Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Copyright Page

  This is Jack. Today Jack is in a busy mood. He is making a shop! Jack is going to sell some of his old toys in his shop.

  He wants to make enough money for a footy card folder.

  Jack sorts through his toy box. He finds lots of toys he has forgotten about. He starts to sort them into piles.

  Soon, Jack has three piles of toys. One pile to sell. One pile to keep.

  And one little pile of toys he is not sure about.

  Jack looks at this pile for a long time. There are some good toys in there.

  Slowly he sorts through the pile, putting some in the pile to sell and some in the pile to keep.

  Soon, there is only one toy left. It is a robot dog. Jack only got the dog last Christmas. It used to bark and do flips. But it has stopped working.

  Jack holds the robot dog. He is not sure what to do with it.

  At last, he puts the dog on the pile to sell. It is really not very fun now that it doesn’t work.

  Jack sets up a table in front of his garage. He puts all the toys he is selling out on the table.

  Jack writes a sign like this:

  Toys For Sale!

  Then he begins writing price tags to put on the toys.

  Just then, Billie wanders over from next door. She looks at the toys on the table.

  ‘Do you want to buy anything?’ asks Jack.

  Billie shrugs. ‘Maybe.’ Then she spots Jack’s robot dog.

  ‘Wow. Are you selling that?’ she says. She sounds surprised.

  ‘It doesn’t work anymore,’ Jack says.

  Billie lifts up the dog. ‘Maybe it needs new batteries?’

  ‘I tried that,’ Jack says.

  ‘How much?’ Billie says.

  Jack thinks. He hasn’t decided yet.

  ‘Well, it is probably the best toy here,’ he says. ‘So it costs … ten dollars.’

  Billie looks disappointed. ‘I don’t have that much money,’ she says sadly. ‘But Rebecca might! She’s coming over this afternoon.’

  ‘Cool!’ says Jack. ‘Bring her to see my shop.’

  Jack finishes writing all the price tags.

  Then he sits behind the table to wait for customers. But nobody comes.

  Jack’s dog Scraps comes over with a ball in his mouth.

  ‘Not now, Scraps,’ says Jack. ‘I’m busy.’

  Jack begins to feel bored. He yawns. Hurry up, Billie! he thinks. I need some customers!

  Finally, Jack sees a car pull up outside Billie’s house. Rebecca steps out of the car. Billie rushes out to meet her.

  ‘Hi, Rebecca!’ Jack calls.

  ‘Hey, Jack!’ Rebecca waves. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Running a toy shop,’ says Jack. ‘Come and look!’

  Billie and Rebecca run over.

  ‘Wow. That’s a cool robot dog,’ Rebecca says. ‘How much is it?’

  ‘Ten dollars,’ Jack says.

  Rebecca frowns. ‘That’s a lot of money, Jack,’ she says.

  Jack shrugs. ‘It’s a good toy. Maybe there’s something else here you’d like to buy?’ he says.

  Rebecca picks up some of the other toys.

  Jack knows that nothing is as good as the robot dog.

  ‘Come on, Jack,’ Billie says. ‘Rebecca is a friend. You should give her a good price.’

  ‘I can give you two of these Lego men for half price,’ Jack suggests.

  But Rebecca shakes her head. ‘I have lots of Lego already.’ She pulls out her purse and counts out her money.

  ‘I only have seven dollars and fifty cents,’ she says. ‘Will you give me the robot dog for that much?’

  ‘Um…’ says Jack.

  Billie glares at Jack. ‘It doesn’t even work, Jack,’ she reminds him.

  ‘Well, all right,’ Jack says slowly. ‘I guess so.’

  He takes the money and hands Rebecca the robot dog.

  ‘Yay, it’s so cute!’ Rebecca says.

  ‘Come on, Billie. Let’s go and play with it at your house.’

  The two girls run off with the robot dog.

  Jack watches them go. He looks down at the money. He knows he should feel happy. It is his first and only sale.

  Now he only needs three more dollars to have enough for his footy card folder.

  But for some reason Jack feels strange.

  He is not really sure he wanted to sell that robot dog.

  Jack sits at his shop all afternoon. Scraps lies under the table with the ball next to him. Scraps looks sad.

  Jack would like to go and play with him, but he needs to stay and look after his shop.

  Two kids from across the road come and visit the shop.

  One buys a Lego man for fifty cents. The other pays one dollar for Jack’s old Star Wars cup.

  They look happy with their new things.

  Jack waits and waits. But no more customers come. He begins to get bored again.

  So he writes another sign like this:

  Back in 15 minutes!

  Jack can hear Billie and Rebecca playing in Billie’s backyard. He wanders out into his backyard to see if he can find out what they are up to.

  They are laughing and squealing. But there is another sound, too. A metallic barking sound. It sounds just like a robot dog!

  Jack peeks through the hole in the fence. Billie spots him.

  ‘Look, Jack!’ she shouts.

  ‘We got it working! You just put the batteries in the wrong way.’

  ‘Isn’t it cute?’ Rebecca laughs. ‘Look! It jumps up and down. Just like a real puppy.’

  Billie and Rebecca are having lots of fun with the robot dog.

  Suddenly Jack wishes he hadn’t sold the robot dog after all.

  ‘I didn’t know it still worked!’ he says crossly. ‘I wouldn’t have sold it if I knew that!’

  Billie shrugs. ‘It’s Rebecca’s now,’ she says.

  ‘That’s not fair!’ Jack shouts. ‘It’s worth much more than seven dollars fifty!’

  The girls glare back.

  ‘It is too fair!’ says Rebecca.

  Jack feels his head fizzing with anger. I should never have started that stupid shop! he thinks. Then he runs up to his bedroom and crawls under his bed.

  This is a quiet place he likes to hide when things feel too hard.

  Jack tries to think of a way to get the robot dog back.

  I could take the robot dog back when they are not looking? he thinks. No, that would be stealing.

  Maybe I could swap it for another toy? he wonders. No, there’s no other toys I want to give away.

  I could give Rebecca back her money? he thinks. But then I won’t have enough money to buy the folder.

  Just then, Jack feels a warm furry body squeeze in next to him. He feels a soft wet tongue on his cheek.

  He giggles and gives his dog, Scraps, a big cuddle. He feels his anger melt away.

  Jack realises that he doesn’t really want the robot dog back. He never really played with it much anyway.

  Jack has a real dog. And that’s a hundred times better than a robot one!

  ‘Come on, Scraps,’ says Jack. ‘Let’s go and play ball!’

  The Toy Sale

  published in 2014 by

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  Ground Floor, Building 1, 658 Church Street

  Richmond, Victoria 3121, Australia

  www.hardiegrantegmont.com.au

  This ebook is also available as a print edition in all good bookstores.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the publishers and copyright owner.

  A CiP record for this title is available from the National Library of Australia.

  eISBN 9781743582282

  Text copyright © 2014 Sally Rippin

  Illustration copyright © 2014 Stephanie Spartels

  Logo and design copyright © 2014 Hardie Grant Egmont

  Design by Stephanie Spartels

  We welcome feedback from our readers. All our ebooks are edited and proofread vigorously, but we know that mistakes sometimes get through. If you spot any errors, please email info@hardiegrantegmont.com.au so that we can fix them for your fellow ebook readers.

 

 

  Sally Rippin, The Toy Sale

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