The moment Stacey tried to struggle up out of the wheelchair, people immediately came to her side. The still silence was broken.
"Stacey, what's wrong? What do you want? Do you need to go to the toilet?"
"What was that song? That was so cool. Imagine all the trainees singing that song together. Did anyone record it?"
"Stacey, did you compose the song? Where'd it come from?"
"It's the rearrangement of an old folk song," Stacey said, frowning at her itching fingers. "I was told to come up with a way for me and all of us to say goodbye to each other. What do you think?"
"Is that why you've been so out of it?" a trainee laughed. "No wonder."
"You weren't listening to our songs while we were practising at all."
"I reckon this cup song's a great idea," said another trainee and the other trainees murmured agreement. "It's a simple tune and easy to remember. Teach us how to make the rhythm with the cup."
"Yeah! Teach us, teach us."
"Wait! Wait, let me go call the others."
Instead of rehearsing their pieces for the final competition, all the finalist trainees crowded into the practice room to learn the cup song from Stacey.
Landen and Mindy soon found out what was going on and came in to watch and listen. The mentors came to learn the song as well and discuss the choreography and how the stage should be arranged. The staff crowded in a corner to have their meeting while the trainees tried out different stunts with plastic tumbler cups while staying in rhythm. Stacey also taught them a body clapping rhythm which the dance students took to like ducks in water.
After some time, the trainees drifted back off to their individual practice, while the staff moved their meeting elsewhere. The group Stacey was with sought her assistance with their performance piece.
Other groups went in and out, interrupting their practice to ask Stacey some questions. She promised to help them another time, so that she could focus on the group she was with at that point in time.
Eventually, the trainees decided that Stacey should be sent to bed. Stacey felt like everything was fine, but the trainees insisted. To her confusion, they said that Stacey was stumbling over words and swaying in her seat. She was slurring and didn't look very awake.
To keep them happy, Stacey shrugged and allowed them to call Elsa and Anna in to wheel her away.
The itch to play the piano woke Stacey up during the night. She crept out of the room with the assistance of the wall in her pyjamas without waking her assistants or the female guards who had fallen asleep in the corridor. When she fell, she crawled until she found a place to haul herself back up onto her feet.
In the dim light, Stacey stumbled and nearly fell down the stairs. After deciding that walking down the stairs wasn't really safe, she bottom shuffled down, one step at a time. At the bottom of the stairwell, Stacey stopped and stared at the lift. Why hadn't she just used the lift? It would have saved a lot of trouble and effort. She hadn't really realised how far the practice rooms were from the dorm rooms before. Why was it so far away?
After a moment's rest, Stacey used the wall to help her walk down part of the corridor, stopping at every chair and couch along the way for a break. Her legs grew heavier and heavier. After tripping on her toes for the third time, Stacey crawled the rest of the way in an ungainly manner on her hands and knees. It wasn't like there was anyone here to see her anyway.
A long break on a seat and a mini nap on the couch in the corner later, she finally sat at the piano. Her itchy fingers played scales, argeggios and technical pieces to warm up. Her right hand was more clumsy than it used to be and required her to play far more slowly than she used to. It also grew tired quickly.
It frustrated Stacey that her mind could remember the feeling of how to play pieces but she could only trip over notes or play extremely slowly. The nimbleness and dexterity she remembered was missing. So was the stamina and endurance.
Stacey didn't know how long she sat at the piano to practice. She woke from where she had fallen asleep on the piano to find flustered people behind her making a fuss. Someone helped her into her wheelchair and she dozed all the way back to her room where her pyjamas were changed and the material stuck to her bloodied knees and elbows were carefully eased off her scrapes and abrasions.
She heard scolding voices but was too tired to listen. Her right hand was sore and slightly cramping from all the exercise she had put it through. With practice and time, she was sure she'd be able to get it to pick up her old skill.