Mark Spark in the Dark Read online

  PUFFIN BOOK

  Mark Spark in the Dark

  Jacqueline Wilson writes for children of all ages. The Suitcase Kid won the Children’s Book Award, Double Act won the Smarties Prize, and The Illustrated Mum won the Guardian Children’s Book of the Year Award.

  Jacqueline lives near London in a small house crammed with 10,000 books.

  Some other books by Jacqueline Wilson

  For older readers

  TAKE A GOOD LOOK

  VIDEO ROSE

  THE WEREPUPPY

  THE WEREPUPPY ON HOLIDAY

  JACQUELINE WILSON

  Mark Spark in the Dark

  Illustrated by Bethan Matthews

  PUFFIN

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

  Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads, Albany, Auckland, New Zealand

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Hamish Hamilton 1993

  Published in Puffin Books 1994

  30

  Text copyright © Jacqueline Wilson, 1993

  Illustrations copyright © Bethan Matthews, 1993

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author and illustrator has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-14-192665-0

  Contents

  Mark Spark

  Mark Spark in the Dark

  Mark Spark

  Chapter One

  “Hands up all of you with a dog at home,” said Miss Moss.

  Mark’s friend Jason put his hand up. Jason had a spaniel called Ben who had once eaten a whole box of chocolates in ten minutes flat. Louise from down the road had her hand up. Louise had a poodle called Puffball who whined a lot. Mark felt he would whine too if he had to wear a red ribbon and a silly tartan coat. That was no way to treat a dog. It wasn’t fair. Mark would have loved a dog but he couldn’t have one.

  Mark’s mum and dad were out at work all day so there would be no one to look after a dog. There was no one to look after Mark when he came home from school so Mark always went round to Great Gran’s for his tea. Then he got another tea when Mum came to fetch him home. Mark was very nearly as greedy as Jason’s spaniel Ben.

  “Tell me all the different things your dogs can do,” said Miss Moss.

  “Jason’s dog can eat heaps,” said Mark. “And then he’s sick heaps too.”

  “Mark Spark!” (He was really called Mark Spencer, but everyone called him Mark Spark. Even Miss Moss).

  “And Louise’s dog whines and whimpers like this,” said Mark, imitating Puffball.

  “Mark Spark!” said Miss Moss.

  “Give some of the others a chance to answer, please.”

  Mark slumped in his seat. He listened to the other children telling long stories about Woofer and Bruce and Rover. He wasn’t impressed.

  “So your dogs can fetch their own leads and open doors and bark at strangers. But I’m going to show you a picture of a very clever dog who can do something else. Something very important indeed,” said Miss Moss.

  Mark looked at the big picture Miss Moss was holding. He saw a cream labrador in a special harness leading a woman with dark glasses.

  “This lady’s blind. She can’t see at all. Try closing your eyes for a moment. Now imagine you’ve got to get yourself out of the classroom, across the playground, out of the gate and all the way home without once opening your eyes. It would be very difficult, wouldn’t it?”

  Mark’s eyes were open, not shut. He had his hand up and was bouncing around in his seat.

  “I know what it’s like, Miss. My Great Gran’s blind. She can’t go out, well, not much.”

  “Don’t shout, Mark. It can’t be easy to be your Great Granny. Now, this dog is a specially trained guide dog. He’s leading the lady along, helping her safely across the road.

  Guide dogs like this one do a wonderful job. But it takes lots of money to train them. Our school is going to try to raise enough money to train a special guide dog. Now, how can our class make some money?”

  “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.”

&nbs
p; “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 Fm 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, so he had to lick it quickly. “I don’t know what to do in this concert, Great Gran. Jason’s going to sing a pop song but Miss Moss says I’ve got a voice like a fog horn. Louise is going to do a ballet dance and she’s wearing a special fairy costume but I can’t dance for toffee.”

  “I can’t see you being a fairy, pet,” said Great Gran. “Can’t you say a poem? You’re ever so comic. You always have me in stitches when you read Love’s Flame.”

  Mark thought hard, sticking his finger into the jug of condensed milk and then licking it. He did a lot of sticking and licking. Sometimes it was just as well Great Gran couldn’t see properly.

  “Maybe we could act Love’s Flame? I could get Louise to be Roseanne, only she’d try to do it properly and then it wouldn’t be funny. Maybe Jason could be Roseanne? No, he’d feel soppy. I’d be Roseanne, only I’ve got to do Sir Jasper.”

  “Can’t you do it all, pet? I know. Act it all out with puppets,” said Great Gran.

  “Yes! But how can I make puppets? I’m not much good at Art and Craft.”

  “You’ll have to keep it simple. Glove puppets.”

  “Glove puppets,” said Mark, and then he snapped his sticky fingers and grinned. “I’ve got an idea.”

  The concert was a big success. Jason sang his song. Louise did her ballet dance. Some of the boys whistled when they saw her pink ballet frock and Louise went pink too, but she got on with her dance and didn’t wobble once. Then she gave a fancy curtsey while everyone clapped.

  But the Mark Spark Puppet Show was the smash hit of the concert. The puppet booth was a big cardboard box. Mark crouched down behind it and stuck his hands up over the top, working the two puppets. It made his arms ache but he carried on regardless. He spoke in Roseanne’s high squeaky voice while he made the pink and yellow puppet prance. (He’d simply sewn two blue button eyes on the stripey sock and tied on a hankie as an apron.) Then he spoke in Sir Jasper’s big booming voice and made the red and black puppet bounce about. (Two brown buttons for his eyes and Mark’s finger poking through the hole made a perfect nose.) Mark changed some of the Love’s Flame story, giving Sir Jasper a terrible cold so that he could sneeze a lot. He made the love scenes sillier than ever, and every time the Sir Jasper sock puppet pounced sneezily on Roseanne, murmuring daft endearments, the children roared with laughter. Miss Moss looked a little twitchy at first, but then she started laughing too, and at the end of Mark’s performance she stood up and cheered.

  Mark had to act out t
he entire puppet show at Great Gran’s that teatime, and she chuckled and clapped and called him a proper caution, good enough to go on the stage.

  “That’s what Miss Moss said, Great Gran,” said Mark. “And guess what! She says I should do a puppet show in the playground every day and charge everyone a penny a time to come and watch. I’m going to raise pounds and pounds for the guide dog.”

  Mark didn’t quite raise pounds and pounds, but he certainly raised lots and lots of pennies. Eventually there was enough money to train a guide dog. The school was sent a big coloured photo of this very special dog. His name was printed at the bottom. He wasn’t called Woofer or Bruce or Rover. He wasn’t called Ben. He certainly wasn’t called Puffball.

  He was called Mark.

  Mark Spark in the Dark

  Chapter One

  Mark Spark walked home from school with his friends Jason and Louise. It was raining hard. Jason was wearing his big black wellie boots. He stamped happily in every puddle. Louise was wearing her Kermit-the-frog wellie boots. She sloshed her way along the gutter, taking her twin Kermits for a paddle.

  Mark Spark didn’t have any wellie boots. Still, he didn’t see why Jason and Louise should have all the fun. He took a running jump at every puddle and landed with a big splash. He waded through the stream in the gutter and dabbled about in the sludge blocking the drains. His socks were soon sodden and his new trainers started to squelch.

  “Your mum’s going to get mad when she sees those trainers. You only had them on your birthday, didn’t you?” said Jason.