To Train a Wild Rose

Chapter 29 - Hors-D'Œuvre

I spent much longer than usual getting myself all dressed up and I even tried to do something with my hair, even though it was still a bit too short for anything fancy. At least I made sure it was all brushed and tidy. And when I was done, I sat back and sort of had a look at myself in the mirror and was... like... totally shocked by what I saw. The person looking back at me was definitely a young lady, rather than some kind of scruffy kid, and, without any of the whole false modesty type stuff, she really didn't look too bad at all. I guess the funny flashes of blue through my hair were really the only reminder of the old Ro that I used to be.

And they even matched the flashes in my lovely dress!

And then, for some reason, I found myself sort of wondering about whether my master would like what he saw.

And... basically... really hoping he would, I guess.

I sort of studied myself for a couple more seconds and decided that I probably ought to think about makeup or something but I didn't have any of the stuff and, even if I did, I wouldn't of had the foggiest clue what I was supposed to do with it.

I mean... it was stupid but, even with that, Mr M probably knew more about the whole thing than me! I giggled a bit as I found myself vaguely wondering whether he used mascara on his eyebrows or something!

I slipped on the shoes that he'd bought to go with the dress and then, after checking myself in the mirror one more time, I decided that I was just about as ready as I was ever going to get.

So I took this deep breath and set off down the corridor to see whether Mr M thought I was good enough.

I... like... paused for a moment at the entrance to the living room bit and then, doing my best to sort of walk like a lady, I stepped inside to see what Mr M thought of the shiny new me.

But then I was basically brought to this... like.... crunching halt.

Everything was so... wow... like... totally different... pretty much magical. It took me a couple of seconds to work out that, apart from a single spotlight in the kitchen, everything was... like... lit by candles. Even our television window was playing along and all the mountains and things were sort of shining in this amazing moonlight.

The table had already been set with this shiny, white table cloth and there was this... like... totally crazy collection of plates and glasses and cutlery and stuff laid out. And it was all sort of sparkling in the flickering light.

At last I got my head back together. "What can I do?" I asked, wandering over to my master who was putting a large pan of water on to boil. But really, inside my head, I was still sort of screaming, 'Am I good enough? Please tell me I'm good enough.'

"Everything's under control here," he answered, turning round. And, in spite of everything, I had to sort of smile when I saw he was wearing this really smart shirt and tie but he had this... like... stripy apron, over the top of them... with a picture of a chicken on it. It just looked a bit funny.

But he sort of froze when he saw me. "Good evening, Beautiful!" he said. He took my two hands but held me a bit away from him so he could sort of inspect me. "Who are you and what have you done with my little babygirl?"

And I could have pretty much cried with relief.

He stared at me basically forever until I was basically dying of embarrassment. "I probably need some makeup, or something," I mumbled.

"You don't need anything," he told me firmly, meeting my eye and sort of holding it so I couldn't look away. "You look perfect... you are perfect."

I sort of wanted to protest but I guess he'd trained me pretty well and at least I knew how to take a compliment now. So I forced myself to sort of look him in the eye and reply, "Thank you, Master."