A mobile phone began to ring, and I knew it wasn’t mine by the ringtone. Ben put down his tea and checked his pockets. ‘Ah, where is it?’ He stuck his head through the sheet. ‘Tom, is my phone in there?’
Heavy boots come closer and then Ben answered the call. ‘Hello, Mum, everything okay?’
He gasped. ‘What? You can’t find her? She must be in the house… She was there when I left earlier.’
‘What? Her wellies have gone, and the back door is open. I’m coming back.’ He let out a heavy sigh and walked back into the kitchen. ‘Mum can’t find Rosie. I need to go home.’ He ran his hand through his wavy brown hair. ‘Sorry, I’ll be back. Rosie is nearly seven and thinks she’s an adult.’
‘Oh, no, do you want me to come with you?’ The words tumbled out of my mouth to my surprise.
‘Really?’ He seemed taken aback.
I grabbed my coat and sunk my feet into a pair of wellies that I’d been using. ‘I used to go on adventures by myself a lot when I was little. Is your van around the back or out the front?’
‘Bizarrely I left it out the front when we arrived.’
Without a thought about Humphrey, Ben helped me open the front door and as I tried to close it, Humphrey shot out. Before I could shout and scream with frustration, he darted down the snow-covered driveway.
I trudged to Ben’s blue van. ‘Leave him. He’ll be fine.’
Ben’s van did a better job of driving down the snowy driveway than my car would have done. An older woman was waiting outside Ben’s cottage as we pulled up. Ben clambered out and I followed. ‘You found her?’
The woman shook her head. She was tall like Ben, with brown curly hair. ‘Her coat and wellies are missing. She left me a hand-drawn picture of her in the snow.’
‘Is the sledge still there?’
His mum nodded. ‘I left her alone for two minutes. I thought she was in the back room with her dollies.’
Ben strode away and headed into the back garden shouting, ‘Rosie!’
Ben’s mum ran her hands through her hair. ‘I’m so worried. You hear these stories of children being taken. I hope she’s okay.’
Reaching out I placed my hand on her arm. ‘We’ll find her. She can’t have gone far.’
‘I was doing some housework and I thought it had gone quiet in the lounge. Rosie has this independent streak in her. She’d been talking about going on an adventure when I arrived to look after her. I thought she was referring to something in one of her books.’
‘She sounds like me when I was her age.’
Ben came back. His face was taut with worry. ‘Rosie!’ he bellowed across the snow.
‘We should call the police. Oh, Ben, I am so sorry, I feel terrible. If anything has happened to our beautiful little girl, I will never forgive…’
Ben wrapped his strong arms around his mum and pulled her close. ‘Hey, come on. We will find her.’
I surveyed the lane and remembered Derek’s car from the day before. The tree he’d gone into was nursing a huge dent. Opposite Ben’s cottage and across the road was woodland. ‘Would Rosie have crossed the road and gone into the woods?’
Ben shook his head. ‘No, she would never cross this road by herself. Maybe she’s headed into town. I’ll go ask the neighbours.’
My heart was pounding in my chest. If I was Rosie and I was desperate to go on an adventure – where would I go?
Whenever Maddie and I went to stay with Nana and Grandpa in the summer holidays I was always the one who wanted to go off on an adventure. Maddie never wanted to cause Nana and Grandpa any worry so she would always say no when I begged her. After Maddie had said no, I would sneak out of the house to go on an adventure by myself. My adventures always ended up in the large forest at the end of Grandpa and Nana’s garden. I used to love the smell of the trees, their branches which always formed a protective canopy above me, and the crackling of twigs under foot.
It was then I heard a dog barking in the woodland opposite. That dog bark sounded familiar. ‘Humphrey?’ I recalled how Humphrey had stopped Rosie feeling sad the other day. Was Humphrey with Rosie now? It was a long shot. I ran across the snowy road and entered the woodland. ‘Humphrey, come here.’ He was still barking.
In a flash Ben was behind me. His loud footsteps thundered behind me. I followed the barking and pushed my way through the snowy bushes until I came to a clearing. There sat on a log was Rosie with her red bobble hat on, her red coat and matching wellies. Beside her was Humphrey, wagging his tail and gazing up her.
Relief flooded through me. ‘Ben, she’s here,’ I cried, as he appeared from the bushes.
‘Rosie,’ he gasped and ran to her. ‘What are doing out here in the cold and on your own?’
