Video Rose and Mark Spark Read online

  Mrs Mackay thought she’d fainted. Rose was hurried off to the school sickroom. The secretary tucked her up on the sofa and gave her a cup of sweet tea and a digestive biscuit. Rose managed to miss the entire arithmetic lesson after all. This Little Piggy Rose went hee-hee-hee all the way home.

  6…

  Rose kept looking at her hands as she walked towards her block of flats. If her left hand could rewind her years back into the past then perhaps her right hand could hurtle her years into the future? She kept opening and closing her fingers, waggling them about, wondering.

  Rick and his mate Charlie passed her on their roller-skates. Charlie waggled his fingers back at her.

  ‘Hi there, Square-Bum,’ he shouted.

  Rose was too preoccupied to do more than toss her head at him. She had to sort this out carefully. It was a bit scary thinking of zapping straight into the future. At least she knew what had happened in the past. Suppose there was some terrible war or disaster in ten years’ time and she ended up right in the middle of it? And what if she got stuck and couldn’t get back? The video had broken down, after all. What if Rose’s fist suddenly went phut and stopped working too?

  ‘Hello, Rose,’ said Cherry Chalmers, who lived along the balcony. ‘Do you want to come and play with me?’

  Rose hesitated. Cherry was only six and she was a right pain. She had long fair hair that her Mum did up in ringlets and great big brown eyes like Bambi and when she was three she’d been a runner-up in the Miss Pears contest. Her Mum had all the photos up on the wall, hundreds of glossy pictures of Cherry in a pink party frock, and Cherry’s best French doll had a special pink party frock to match.

  Cherry was the sort of child Rose avoided like the plague but she was allowed to help herself to as many ice lollies from the fridge as she wanted and her Mum usually had a big box of chocolates on the go and handed them around quite often.

  ‘We can watch videos if you want,’ said Cherry.

  Rose decided to take a little break from time-travelling and had a relaxing afternoon watching Alice in Wonderland and sucking first a raspberry ice lolly, then an orange one, and finally a lime lolly.

  ‘My insides must look like a traffic light,’ said Rose.

  ‘Do you want to try one of my Belgian fresh cream chocolates, dear?’ said Cherry’s mum.

  ‘Mmm, yes please,’said Rose.

  Cherry’s mum was very kind and kept handing round her chocolates. Rose started to feel a bit of a greedy pig after she’d eaten five on the trot but her mouth still watered when she looked at the box. She solved things by gently clenching her left hand and rewinding a few minutes so she could accept the last especially wonderful chocolate cream all over again — and again and again.

  She found she lost track of real time and Rick had to come knocking on the door to fetch her.

  ‘Hello Rick,’ said Cherry enthusiastically, tossing her long curls. ‘Have you come to play too?’

  ‘I don’t play with little girls,’ said Rick, looking mortally offended. ‘I’ve come to get Rose. Mum’s back and she’s getting tea.’

  ‘Is it teatime already?’ said Rose, who didn’t feel quite ready for tea now.

  She thanked Cherry and her Mum for having her and went along the balcony to her own flat to tackle spaghetti bolognaise.

  ‘Like in Lady and the Tramp, eh, Dad?’ said Rose, valiantly doing her best to stuff long strands of spaghetti into her mouth.

  Rick was sucking his spaghetti up very noisily, strand by strand.

  ‘Rick! Behave yourself,’ said Mum, chopping up Robbie’s tiny portion.

  Rose decided to compete. She sucked her own spaghetti, making wonderful slurping sounds.

  ‘Rose! Now stop it, both of you,’ Mum snapped. ‘You kids don’t half get on my nerves sometimes.’

  Robbie decided Rick and Rose were getting too much attention. He leant forward in his high chair, grabbed his dish and sank his head right into the spaghetti.

  ‘Robbie!’ Mum shrieked.

  Robbie bobbed up again, snorting with laughter, his face bright orange, little strands of spaghetti sticking to his eyelashes. He looked so comical that Rose and Rick dissolved into helpless laughter, and even Dad had a bit of a splutter to himself.

  Mum wasn’t at all amused.

  ‘Don’t laugh at him, it’ll only make him worse. He’ll start doing it at every meal — and then I’m the poor Mrs Twerpy who has to mop him up.’

  ‘Well, you shouldn’t have had another baby, Mum,’ said Rose unwisely.

  ‘I shouldn’t have had any of you,’ said Mum darkly. ‘I can’t wait for the three of you to be grown-up and off my hands, I’m telling you.’

  ‘We’ll live it up a bit then, eh?’ said Dad. ‘I’ll be done with night shifts then, so we can go out and enjoy ourselves in the evenings.’

  ‘Yes, you kids will be the ones stuck in with yelling babies,’ said Mum, unstrapping a struggling Robbie, who did his best to rub spaghetti in her hair and an orange swirly pattern all down her jumper.

  ‘Who, me?’ said Rick. ‘I’m never going to have kids. The King of the Rollerball doesn’t have kids.’

  ‘You wait and see. I thought I was going to be playing Centre Forward for England — and now look at me,’ said Dad, sighing. ‘We don’t know what the future holds in store for us.’

  ‘I could find out,’ said Rose, and she suddenly decided to give it a go. She looked down at her hands under the table. Her right hand was glowing like a little electric fire. She tucked her thumb right into her palm and squeezed it tightly, making a hard fist.

  She was suddenly jolted forward, swooping through the table, through the flat, through time itself. She tried to keep her eyes open to see if she could make sense of what was happening, but there was a great howling wind that made her eyes stream.

  ‘I want to go right into the future, to when we’re all grown up,’ Rose cried out above the high-pitched roaring in her ears.

  She had no idea whether she was going to make it safely. She seemed to be hurtling on forever. What if she carried on until she was an old lady and died? How could she ever get back then? She tried to open up her right hand but her arms flailed helplessly in the air, out of her control.

  Then the roaring and the whirling got louder and wilder and she was suddenly jolted into place so violently that she shook all over.

  ‘Rose? Are you all right? You didn’t get a shock from that cable, did you? Here, you’d better sit down.’

  Rose opened her eyes and blinked. She was in a strange large room with cameras and cables all over the place. There were very bright lights right in front of her and several people in odd clothes and a lot of make-up were standing in front of half a kitchen.

  Rose blinked again. Did they only have rooms with three walls in the future? And why was the lighting so strange, was there something wrong with everyone’s eyes? And what about all these cameras…?

  She suddenly understood. This wasn’t her home. She was at work in a film studio. All the people on the set were looking at her, obviously waiting for her to tell them what to do.She swivelled in her seat and looked at the back of her canvas chair. There was one word spelled out in big letters. DIRECTOR. Oh boy! She was directing her own video!

  ‘I’m fine, folks,’ she said jumping up and into action.

  She found she knew what she was doing. She bossed the actors around quite a lot but they didn’t seem to mind at all. Then she decided they all needed a break and someone went running for coffee and sandwiches. Rose had a sticky bun and a bar of chocolate too. She was the director. She didn’t have to fuss about staying skinny like the actresses. Maybe it was just as well.

  She was very curious when it was time to go home because she didn’t have a clue where her home would be. She found there was someone waiting for her outside the studio.

  ‘There you are, Rosie. I’ve been waiting for you for ages. Oh darling, I’m going crazy without you. Please come back to me. We’ll get married if th
at’s what you want,’ this total stranger declared, throwing his arms round her.

  Rose blinked up at him. He was fair and freckled, and he might have been good looking if he didn’t have such a snub nose. There was something strangely familiar about that funny nose.

  ‘It’s Charlie!’ said Rose, and she burst out laughing.

  Charlie got very annoyed with her for laughing at him. It took her ages to calm him, and he wouldn’t understand that she wasn’t ready to be tied down.

  ‘I don’t see why you’re so dead set against marriage. Rick’s happy enough,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Rick’s married?’ giggled Rose.

  Charlie looked at her strangely.

  ‘Let’s go and visit him,’ said Rose, not wanting to miss this for the world.

  It turned out Rick and Cherry and their three children lived in a maisonette on the same estate as Rose’s mum and dad. Yes, Cherry. There aren’t many Cherrys bobbing about, and the moment Rose saw the long blonde curls and big Bambi eyes she knew that Rick really had married her. And he looked so happy too, making the supper and chatting to his children while Cherry kicked off her high heels and lounged on the sofa, exhausted after a hard day at the office.

  ‘I never thought I’d see you doing the cooking, Rick,’ said Rose.

  ‘Well, I’m not a patch on our Robbie,’ said Rick. ‘Did Mum tell you? He came top on his fancy cookery course and now this posh Italian restaurant’s offered him a job.’

  ‘Little Robbie!’ Rose gasped. ‘I want to go and see him, and Mum and Dad.’

  Charlie stayed behind to have a go at fixing the family car, which had been in a series of minor accidents. Rick didn’t seem any more skilled on four wheels than he was on his roller-skates.

  Rose went into her own block of flats, reassured to see they looked much the same as ever. Her front door was even still painted the same colour. It was a shock when an old man opened the door to her.

  ‘Dad?’ said Rose.

  ‘Hello, Rosy-Posy! What a lovely surprise. Your mum will be thrilled. Come on in then, love.’

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’ Rose asked anxiously. ‘You look so… tired.’

  Dad laughed and told her not to be so cheeky. He looked more like the real Dad when he laughed, and Rose relaxed.

  ‘Hi, Sis,’ said a handsome hulking great boy who towered over her. ‘I’ve got some of my special cassata ice cream in the fridge, do you want to try some?’

  ‘You bet!’ said Rose, immensely pleased with the way her little brother had turned out.

  But when she saw Mum she wavered. Mum was an old lady, even more lined than Dad, and when she tried to get out her chair to welcome Rose she winced a little, rubbing her hip.

  ‘Mum, what is it?’ Rose cried, alarmed.

  ‘Just my arthritis, love, that’s all. Oh Rose, this is a treat! You’re such a naughty girl, you never come home enough. Come and give your old mum a hug.’

  Rose hurried to hug Mum. She realised that she was taller now. Mum felt so little and frail in her arms. Rose felt she might burst into tears.

  ‘Oh Mum, I think I’ve grown up too quickly,’ said Rose, and as she hugged Mum tighter she found herself clenching her left hand, her thumb tucked in tight.

  Then her arms were empty, and she was whirling backwards through time, tumbling helplessly until suddenly her fingers opened and there she was, back in her old young self.

  ‘Rose?’ said Dad. ‘What’s up? You seemed to go off in a little daydream just then.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rose shakily. ‘Dreaming about the future. Oh Dad, you do look nice and young.’

  ‘Well, thanks dear,’ said Dad, flexing his muscles.

  ‘I bet I look a hundred. I certainly feel it,’ Mum moaned, still struggling with the spaghetti-strewn Robbie.

  ‘No you don’t, Mum, you look lovely,’ said Rose. ‘Here, let me take Robbie, he’s too heavy for you.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said Mum. ‘You don’t want your clothes mucked up too.’ She held Robbie at arms’ length. ‘Look what you’ve done to my good jumper, you little monster.’

  ‘Don’t get cross with him, Mum, he’s only practising. He’s going to develop a feel for Italian food,’ said Rose.

  ‘Oh yes? And how would you know?’ said Mum.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Rose.

  She clasped her hands and they gave off little sparks. She still hadn’t found out where she lived in the future. She could try again tomorrow. She had lots of tomorrows. And some yesterdays. But right now she was a bit tired of time-travelling and wanted to stick in today.

  She bathed Robbie for Mum and then cleared up all the tea things, and Mum was so grateful she gave her two pounds for another video.

  Rose danced off down to Uncle Frank’s.

  ‘Get that wiggle, Square-Bum!’ Charlie shouted down from the balcony.

  Rose tossed her head.

  ‘Turns you on, does it, Charlie?’ she shouted back.

  She leapt and twirled and twiddled her feet, snapping her sparkly fingers. Charlie blinked down at her, his mouth open.

  There was a sudden crackle behind her. Rose whirled round, and there was the strange old man in his raincoat smiling at her, teeth flashing.

  ‘You’re looking lively now, little lady,’ he said, clapping her dance.

  The air sizzled as his hands met.

  ‘I’ve been up and doing ever such a lot,’ said Rose breathlessly.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Your video’s still working, I take it?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s working beautifully. And so am I,’ said Rose. ‘We both work like magic now.’

  There was a sudden ringing noise like a telephone.

  ‘Hello? WORKS-LIKE-MAGIC. How can I help you?’ said the old man.

  There was a buzzy sound of someone speaking on the telephone. Only there wasn’t any sign of a telephone, not even the sleekest new portable model.

  ‘I’m sure I can fix your video,’ said the old man. ‘I’ll be right with you, in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’

  He winked at Rose, and then suddenly disappeared in a blue flash, raincoat flapping.

  Rose waved at the empty space.

  ‘What’s going on, Square-Bum?’ Charlie hissed, his eyes boggling.

  Rose snapped her fingers at him dismissively, and sauntered off to the video shop.

  ‘Hello there, Video Rose,’ said Uncle Frank.

  It seemed a good nickname. It was certainly better than Square-Bum.

  Yes. Video Rose.

  MARK SPARK

  “Mark Spark!” said Miss Moss. “Give some of the others a chance to answer, please.”

  Mark slumped in his seat. He wasn’t impressed.

  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 ans
wer, 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?”