Mickey felt as if he was always chasing after Rose Tyler, trying to get her to listen to him, to pay attention to him just once.
"Rosey-posey, where did you go now," he hollered to everyone and no one in particular. Powell Estates types didn't notice one kid yelling unless it sounded dangerous. And the only danger Mickey was in was getting murdered by Mrs. Tyler if she found out he'd lost her only daughter yet again.
"Rose, your mum told me to watch you and get you back home!" Mickey had wished he had never agreed to the duty. He'd wanted to play football with his mates, but Jackie Tyler had snagged him along the way and guilted him into taking four-year-old Rose with him. His friends had sniggered as Mickey agreed, dragging the girl with big, brown eyes and pink jumper with him. She'd seemed happy enough at first to watch the older kid's kick a ball around, and Mickey thought it would be safe just leaving her there on the bench to watch.
He blinked, just a moment, and then she was gone, her teddy the only thing left to show she was even there.
"Bloody hell," he swore under his breath, knowing Gran would smack him into tomorrow if she heard him say something like that. He spun around in the brick and concrete plaza between the grimy buildings that Rose lived in. It wasn't much, worse than Gran's small house even, but it was home for Rose and he thought maybe she had gotten bored and come here.
"Rose," he called half fearing Jackie might hear and come running out, screaming he had lost her daughter. There was no response, not even a giggle, or a playful call. It was like she vanished. How could one little girl in a bright pink jumper vanish?
"Rose, I'm not kidding, come out. Your mum wants you."
Not even that brought rose out of hiding. She was doing this to spite him he fumed, stomping across the plaza and back to the park. She was probably sitting there back on the bench, laughing at stupid Mickey who wandered off looking for her. She'd smile at him with that big smile of hers; those big brown eyes that would try to look innocent.
He stopped short as he crossed into the grassy expanse. As far as parks go it was little more than a patch of treeless ground the local boys kicked a ball around. There was a bench here and there, and at one end a ditch with a big pipe. It was big enough for them to splash around in the heat of summer if they wanted. It was also big enough for a little girl to crawl into.
Sitting on the ground beside it was a bright, pink jumper.
Mickey ran as fast as his legs would go to the sweater on the ground, screaming Rose's name. Frantically he looked for the little girl's brown head in the weeds, hoping she would smile up at him, would laugh up at him, would roll her eyes and yell at him, would say…
"Hello, Mickey!"
He spun to the sound of giggling behind him, his heart in his throat as Rose Tyler grinned; her jeans and trainers covered in mud, holding up in her tiny, cupped hands to his nose.
"Look! I found him!" Mickey reared back from the slimy, muddy frog the girl waved at him.
"Rose, where've you been? I've been looking all over."
"Here," she shrugged, plopping down on the ground in her filthy clothes, cuddling the squirming frog to her white t-shirt fondly. "I'm going to name him Pete, after my Dad. Think Mum will let me keep him?"
Even if Rose did convince Jackie that she should name her pet after her long-dead father, Mickey doubted that Jackie would agree to having that pet be a frog. "Rose, look…I don't think your Mum will be happy about it."
"Why not?" Big brown eyes looked up at him wondering what in the world was wrong with bringing a bug eyed, gross-looking creature into any house.
"Cause it's a frog. Your Mum doesn't like gross things."
"It's not gross!"
Mickey sighed. "Alright, it's not gross. But where you gonna keep it?"
"In my shoebox in my bedroom!" She muttered that as if it were obvious.
"Right, but the, what you going to feed it. Frogs like flies and things. You don't got those. And it likes living in mud and water and stuff. Your Mum would let that in the house, would she?"
"No." The little girl was finally catching on this was a much bigger deal than just keeping a frog named Pete around for company.
"Right. So how about we let Pete go for now, and let him go back to his mum and dad in the ditch, and we take you home and get you cleaned up, yeah?"
It took several pleading looks and a promise of a ride on the handlebars of his bike later that week before Pete was returned to his watery home. Rose sighed, taking his hand in her grubby one, trudging home beside him.
"I would have liked a special friend, Mickey."
He squeezed the little girl's hand. "I know, Rosey-posey."