the program, I may not have one left at all. It'll have been smacked into a perpetual pancake. Does anyone know a way to reinflate it?"
"You're taking this all rather well," said Hugh with a small smile.
"You could say that I've been mentally preparing myself all week," Stacey said with a deep sigh, "and discovering that there's an almost neverending supply of rear end related jokes. What can a girl do when she's obtained far more attention than she has ever dreamed of?" Stacey made a dramatic pose. "I must be so loveable that people are just jealous of my talents."
"You really need to work on your acting there," Melesse pointed out with a chuckle. "Like this."
Melesse repeated Stacey's two lines in an even more over dramatic manner, making everyone laugh.
"No, no, you should perform it seriously. Like this," Telea re-enacted the two lines.
"How would you interpret it?" Beryl turned to Hugh.
"I'd have to change the lines," Hugh scratched his ear. "It'd be: what can a man do when he's obtained far more attention than he's ever dreamed of? I must be so cool and handsome that people are just jealous of my talents," Hugh tossed his head and hair to one side.
All the mentors had a turn, playing with the two lines that Stacey had demonstrated, until Beryl brought them back on track.
"Sorry, Stacey," Beryl said. "I believe you were telling us your thoughts about yesterday's performance."
"And here I was hoping to avoid the question," Stacey scratched her neck. "I'd hoped I'd at least give a passable performance in at least one stream yesterday, but much as entertainers are supposed to love the stage, I suppose performing more isn't exactly a good thing. Professionals might be able to do it, but my foundations haven't even been laid yet, so I'm sorry for my poor results. I apologise to everyone for being such a greedy stage hog that I jumped on stage five times yesterday. I hope everyone isn't sick of seeing me already."
"I'm not. Not yet, anyway," Hugh said. "And how are you feeling about your performance tonight?"
"You know when you've already made such a big mistake that you don't think you could possibly dig yourself a deeper hole?" Stacey asked. "Something like that. No matter what I did today, I would probably have a bad result because of the lack of time to prepare or practice. This is my sixth performance this week, you know."
"We know," Beryl said. "How are feeling about performing so many times this week - health wise?"
"Exhausted," Stacey admitted. "The doctors are considering forcing me to drop out of the program."
"We calculated the amount of sleep you've gotten this week and discovered that it amounted to an average of an hour a night," Telea said. "That's really not good for you, Stacey."
"Add to that, the fact that she's been scaring everyone all week by working herself until she collapses," Orlan frowned. "Stacey, you really need to take better care of your health."
"It wouldn't be fair to all my teammates in my five groups if I didn't do my best for them. They already tried to make things easier for me, but the truth is, I just haven't had enough time to practice with everyone as I should have. It's awfully hard to be in five places at the same time every night. Juggling conflicting appointments is hard. I was already the weakest link. There hasn't been enough time for me to study, practice individually, as well as practice with the groups," Stacey said, rubbing her eyes. Her voice cracked. "I don't know how to tell them how sorry I am that they're all going to have to participate in the elimination challenge. If I don't do well, I'll still get to stay. But if they don't pass the elimination challenge, that's the end for them. It's not fair to them that I've pulled them down. I've already done the best that I can but it's still not enough."
"Wait," shouted a trainee, jumping up. "Did her vote numbers just change again?"
"Yeah. They've dropped again. Why are her votes still dropping? Isn't the number of votes fixed after a certain amount of time?"
Despite all the discussion among the trainees about the falling votes, the mentors and crew pretended it didn't happen. Stacey also pretended she hadn't seen anything, allowing the online viewers to discuss and make a fuss about it. Although she didn't feel good about it, it had been expected.