Chapter 2: Of Adults and Arguments
Rosie was walking hand in hand with the pie maker and the girl he called Chuck in a forest, full of daisies. Suddenly, a woman walked up and teared them apart, grabbing onto Rosie, sucking what looked like money out of her.
"Rosie! Run!" Ned shouted, putting a covered arm around Chuck who was sobbing.
Rosie tried to run, but then, Rosie was pulled back. Rosie looked at the woman; Booberella….
"Mummy! Daddy! Help me, I can't move!" Rosie screamed, but they turned away suddenly and….
Rosie woke up, screaming and sobbing.
"Oh my God!" Ned walked into Rosie's room, with Chuck a safe distance behind him. Rosie stopped screaming as Chuck rushed past Ned and held her daughter close. These nightmares had been so often, so vivid…..
"She was there mum, she was, Booberella! She was getting money and then you two turned around!" Rosie clung to Chuck, burying her face in her mums neck.
"We'd never leave you Rosie, Ella's given up" Chuck told her. Ned was standing, head bowed, in the corner.
"Just because she's stopped coming, doesn't mean she's stopped!" Rosie breathed, drawing herself from Chucks neck.
"She's stopped Rosie, I know she has" but Chuck was wrong….
Rosie started serving pies to the few customers who had bothered to show up to eat the pie. Ned was busy making them and the girl he called Chuck was standing, placing the Pies into the oven, when a small woman walked in with a tall man with glasses, fingers intwined, wedding rings on fingers.
"Hello, Booberella" Chuck hissed.
"Hello, Kitty" Ella smirked.
"What the fucking hell are you doing here?" Chuck swore.
"I'm here to get my daughter away from the claws of an evil bitch"
"I've already done that"
Ella's smirk faltered for a second, but then became as big as her boobs.
"I'm here to check on my wife's daughter's home" the man told her, Ned walking out of the kitchen, pulling Rosie towards him, who buried her face into her jumper.
"It's well in order Mr…?" Ned questioned.
"Ah, yes! My name's Dylan Keys" the man said, shaking hands with Ned and Chuck, who were eying Dylan suspiciously.
"Well, it's perfect to raise children here" Ned told him.
"I need to have a look around the apartment that you're keeping Rosie in"
So Ned and Chuck lead BooberElla and Dylan up to the apartment, where Dylan started tutting.
"Is this the apartment?" he asked, sounding like it was a sewer and not a small apartment in Cour'd' Cour.
"Yeah" Ned told him, confused.
"Hmmm, Rotten fruit, animal in the kitchen, Barf?" he asked, pointing a finger at a patch on the carpet that Rosie had made a week earlier after eating fish, which she was indeed allergic to, that Ned and Chuck hadn't been able to clean up.
"Ugh, I can explain that!" Chuck told him "We've been so busy with Rosie that we forgot to clean up, plus, we tried cleaning the barf up, but the stain wouldn't come out"
Ella smirked before putting on a concerned face.
"Dylan, we can't let Rosie grow up here, she'll catch a disease!" she faked concern.
"That's so low Booberella, even for you!" Chuck tutted.
"What the fuck are you talking about bitch?" Ella told her.
"I'm talking about you hiring Dylan Keys, a well known social care worker who shags the mums looking for the children and doesn't care about the children at all, and then you marry him! And do not call be a bitch you slutty piece of shit!" Chuck had tears in her eyes.
"How dare you! I'm not the one keeping a child cooped up in a crappy place like this! You are a cheap, slutty, horrible-" Ella never finished her sentence, which she was shouting at an overly emotional Chuck, as Ned angrily leaped on top of her small body.
"How dare you talk to Chu- I mean Kitty- like that!" he shouted, to which she laughed. He punched her nose, making blood spurt out of her nostrils "You fucking bitch! I can punch harder!" and he did "You fucking, slutty, bitch piece of shit!"
"How dare you talk to Ella like that!" Dylan shouted, before pulling Ned off of Ella and sitting on him, punching his guts out "You pussy!"
Dylan punched Ned's head hard, making blood spurt out of his nostrils. Chuck's big eyes filled with tears, not because of Ella's harsh words, but because of Ned being beaten up.
Dylan stood up and walked behind Ned, threw his arms around his neck and strangled him.
"Ned!" Chuck cried.
Suddenly, Rosie jumped up behind Dylan, and climbed onto his back, making him back off of Ned. But it didn't work for long. Dylan threw Rosie off of his back, making her fly into the wall, before jumping back onto a dazed and confused Ned.
"Rosie, are you alright?" Chuck cried.
"No! My sides hurt!" Rosie told them.
Dylan finally got up off of Ned and went to Ella.
"Ned? Will you be alright?" Chuck asked concerned.
"No, I've got a black eye, bloody nose, bloody face, bloody everything!" Ned told her, placing a covered arm around Chuck's shoulder.
Rosie went and stood next to Ned and gave his and a tight squeeze, before burying her face into his black jumper.
"Mr Ned and Miss Pimms, I'm afraid that We'll have to take Rosie away, she is growing up in a place where; the apartment's dirty, violent, ill mannered parents, rotten fruit, barfed on carpet and even a dirty dog in the kitchen!" Dylan told them. Digby growled; He wasn't the dirty one, nor was his master, his girlfriend or even the new girl.
"But you can't! Rosie lives with us, we haven't done anything!" Chuck had tears streaming down her face "Mr Keys, I know that you're married to this vile woman, but, can't you see that my boyfriend and I aren't any of these things, and that we love and care about Rosie?"
"I'm afraid that I've made my decision"
Chuck's tears went further down her face. Ned found it hard to look at her sad face.
"Oh come on, Ella doesn't love her, she just wants money!" Chuck told him.
"Rosie, pack your stuff up, you have five minutes" and Dylan turned away from the family that he and an evil bitch had torn apart.
Rosie pulled a small rucksack from her closet and packed a few things; underwear, clothes, tooth brush, all that stuff.
But before Rosie headed out to the two evil bastards and her real parents, she picked up a picture album.
It was of Rosie, Ned and Chuck at the beach. In the first one, Rosie was playing football with Ned and Chuck was watching from across the beach, wearing a bikini. The next one was of them all eating ice-cream on the blanket, wearing sun glasses. But the last one was her favourite. It was them on the blanket again, Chuck hugging Rosie and Ned kissing her soft honey suckle curls. Rosie sighed and tucked the picture album into her rucksack. She wanted more days like this, the three of them at the beach, happy and smiling, like a real family. Her eyes filled up with tears as she remembered more of that day at the beach….
"Dad, look! It's the sea! I can't wait to go swimming!" Rosie cried to Ned.
"Well, you can if we all come in with you, we could all use a good soak!" Ned told her.
Later, while Ned was getting the ice-creams, Chuck looked at Rosie, who had laid across her lap, and stroked her curls.
"Mum, I wish we could live here, away from HER" Rosie told Chuck.
"Me too, but, we can't all get what we want" Chuck sighed.
"We can come here again, can't we?" Rosie asked.
"Of course we can"
"Tomorrow?"
Chuck giggled "Maybe"
"Please" Rosie pouted.
"Of course, only if it's hot though"
"Ice Creams!" Ned said beaming, holding three 99p cones.
Rosie sighed again and walked out of her room.
Chuck was still crying, Ned was still bleeding and the two ass holes that had come to get her were still there. Rosie ran up to Ned and cuddled into his jumper.
"I'll miss you, Dad" Rosie told Ned.
"I'll miss you too, Rosie" Ned told her, his own eyes tearing up.
"Hey, hey, here, take my handkerchief" Rosie handed him the handkerchief that was in her pocket.
He handed it back to her.
"Keep, it, you need it more than I do" Rosie told him, smiling slightly. He nodded and Rosie went to Chuck.
"Never forget me" Rosie whispered.
"I could never forget you, Rosie, you're my little girl, and you'll always be my little girl" Chuck whispered back.
"I love you guys" and Rosie broke away from the embrace that she wished could last forever.
"Is she ready yet?" Ella asked impatiently. Rosie nodded sadly.
"Good bye Dad, Good bye Mum" and Rosie was whisked out of the door by the two ass holes that had ruined her perfect happiness.
It had been half an hour since Rosie had been taken. Chuck was still sitting by the door, a hopeful look on her face.
"Good bye" Chuck had been whispering this since the door had been slammed shut.
"Chuck," Ned said, making her look up "She's not coming back, Chuck, she's not"
Chuck then broke into a fresh wave of tears.
"It's OK" Ned told her, giving her the handkerchief that Rosie had given him and she dabbed her eyes softly, before clinging to the handkerchief.
"I miss her Ned, she was one of the two things that made me happy" Chuck told him, placing her head onto his covered shoulder.
"What was the other thing?" Ned asked her.
She turned to him and said one word.
"You"
And then Chuck sighed, wishing that he could hold her and tell her that everything would be alright.
But he couldn't.