Desi's Delights (A story for Madison)

Desi’s Delights

There was a very old building on Main St. that had been deserted for over 20 years. It used to be a candy store years ago so there were still glass display cases inside. Miss Desiree Duchesney saw the old building and immediately knew she had to have it for her new business. This building seemed perfect for what she had in mind.
Miss Desi could see it now, the big glass storefront filled with her delicious pies, cakes, cookies and candies. She would call it “Desi’s Delights”.
The building was owned by Mr. Browning and he had not rented it out since his wife died. She had opened a candy shop and had a great business until she died twenty years ago. People still talked about her wonderful candy. It was such a pretty place with every kind of candy you could think of. The townsfolk would stop by just to say hello because Mrs. Browning was such a beautiful and happy lady. No one ever left her shop empty handed. The candy was too tempting to resist.
Desi knew she would have to do her best to try to persuade Mr. Browning to rent the building to her. After all, she was new in town and he knew nothing about her.
She was born in France. Her father was French and her mother met him while on a trip to France when she was in college. They married and had 3 children. Desi was the youngest and their only daughter.
Desi attended the finest schools and she learned to sew beautiful clothes, she took dancing lessons, went to charm school, learned to cook and to bake wonderful pastries. She created beautiful hand work and made lovely things to sell and with all of her skills she helped put herself through college.
Her mother told her thrilling stories of America and she longed to go there someday.
Someday came sooner than she thought, and Desi came to live in America. Her parents died in a car accident and she felt there was no reason to remain in France. She sold what she could, gave away some things, and took the rest to America to settle down in her mother’s home town.
She baked several desserts and an assortment of candy and cookies and went to visit Mr. Browning. He seemed to be a pleasant man and he was eager to meet Milly Cabot’s daughter. When she told him what she had in mind, he was eager to rent the building to her. The store was across the street from the park so it was the perfect spot for her shop.
Mr. Browning tasted some of her treats and he told her they were the best he had ever eaten. He secretly could not wait to see the store opened again. He took her there and showed her around, apologizing for the dust. He said she was welcome to use anything still left in the store.
There were still some of the old glass jars his wife had used for her candy displays and the display cases would be perfect for her cakes and pies. She signed the contract, got the keys from Mr. Browning and could hardly wait to go and buy some cleaning supplies. She gave Mr. Browning a big hug and kissed his cheek and thanked him over and over for giving her a chance.
On the corner of the street across from the park lived a little girl named Rose. She was 8 years old and was a middle child, having a 12 year old brother named Jessie, and a younger brother, Sam, who was 6.
Rose loved to play in the park. She had lots of friends and they met to play nearly every day. Today, however, Rose was interested in something else. She had seen Mr. Browning and a pretty young lady go into the empty building across the street and her curiosity peaked. She wanted to know who that lady was and what she was up to.
She saw Desi leave the store and start walking down the street, so she crossed over and began to follow her.
Desi was headed to the hardware store to buy her cleaning supplies so she could get started on her store.
Rose slipped in quietly and watched her for awhile. She was watching as Desi piled a cart high with paper towels, mops and brooms, dust pans, cleaning supplies, sponges and trash bags. She knew Desi would soon run out of room in that cart, so Rose approached her and asked if she needed help.
“Looks like you’ll need a second cart,” said Rose.
“I think I will,” Desi replied, laughing.
“I can help push one for you. My name is Rose.”
“Hi Rose. I’m Desiree. Desi for short.”
The two became instant friends. Rose helped her to finish gathering supplies, and then helped by pushing one cart back to her store. Once the carts were unloaded, they pushed the carts back to the hardware store and thanked the owners for letting them use the carts. Rose and Desi laughed and talked all the way back to the store.
Desi thanked Rose for her help and told her that she had lots of work ahead of her so fun time was over. Rose asked if she could stay and help. Desi suggested she check in with her mother first, so Rose quickly ran home to let her mom know where she would be.
Rose’s mom walked back to the store with her so she could meet Desi and make sure it was alright with Desi for her to stay and help. Desi said it was fine if Rose stayed but she could run off to play whenever she wanted to.
The ladies exchanged phone numbers and then Rose’s mom left the shop. On her way home, she called and ordered pizza, drinks and bread sticks and salad to be delivered to Desi’s store in an hour and instructed the driver to stop at her house for payment.
Desi looked around and told Rose that she really didn’t know where to begin, there was so much cleaning to do.
“I know,” said Rose. “The bathroom. Everyone needs a clean bathroom.”
“You’re right,” said Desi. “Let’s have a look.”
They were surprised to see that in the back of the store a set of spiral stairs led to an apartment. There were two big bedrooms, a large bathroom, a very nice kitchen and sitting room and a lovely balcony area in the back overlooking a lovely garden.
Rose and Desi immediately fell in love with it. Desi’s mind raced, thinking fifteen thoughts at once. They were both talking at once thinking about Desi actually living here. She was staying in a hotel because she had not yet found a place to live. This would be perfect for her. She would be living above her sweets shop. She could barely contain her excitement. Rose was beyond excited and she was thinking of how many ways she could help Desi.
They had to stop themselves from flitting about and went downstairs to find something to do.
“The bathroom!” exclaimed Desi.
“Oh yeah!” said Rose. “I came back here to clean it.”
So they went to the bathroom in the back of the building. There was a shower stall in there so Desi said she would clean it and Rose cleaned the sink and the toilet. When they were done, Desi cleaned the top half of the walls and Rose cleaned the bottom half. Rose swept the floor and then Desi mopped it. They had just finished washing their hands when the pizza arrived.
By this time they were hungry and ready for a break. They were really grateful for the pizza and the rest of the food and drinks. When they were done they walked over to Rose’s house to thank her mom and to tell her about the discovery they had made. She was excited too. They talked and talked about plans to make it Desi’s home.
Rose and her mom, Mitzi, and Desi forgot for a time about all of the work ahead of them and it was nearly 9:00 p.m. when Desi realized the time.
“I’d like to say I’m sorry for taking up your time, but I have had so much fun!”Desi told them. She decided she would go back to her hotel room and get some rest and get an early start in the morning.
Early the next morning Rose was waiting for Desi to come so they could get started. Rose called to her mom when she saw Desi arrive and she and Mitzi and the boys walked right over to help.
Mr. Browning was so excited about the store, he walked over to see what Desi was up to. When he saw how much work they had before them, he made a call to a cleaning crew and had them come over to help.
In about an hour, four ladies and six men arrived to clean Desi’s building. The ladies, Desi and Rose and her family went upstairs and began cleaning from the ceiling down. They scrubbed everything and the new apartment was shining within several hours.
The men took a power washer to the brick walls and the cement floors and cleaned them. They took the display cases out and washed them down and let them air dry. When they were done they carried them back in for Desi.
That night Desi treated everyone to dinner at the hotel to thank them for their help. Mr. Browning had such a good time he hated to see the evening end. He was thrilled to hear that Desi planned to move into the apartment. When the evening was over, Desi thanked all of her new friends for their help then went up to her room. She slept better than she had in a very long time.
Desi went to Mitzi’s house the next morning and asked if she and Rose could go over to the store with her. The boys chose to stay home with their dad.
Upon entering the store, Desi showed them some sketches she had drawn of how she wanted her store to look. She had colored in the tiles for the floor and Mitzi noticed that there were tiles drawn in with a single rose on them. She smiled, but said nothing. Rose had not noticed.
Desi loved the colors purple, turquoise, and dark chocolate brown together. She had drawn blocks and colored them in. The largest portion of the floor would be a sand color then small blocks of purple, turquoise, and dark chocolate brown and a rose tile would add splashes of color.
She asked Rose and Mitzi what they would suggest for the walls and windows and any other accents of color.
She showed them pictures of the ovens and stove she had chosen and the stainless steel table she chose to work on and the cooling racks to store the baked goods on.
She knew there should be a wall to divide the storefront from the kitchen and she drew what she had in mind. The walls would be turquoise, framed with a dark brown molding, with a sand colored stripe, then a turquoise, then a purple.
She had chosen a piece of material that was sand with purple, dark brown and turquoise dots to make a valance across the tops of the windows and café style curtains on bottom.
They thought it was beautiful. Desi couldn’t decide on how to paint the rest of the walls.
“Paint it purple!” suggested Rose.
“Or you could paint the biggest sections sand, then border it with purple and turquoise with a strip of wallpaper to match the curtains,” said Mitzi.
“Oh yeah, and all of the stools at the counter could be covered with that material!” exclaimed Rose.
“That would be so cute, Rose! What a great idea!” said Desi. She made a note to check on that material in vinyl or leather.
“You can alternate your tablecloths turquoise and purple,” said Mitzi.
“Put purple napkins on the turquoise tablecloths and turquoise ones on the purple tablecloths,” said Rose.
Mitzi had seen some beautiful ceramic teapots in the exact colors that Desi chose and said how nice they would look on the tables or on the shelves.
Rose danced all around the room as though waltzing with an imaginary partner. That gave Rose a new idea to ponder.
The ladies took a break for lunch, then Rose and Desi went back to do some cleaning and Mitzi went home to cook dinner.
Desi paid a little more attention to Rose while she worked and gave her new idea a lot more thought. As they left for the night Desi told Rose to wear something nice tomorrow because they were going shopping.
Rose slept very well that night, but Desi’s mind was racing with thoughts.
When morning arrived, Desi knew what she would do. She was so excited, but she couldn’t share it with Rose. She wanted it to be a complete surprise.
Desi drove to a store that specialized in flooring and she suggested that Rose go exploring to see if she could find the tiles they were looking for. She asked a sales lady to help Rose and keep her occupied while she spoke to someone about her needs for the rest of the building.
Right away she explained that this would be a huge surprise for Rose so she wanted to take care of it first. She gave the man all of the measurements for what she had in mind. Once that was done, she ordered the carpeting and wood for the rest of floors for her apartment.
She met up with Rose and together they ordered the tiles, the material for the curtains, tablecloths, napkins and aprons. Desi ordered the material she would need for her curtains for her apartment and the strip of wallpaper for the shop. She found some beautiful vinyl material wide enough to make tablecloths for her tables. She decided to get a sand color to use for the tablecloths and alternate it with purple placemats and turquoise napkins and the opposite on the next table.
They went to a home decorating center next. Desi found some beautiful dark rose colored rose shaped wall hooks and she bought 50 of them. Rose laughed and asked why she was buying so many and Desi said, “Ya never know where you might want to hang one.”
They found the teapots so Desi bought 24 of them; one for each table and the rest for decoration. She found sugar and cream sets in the same colors so bought enough to put on each table and on the c0unter and for decoration. They also found dishes in the same colors in stoneware and she bought a dozen of each in each color. Since that added up to only 48, she decided to add 3 more of each color to round it off to 60. She chose a sand colored counter top and bought dark rose colored vinyl place mats for the counter.
“What about forks and spoons?” asked Rose.
Desi looked at Rose in amazement.
“Rose!” said Desi. “I had not even thought of that! What would I ever DO without you!”
They decided to buy them in the same colors as their dishes, but they bought 3 times the amount because people always drop their utensils.
The last purchase Desi made was the rubber mats for her doors and she chose one with the polka dots to match the curtains. Rose loved them!
“Rose, I think we are done for the day,” said Desi.
“I think so,” said Rose.
Desi asked Rose where she would like to eat and Rose, of course, chose pizza. While waiting on it, Desi called Mitzi to let her know where they were and she told her about all of their purchases. Mitzi was excited and couldn’t wait to see it all.
Rose fell asleep on the way home and Desi carried her in and she and Mitzi put her to bed.
Mitzi and Desi talked for hours about Desi’s idea and Mitzi agreed that she should keep Rose away so the place could be fixed up to surprise her. It would take about a week to get the floors and walls done, so Mitzi decided to take the kids to her parents’ home for the week.
The next morning Desi called to ask Rose and Mitzi if they would like to go shopping for furniture for her apartment. “The boys are welcome to come along too, if they’d like to,” said Desi. Mitzi said the boys already had plans to go to the game room and to play laser tag with some friends so she and Rose would love to come along.
They went to three different furniture stores before finding exactly what Desi was looking for.
She bought two bedroom sets for her apartment, a living room set and a kitchen table and chairs. For her patio she bought a beautiful patio table and chairs and a glider and 2 rockers and two little side tables and some plant stands. She bought a flat screen t.v. for her living room, each bedroom and 2 small ones for the shop and one large one for the surprise for Rose.
She purchased 4 square tables to seat 4 to 6 people and 6 round tables to seat either 2 or 4 people. She chose wrought iron tables and chairs so she could paint them the colors of her shop. She chose some dark wooden chairs with leather seats and backs in turquoise, rose and purple to have as extras for people who would be waiting and for her extra room.
They visited the appliance store and she bought two large freezers and 2 large refrigerators for the shop and she bought a new fridge for her apartment. She found the perfect stove she wanted and the large stainless steel table and the racks. She also bought her dishwashers and soda fountains.
Rose got very excited when they bought the supplies to bake and decorate the cakes, pies and cookies and candies.
Next they purchased the coffee makers and the ice cream machines. She wanted to have soft serve ice cream and malts and shakes. She also found a large ice machine that made very little noise.
When they were done Desi treated them to a wonderful seafood buffet and Rose filled up on her favorite foods; shrimp and snow crabs. Mitzi asked Rose if she would like to go and visit her grandparents and she squealed with delight when Mitzi said they could leave in the morning.
The next week was very busy for Desi. She had the walls built in her shop to separate the front of the shop from the kitchen and she had an opening installed in the center so she could just set her items down on the counter without having to walk all the way around each time. The carpenter surprised Desi by making the opening look like a cupcake! She loved it and couldn’t wait for Rose to see it.
Her flooring and carpets were installed, the shelves built, her cabinets and cupboards installed in the kitchen, all of her furniture and appliances were delivered and everything was in working order.
While this was being done, Desi was busy on her new sewing machine. She made all of her curtains for her apartment and the shop and made her napkins and placemats.
She put up the little polka dot border and hung her valances and café curtains. She put away her groceries and pots and pans and sorted out all of her decorating things for the cakes and put them where she needed them to be.
Desi took a day off to go shopping for an awning to go over her door and windows. She had them make it in her polka dot colors out of canvas. It would be so pretty once in place. She had a door installed on the left side of the building and she had a smaller awning installed over it.
She scrubbed the cement along the side of the building and when it was dry she painted ballet slippers with ribbons in the colors of her shop and they led the way to the side door. On the door she painted in dark rose, a silhouette of a ballerina, and above it she painted the words, “The Desiree-Rose Dance Studio”.
On the front door she had a professional come over to paint her signs.
“Desi’s Delights” was painted across the big windows in front and he painted her business hours on the door. He then painted cakes, pies, candies and cookies and other pastries on the windows.
Desi installed all of the rose hooks on the walls.
That night Desi made a beautiful dance costume for Rose. She embroidered Rose’s name across the front and added beautiful beads and ribbons and shiny sequins to the top and the skirt.
Rose and her mom and brothers returned from their trip later that night. They were all tired and went right to bed.
Desi could wait no more! At 9:00 the next morning, she was knocking at their door. She and Mitzi and the children walked over to the shop. Rose was squealing and trying to see everything at once. She was jumping and clapping and twirling all around. She kept saying how beautiful it was and how much she loved it.
Sam is the one who noticed the tiles on the floor exclaiming, “Hey guys! Look at this! It’s a rose tile! Get it? A rose for Rose.”
Rose sucked in her breath and looked so surprised as she bent down to touch one of them.
“That’s right, Sam,” said Desi, “A rose for Rose. It’s my way of saying thank you for being my best friend and for all of her help.”
Rose ran to Desi with her eyes filled with tears and hugged her so hard.
Desi then took them to the kitchen and showed them around. It was prettier than Desi remembered it to be! She showed them where everything was then took them outside for the special surprise.
She asked that Rose go first and close her eyes and she led her to the edge of the sidewalk. She had her camera ready to take a picture of Rose when she saw the surprise.
There were two large turquoise pots on each side of a lattice trellis. The trellis was purple and made an arc over the sidewalk. The pots were filled with deep rose colored silk roses and there were vines of them wrapped round the trellis covering the arc and both sides. From the center of the arc were two small chains but no one noticed them.
Rose looked down and saw the purple ballet slippers and ribbons painted on the sidewalk with the word “Welcome” painted in turquoise and trimmed in dark rose above them.
For once in her life, Rose was speechless. Her surprise showed on her face and in her eyes as she saw the slippers leading to the doorway. She looked up at the little canopy over the door exclaiming that she loved it. When she got to the door and read the sign, she stood there in awe, not quite understanding what she was reading.
“The Desiree-Rose Dance Studio”. On either side of the words were two beautiful tiny roses, entwined as though dancing.
Desi opened the door to her new project. Inside was her dance studio. Beautiful hardwood floors, highly polished, huge mirrors lining the walls on three sides, the large bar on either side of the room in dark chocolate brown, and the room painted the colors of Desi’s shop. In each corner of the room stood a large turquoise urn and a smaller purple one, and they were filled with dark rose and lighter pink silk roses. Along the back wall were the 24 chairs Desi bought. Rose saw the rose hooks on the back wall and ran to Desi and threw her arms around her neck hugging her so hard she was squeezing the life out of her! Even Sam and Jessie joined in the hugging. Mitzi hugged Desi and the kids and told Desi that she was the best friend she had ever had. Desi said softly, “You are my family.”
“Come along now and have a look at the bath room,” said Desi.
It was painted pale turquoise, trimmed with pale pink, with light purple accents. A basket of light pink roses hung in one corner of the room. On the floor was a rose shaped dark and light pink rug. The curtain for the shower was hand made by Desi; pale pink material with painted dark roses cascading down. It was beautiful.
Next was the apartment. Desi couldn’t wait for them to see it.
Desi had a beautiful wrought iron staircase made with roses in the design of the railings. The staircase was painted solid black. The doorway opened into Desi’s family room. The colors were warm and inviting. She had it decorated beautifully with the furnishings they had chosen. The only new items she had added were a beautiful large desk and sewing machine for herself and a smaller desk and machine for Rose. She wanted to teach Rose to sew.
In the guest room she had two brand new sleeping bags with the names Jessie and Sam embroidered on them. Desi told the boys that they were for them for whenever they wanted to sleep over. They were quite pleased that Desi thought of them too.
On the bed was a gift box for Rose, and she opened it to find her beautiful dance costume. Rose didn’t know what to say. Desi told Rose that she would teach her to dance if she wanted to learn. “More than anything!” said Rose.
They went to the patio balcony to see the changes Desi had made. It was beautiful. She had flowers and plants everywhere. Her patio furniture was arranged around a very pretty fire pit. On the table out there were four gift bags and she told them to go and find which gift was theirs and to open them. Desi had made each of them an apron and had their names embroidered on them. Rose had a dark rose apron, Mitzi had a purple one, dark brown for both Sam and Jessie, and a turquoise one for Desi.
“These are for when you want to help in the shop,” said Desi.
“Everything is so perfect, Desi,” said Mitzi.
“Not yet,” saidDesi. “I still have to unpack all of the boxes and put away the dishes and glasses and flatware!”
“We’ll help!” said Rose and the boys. They all went downstairs to the shop to begin unpacking the boxes.
Desi showed them her drawing of how the back wall should look but told them that if something didn’t look right, it could be moved.
They spent the rest of the day unpacking and putting the dishes in the dishwasher and then putting them in place. Desi had boxes of candy to fill the old candy jars and they set them on the shelves and counter.
Rose was so pleased when she saw the glasses with the tiny roses on them. Rose smiled lovingly at Desi.
When they finished, Desi took them all out for pizza and she thanked them all for helping her.
“I could not have done it so quickly without all of you helping!” Desi told them.
“When will you open for business?” asked Mitzi.
“Monday,” said Desi. “I have my soda machines in place and my ice cream and malt machines are working. I will begin baking first thing in the morning and then I will fill my display cases. Hopefully on Monday people will want to buy my treats.”
Early the next morning, Rose was there to help Desi any way she could. When Desi let her in Rose saw the back wall and for the first time noticed the cupcake opening in the wall. She thought it was the cutest thing. Another surprise awaited Rose. There on the counter was a very pretty cast iron replica of an old fashioned cash register, painted a dark rose color, and each of the keys was shaped like a rose.
Desi had designed her open/closed sign. It was a beautiful dark pink rose on one side, and said open. On the other side was a light pink rose, painted to look like a closed rose, and the sign said closed. Rose laughed with glee.
Desi took her outside for a moment to show her the sign that now hung from the chains on the trellis. It had the name of the dance studio on it, the hours it would be open and Desi’s name and phone number. Desi showed Rose that the number was 555-7673, and if she looked at the phone, it was 555-R-O-S-E. Rose could not believe how very thoughtful Desi was. Desi told her that she had inspired her to open the dance studio and it would help to bring in more money for her to help pay for all of her purchases.
Desi and Rose baked all afternoon. They kept it simple to start with. They made sugar cookies, butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. They made two pecan pies, two apple, two cherry, two lemon, and two cocoanut crème pies.
The cakes were yellow with chocolate frosting, white with white frosting, white with cocoanut frosting and chocolate with chocolate frosting.
They baked cupcakes in yellow, white and chocolate and iced them in many colors.
Desi made a strawberry cake and used strawberry frosting to ice it and decorated it with beautiful icing roses. Desi called it the Miss Rose special and priced it at $19.99. She and Rose then made mini cupcakes and frosted them with the same frosting with a tiny rosebud on top. These were samples of the Miss Rose special, and they would be free to their customers.
Monday morning at 7:00, Desi opened her shop. She had steaming hot fresh coffee made. She had baked fresh doughnuts and banana, blueberry, and apple muffins for anyone who wanted them for breakfast. The shop smelled wonderful.
The ice machine Desi purchased made either small blocks or crushed ice. She had whole milk, skim milk or chocolate milk and it was all ice cold, but some folks like ice in their milk. She also had a variety of juices. She had to-go cups with lids for people who couldn’t stay there for breakfast.
Before 8:00 a.m. she had sold all of the muffins, doughnuts and over half of her cupcakes.
Rose and Mitzi and the boys showed up at 8:30 for breakfast and offered to stay and help if she needed them. She had made some more doughnuts so they all sat and ate them while they were hot. The boys ran off to play in the park and Mitzi and Rose stayed to help Desi. They made more doughnuts and muffins and fresh coffee, cleared away the dishes and glasses and cups and loaded he dishwasher. Rose swept the floor and Mitzi cleaned the fingerprints off the front door. Desi made sure the sugar bowls and cream pitchers were full and that there were clean napkins for the tables.
Around 10:00 a.m. people started coming by to see Desi’s new shop. Everyone loved it. Ladies asked about the dance studio and Desi, Mitzi and Rose took turns taking them to see the studio and giving them forms to fill out to enroll their children in classes.
By the end of the day, 15 girls were enrolled, and every cake, pie, muffin and cup cake had sold. Two cookies were left over so Desi gave them to Rose. The Miss Rose special sold right away and Desi had orders for 4 more for tomorrow. She may just have to hire people to help!
Desi thanked Mitzi and Rose for helping them and she said she knew Mitzi needed to go home to tend to her family, but Mitzi said she would stay to help her bake for tomorrow. Desi said, “I will just have to hire you on as a helper!” Mitzi said, “I accept! The children will be in school again soon and I’ll be looking for something to do.” And with that, Mitzi was hired! They worked very late that night baking as many cakes and pies and everything else they could. The cases were once again filled with Desi’s Delights.
The rest of the summer went by quickly, with Mitzi and Rose helping every day. The boys even pitched in to help. They unloaded and unpacked boxes and helped to put the supplies away.
Desi and Mitzi taught them how to measure and mix the ingredients and they helped to bake cookies. The children were all very surprised when Desi handed them each a check for $150.00 for helping her all summer!
When school started again, there were 65 children enrolled in dance, so Desi had to take two nights a week to teach classes. Rose was her assistant and she learned everything very quickly. She was a bit clumsy at first but she practiced so much she became a very good dancer.
Her favorite dance was ballet. For their dance recital Desi chose one of the older girls to perform the solo. The big day arrived and the girls were rehearsing one more time for the recital that night. Two of the older girls were acting silly and clowning around and one of them slipped down and hurt her arm and the other girl tripped and sprained her ankle. Neither girl could perform that night. What were they going to do?
Suddenly it came to Desi. Rose! She could do the ballet dance. She knew it well enough to do it alone. Desi asked Mitzi to please send for the pretty dance costume she had made for Rose. Jessie ran home and got it and quickly brought it back.
Desi told Rose to put the costume on and meet her on the floor of the studio. As soon as she saw Rose in that costume, she knew she had made the right decision.
She started the music and Rose danced to the song without missing even one step.
The time arrived for the recital and they all went over to the civic center to begin. Everything was decorated so beautifully and the place was packed with people.
Every performance drew cheers and applause. Then the time came for the last performance of the night. Rose had to perform the ballet alone. Mitzi held her breath and crossed her fingers, but Desi knew that Rose would do it.
The lights were dimmed, the music began and the tiny dancer took the stage. One lone pink spotlight shone on Rose, and she slowly began to dance. Every step, every turn, was perfect! Rose finished her dance to a standing ovation cheers and whistles! She was the star of the show! Everyone told her what a brilliant performance it was and she was as proud as any ballerina could be.
What a terrific summer Rose had. She made a wonderful friend, learned to bake and decorate cakes and to dance, and got paid for having so much fun!



This is a story for Madison. She requested that I write about her as a ballerina named Rose. This is what I came up with.