ROSIE RILEY’S DREAM
Penny Clover Petersen
Copyright © 2012 by Penny Clover Petersen
Cover Illustration © 2012 by C. Clover
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Visit Penny at www.pennypetersen.com for more information
For Rachel and Sophia
Rosie Riley sat astride the jungle gym that she had outgrown a year or so earlier. She was alone in her yard. Sun was shining brightly on the green leaves of the wild cherry and oak trees that bordered the lot and there was just enough of a breeze to send a rustling sigh through them. A mockingbird was singing ‘bob-white’ and a woodpecker could be heard hammering busily in some old stump.
But Rosie had no use for these beauties today. What good were sunshine and breezes and birds when you, yourself, were a complete mess?
“Oh boy! Why do I have to be so different?” she said to herself out loud. She had just gotten home from school after a pretty hard day. All of her friends were busy at soccer and softball practice and she had no one to play with.
“Why can’t I be like everyone else in my class? I really wish I liked soccer or softball, instead of ballet. Nobody likes ballet!”
She got up and kicked at a small pile of leaves. Then she caught sight of her reflection in the window of the garden shed. “Ugh! Stupid brown hair. I wish I looked like Margery Phillips and I wish I didn’t always know the answer in school.” Rosie jumped up and down and shouted, “Oh, I wish I was just the same as all my friends!”
As she sat feeling sorry for herself about her terrible problems, she noticed a small bird perched on the limb of an old oak tree. He was a lovely little bird with deep golden feathers, flecked with bits of purple, and his chest was vibrant lavender. But his eyes were very odd, very odd, indeed. Rosie had never really noticed a bird’s eyes before. These were a brilliant green like the stones in her mother’s emerald earrings. And he stared at her with such intensity that he made her nervous.
And what those eyes saw, as Rosie was just lamenting, was not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill nine-year old. What they saw was a lithe, graceful little body tanned to a pie-crust brown, long, brown, sun-streaked hair drawn up into a braided ponytail, and a beautiful child’s face complete with slightly crooked teeth and a pair of glasses sliding down her small, but regal nose.
Hiding behind those glasses were what the bird found most interesting. He saw a pair of pretty hazel eyes, not so remarkable for their color, but for their depth. These eyes saw more than just the obvious because these eyes looked for more. And if Rosie had thought about it, that was the root of her problem.
“Good lord above, even the birds in my yard are different!” she cried. “Everything about me is weird.” She threw a small stone at her visitor, but he just hopped to another branch. And he kept looking at her with those funny eyes. He really looked like he was listening to her and could understand everything she was saying.
There they sat watching each other until Rosie said, “Did you want something or have you just come to stare at a freak like me? But I guess you might know how I feel. You look so different. You must feel pretty odd around your bird friends. Well, say something! You look like you want to.” But the bird just cocked his head and went on staring.
For the next couple of days, Rosie would sit on the jungle gym after school and the little bird would sit in the tree and she would talk to him.
“Better than talking to myself. People might think I’m crazy,” she said. “Well, bird, do you have any ideas for me? I just don’t know what to do. Today in school the teacher asked who wrote The Raven and I blurted out Edgar Allen Poe before I realized that nobody else knew the answer. Everybody laughed at me. Even my best friends, Maria and Jessica.
“And then I had to go to ballet, instead of skating with Jessica. She told me I was weird to want to work so hard all the time and not have any fun. I have fun! It’s just that I like doing different things, but now it’s starting to make me feel funny.
“Oh, you really can’t help me, can you?” She hopped down from the bars and waved to the bird. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Mom is taking me to buy new ballet shoes for my recital on Sunday. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Rosie and her mom went to the dance center to get the shoes. Pink Capezios, size 4½. Nothing unusual at all, but the salesgirl couldn’t find them.
“I’m sure we had them in stock, but I can’t find anything smaller than a six. This is really strange. We just got a shipment in on Monday. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“That’s all right,” said Mrs. Riley. “We’ll try down the street.”
They tried the shop down the street, and the very small shop around the corner and the big department store in the mall. But everywhere they went, they got the same sort of answer.
“I’m sorry, we just sold the last pair.”
“I’m sorry, our shipment was supposed to be in yesterday, but they just called and it won’t be here until Monday.”
“Sorry, nothing in your size.”
For one reason or another, no place had ballet shoes that would fit Rosie.
“Mom, we’ve got to find them. I need them for dress rehearsal tomorrow. How can everybody be out of them?” cried Rosie.
“I don’t know, honey. When we get home I’ll go through the yellow pages and call until I find a store that has a pair. We can stop by and pick them up on the way to rehearsal tomorrow.”
They turned onto Wisteria Lane, a little road near their house that had just a couple of shops on it; a dry cleaner, a small pharmacy and a Chinese take-out restaurant. Rosie noticed a shabby, grey building she had never seen before that had a sign on the door that read All Kinds of Shoes for All Kinds of Feet – Mr. E. Cheever, proprietor.
“Mom, can we try that little shoe store? Please?”
“What shoe store?”
“Right there. Mr. E. Cheever’s store.”
“That’s odd. It must be new. Well, we might as well give it a try. But don’t get your hopes up. This place might be very expensive and they probably don’t carry ballet shoes.”
They parked the car and went inside. It was a little dingy and dim, the only light coming from a small open window. At first the shop appeared empty, but then Rosie noticed a little, grey man wearing thick glasses behind the counter sorting buckles and shoelaces.
She walked up to him and said, “I’m looking for a pair of shoes.”
“Shoes! Shoes! Let me see now. I think, yes, I think I have what you need,” said the man in a high, reedy voice that was rather pleasant to hear. It reminded Rosie of a bird chirping.
She opened her mouth to tell him what kind of shoes she needed, but he had already darted behind the curtain in back of the counter. He came back carrying a pair of pink ballet shoes, size 4½.
“How did you know what we wanted?” asked Rosie and her mother at the same time.
“Oh, little girl, you look just like a ballerina to me. And I can judge a shoe size from the sound of your walking. When you’ve made as many shoes as I have you learn these things.”
“You made these shoes?” asked Rosie. “Are they all right? I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but they are supposed to look like everyone else’s in the dance. I don’t want to be different.”
“Oh heavens, oh, yes. Yes, indeed. Oh, these are very common shoes, very ordinary. Nothing special about these shoes. Nothing at all. I make them that way because I know little girls hate to be different. Try them on. Dance around in them. See if they aren’t exactly what you nee
d.”
As Rosie was trying them on her mother asked how much they were.
“Thirteen dollars and fifty cents,” replied Mr. Cheever.
“What, for handmade shoes! Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. I try not to overprice. Little dancers need good shoes. That’s what counts.”
Annie danced around the shop and cried, “They’re wonderful, Mom. Just perfect.”
“Okay. We’ll take them.” Mrs. Riley paid for the shoes and Mr. Cheever put them into a gold and purple bag. As they left the store, neither Rosie nor her mom noticed a pair of sparkling emerald eyes watching them intently from a perch near the ceiling. And when Rosie turned to wave good-bye, Mr. Cheever was nowhere in sight.
As she was getting ready for bed that evening, Rosie’s mom poked her head in the room.
“Everything all set for tomorrow?”
“Yes. All set. Mom, why do you think I’m so weird? I mean, what makes me different from other kids?”
“Well, to begin with, you’re not weird. And there’s nothing wrong with being a little different. Actually, I think it’s pretty wonderful. Who wants to be just like everyone else, anyway?
“Why, I’m always hearing you talk about Maria Delgado. ‘She so awesome, she’s so beautiful.’ And she’s different, isn’t she? She plays the piano beautifully and she practices that as hard as you practice your ballet.”
“But she’s not really different,” moaned Rosie. “I know she
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