Video Rose and Mark Spark Read online

  “I’ve got an idea, Miss,” said Mark.

  “Let’s hear from someone else for a change,” said Miss Moss. “Louise?”

  “We could have a bring and buy sale, Miss Moss,” said Louise. She liked bringing and was very good at buying.

  “We could have a sponsored run,” said Jason, who always came first at running.

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Mark, who simply couldn’t keep quiet. “Let’s have a parade with all of us dressed up as guide dogs with collecting tins round our necks and we could have my Great Gran at the back of the parade and we could be leading her. We could all go woof, woof woof and –”

  “That’s enough, Mark. It’s certainly an original idea but I don’t think it’s very practical. Still, I’m glad you’re showing such an interest.”

  Chapter Two

  No wonder Mark was interested. He boasted to Jason and Louise all the way home.

  “Just wait till you see my Great Gran out with her guide dog! He’ll have to go very slowly so my Great Gran can keep up. I’ll train him to be ever so careful.”

  “Don’t talk daft, Mark Spark,” said Louise. “They have proper trainers for the guide dogs.”

  “And Miss Moss didn’t say your Great Gran was getting this guide dog,” said Jason.

  “She’s blind so of course she’ll get one,” said Mark. “Wait till my Great Gran hears.”

  “I think the whole street can hear,” said Jason, wincing away from Mark. “You don’t half bellow sometimes, Mark.”

  Mark was used to talking in a loud voice for Great Gran because she was a little deaf as well as blind. She couldn’t hear when Mark knocked at her door so he had his own key.

  “Great Gran!” Mark yelled, flying through her hall.

  Great Gran wasn’t great at all. She was a very little lady and when Mark went bounding straight on top of her she nearly got squashed.

  “What’s this, the human whirlwind?” she said. “Get off of me, you great lump!” but she laughed and tickled Mark.

  “D-o-o-o-n’t!” Mark squealed. He was very ticklish, especially under the arms. “Give over, Great Gran. Listen!”

  “I can’t help but listen, Mr Squirm-and-Squiggle. You hungry? The teapot’s brewing and there’s marmite and crisp sandwiches and jammy buns.”

  “Wow, great. But do listen, Great Gran. You’re going to get a dog!”

  ‘No, I’m not!”

  ‘Yes, you are. My school’s saving up to get you a dog.”

  “What would I be doing with a dog at my age, you soppy date? I can’t even get out myself, let alone take a dog for a walk.”

  “That’s the point, Great Gran,” said Mark, tucking into his tea. “You don’t have to take the dog for a walk. It can take you for a walk. It’s a guide dog, get it?” Mark sprayed crisp crumbs in his excitement.

  “Oh, one of them,” said Great Gran. “Yes, they’re a smashing idea. That young girlie I see up at the eye hospital, she’s going to be getting a guide dog. It’ll make all the difference to her. She’ll be able to pop into the town or slip out of an evening no bother at all.”

  “But I want you to have a guide dog, Great Gran!” said Mark, so upset that he actually stopped eating.

  “They’d never give me a guide dog, pet. I’m too old. I couldn’t get out and about even if I had a dog. And I’d have to be taught how to look after it, and I’m too old a dog to learn new tricks.”

  “Ooooh,” said Mark, bitterly disappointed. “Why do you have to be so old, Great Gran?”

  “That’s what I ask myself, little chum. Here, have a jammy bun. Have them both, darling, you’re a growing boy.”

  Mark ate both buns and felt a bit better. They settled down in front of the television and watched Neighbours (Great Gran just listened) and then Mark read aloud. They were reading from a big fat paperback called Love’s Flame. They hadn’t got to any flaming bits yet, but there was a lot of love. They were the bits Great Gran and Mark liked best. He read in funny voices, deep down in his tummy for Sir Jasper and high up and silly for Roseanne the servant girl. Great Gran laughed until her eyes went weepy. Mark laughed too and forgot about the guide dog.

  Chapter Three

  Mark still wanted to help raise the money for the guide dog all the same.

  Miss Moss decided to try the Bring and Buy sale first.

  “Bring lots of gifts,” said Miss Moss.

  Jason was bringing a big box of chocolates (if he could keep them out of Ben’s way).

  Louise was bringing a big plush teddy she’d never played with and some old videos and a knitted toilet roll cover made by her mum.

  Mark had problems deciding what to bring. He wanted all his toys and his mum was too busy to make anything.

  “I can knit,” said Great Gran. “I’ll knit you up a pair of socks quick as a wink.”

  “Thanks,” said Mark doubtfully. Great Gran had never been much of a knitter even when she could see.

  He felt even more doubtful when she produced the socks. They were made out of scraps of wool so they didn’t even match. One was mostly pink, with yellow stripes. The other was red with black at the top.

  “Do they look all right?” said Great Gran. “I think I might have dropped a stitch or two.”

  “They look smashing,” said Mark loyally.

  The other children didn’t think they looked smashing when he slipped them on the Bring and Buy stall. They laughed and pointed.

  “Whoever brought those awful old socks?” they said.

  Jason knew. Louise knew. They looked at each other. They looked at Mark.

  “I think they’re absolutely brilliant socks,” said Mark fiercely. “I’ve simply got to have them before anyone else snaps them up. Only thirty pence? That’s a real bargain!”

  He bought the socks himself. He put them on there and then, although they looked even odder on the leg. Mark only had five pence left to spend now. Nowhere near enough for the box of chocolates.

  “Well, they’ll keep your feet warm anyway,” said Jason.

  “They look dead trendy,” lied Louise.

  Mark smiled at his friends and didn’t mind quite so much about the chocolates. And at least Great Gran’s socks weren’t left lying unwanted on the stall. Louise’s mum’s knitted toilet roll cover was reduced right down to five pence and still no one would buy it. Louise was getting very pink in the face.

  “I’ll buy it as a present for my Great Gran,” said Mark. “I bet she’ll like it.”

  Great Gran liked it a lot.

  “What a dear little knitted hat. I’ll pop it on every time I go out in the back yard. It’ll keep my head nice and cosy.”

  Great Gran’s socks kept Mark’s feet more than cosy. He wore them when they had their sponsored walk. (Miss Moss thought a run might prove too energetic).

  The walk seemed energetic enough for Mark. Jason rushed ahead right away. Then Louise left Mark far behind. Soon Mark was trailing round the playing fields by himself.

  He sat down for a little rest. He took his shoes off and aired his molten feet. One toe had poked a little hole in the red sock already. It looked like a nose peeping through. Mark wiggled his toe and made the sock stick its nose in the air. Then he made the sock sneeze. He’d have liked to play socks for the rest of the afternoon but he had to put his shoes back on and crawl round the playing field again. And again. And again. And even then he didn’t do anywhere near as many circuits as Louise, let alone Jason. Left to Mark, they wouldn’t manage as much as a puppy paw or the tip of a tail.

  Chapter Four

  “What am I going to do, Great Gran?” said Mark, munching a condensed milk sandwich. “I’ve been useless at this fund-raising lark so far. And now Miss Moss says our class are going to give a concert, charging ten pence a seat.”

  “That’ll be fun, lovie,” said Great Gran.

  “No, it won’t,” Mark wailed, not watching his sandwich carefully enough. Condensed milk dripped down his wrist and up his shirt sleeve,