A young mouse of eighteen living in the French countryside was dancing to the sound of her friend's small tamborine. Next thing she knew, she was handed a business card. The man told her something she couldn't understand. She was confused, and as an answer to that, he took back the card and scribbled something on the back of it. He butchered an 'au revoir' before leaving.
Looking at the card, few recognized the name, but everyone knew that logo: the Royal Ballet School. And when the card was turned, seeing the number the man had written, there were no more doubts. Even when converting the pounds to francs, a professional ballerina makes in one mouth double what both her parents could make in a year. Her parents sent her to London that very same day.
She encountered the man at the train station, as if he was waiting for her. He kept talking throughout the journey, looking glad that she came and excited to get back to London. The young mouse thanked him with a silent nod.
Only once she stepped into the busy streets of London did the events finally register. She followed the man closely as he called for a cab. They arrived at the Royal Ballet School. The man brought her inside and began to talk to the front desk for a while.
He then grabbed her hand and dragged her with him up a few floors. They walked down a long hallway where there was a long line of young female mice, younger than her. The man made her cut everyone and entered a room. It would seem there were auditions happening, he even interrupted one applicant in her routine, sending her away. He placed the young mouse in front of the evaluators and started talking to them.
He then faced the young mouse and slowly walked away from her, gesturing her to go ahead.
She looked at each person looking at her, the man, the evaluators, the pianist, even the other girls in the hallway. She fidgeted, her eyes darting around the room...
After a while, one of the evaluators sighed.
"Dunkan." he whispered to the one who brought her here. "I don't think-"
"You don't have to whisper, David." he waved a hand. "I don't think she speaks a word of English!"
David raised an eyebrow and looked at the girl.
"Do you understand what we are saying, dear?" he said, articulating.
The young mouse stared at him. Dunkan laughed.
"See?" he gestured towards her.
"Well then we can speak plainly." David leaned back. "This isn't going to work."
"I'm telling you, this is a diamond in the rough! I found her in the French countryside-"
"Ah yes," another evaluator rolled her eyes with a smile. "Dunkan's famous instinct."
"When has it not worked? Pray tell, who scouted two of the top five prima ballerinas in all of Mousedom?"
There were grunts and scoffs, but no one denied his expertise. Dunkan thought for a second before going up to the piano and starting hitting it in rhythm, similar to the drumming he heard when he encountered her. The young mouse's eyes widened a little bit and she eventually began to dance. The evaluators were very impressed. Dunkan laughed, he stopped and so did she.
"Thank you for coming, ladies." he went to the door and addressed the mice in the hallway. "I'm afraid the auditions are closed." he closed the door.
"Now, I see potential but-"
"Great potential, David!"
"Yes yes, quite. We still can't have a ballerina who just stares at the audience like this." he gestured to her, who came back to staring silently.
"Oh don't worry about that! I shall shape her into the perfect prima ballerina." he said, rubbing his hands together with an excited smile.
The young mouse was presented with a contract. Dunkan wrote his name and signature on the bottom left. He then handed her the contract and the quill pen to the young mouse, pointing at the bottom right of the page. She stared at it, then at him.
In the end, he wrote her name for her and she just drew a cross.
She was given a room in the Royal Ballet School, where she could train as soon as she finished breakfast. Eight hours a day she would practice, then she'd have diner – following a strict diet – and then go to sleep. And the pattern continued for many years – six, to be exact – before she got on stage. A record time to become a ballerina, but the young mouse worked twice as hard as the others.
The first payment she's ever seen was the roses. Out of the darkness that was the audience, red roses were thrown onto the stage. She picked them all up and made a deep bow. She came back on stage multiple time to bow, as the audience kept clapping.
"Congratulations!" Dunkan took the roses from her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders with his other arm. "I told them you'd be a sensation! They loved you!"
He dumped the roses in a trashcan as they passed by it and began to talk about marketing.
Emilia Redfield was a huge hit. She was clearly talented and she became really popular really fast, getting to play these big roles in big productions, always performing with elegant ease. She would be on the front page of every newspaper in London. Even those who weren't fans of ballet were intrigued by her. After all, she was a really mysterious woman, very little was known about her. No performance of hers would end without her getting an armful of red roses.
She would then go back to the ballet school she resided in and practice. Thus continuing this new pattern of her life. Practice everyday, go perform, receive roses. Practice, perform, roses. Practice, perform, roses, the number of which would get bigger and bigger each time she went on stage. Which was starting to get cumbersome for her. Other than this small annoyance, Emilia went through this life smoothly. Her years of training made her used to this autonomous lifestyle, turning her into a well-oiled machine, unshaken, unbothered, absentminded.
Then one evening, as she was collecting the roses under the applause of the theater, she spotted something unusual that broke her out of this transe she's been under for almost seven years now.
A yellow rose.
Emilia quickly concealed it inside the giant red bouquet. She bowed and left. Each time Dunkan, her mentor and manager, tried to take the bouquet from her to 'lighten the load', she'd go back on stage to bow again. Until she was able to get the flowers inside her dressing room. She dumped all of the red roses in the trashcan and sat at her vanity, staring at the yellow rose, frowning and thinking deeply.
Only one question clouded her mind: Why yellow?
She couldn't find an answer. She carefully hid the rose in her coat and brought it to her room at the ballet school. She kept thinking about it.
Each time there was a performance at the theater she worked at – be it ballet, concert or opera – there would be stands set up across the street selling red roses for very cheap. Only red roses. So someone must've gone through the trouble of looking for a yellow one and buying it.
'Mais pourquoi jaune?!' * she scratched her head in frustration.
The flower started to wither, so she placed it in a glass of water. She kept thinking about it the following week. Well, she tried not to, but every time she'd see something yellow, her mind would drift back to the yellow rose in her room. She'd see more and more yellow in her everyday life. When you look for something, you start to notice it everywhere. At first, she was surprised, but she found herself rather fond of the color. It soon became her favorite.
But Emilia kept wondering. Who gave her that flower? Did they buy it, or were they growing it in their garden?
What if it was a man? What if it was a handsome man?
She found herself blushing at that thought and shook her head. She did her very best to make sure the rose stayed alive, even repotting it.
Nowadays, at the end of every performance, she would be sad to not see any yellow roses. It would mean that her mystery fan hasn't shown up.
In her off time, she'd fantasize about meeting them...
Translation:
* 'But why yellow?!'