Is the Use of vstretch Causing Confusion with the Footnotemark and Its Associated Text? (A Partial Correction but Still Not Entirely Right)

Consider the following code:

documentclass[12pt]{book}
thispagestyle{empty}
usepackage{scalefnt}
usepackage{scalerel}
usepackage{xcolor}
usepackage{perpage} %the perpage package
MakePerPage{footnote} %the perpage package command
renewcommand{thefootnote}{fnsymbol{footnote}}
begin{document}
begin{center}
vstretch{1.4}{textnormal{scalefont{1.5}{textcolor{red}{textbf{THIS IS THE FIRST STRETCHED SENTENCE}}}}} vskip 8pt hskip 42pt  vstretch{1.4}{textnormal{scalefont{1.5}{textcolor{red}{textbf{THIS IS THE SECOND.footnotemark}}}}}
footnotetext{How come the footnotemark here is not an asterisk?}
end{center}

vskip 15pt

Large
begin{center}
textbf{textcolor{blue}{Here's an unstretched sentence.footnotemark}}
footnotetext{The footnotemark and footnote for the unstretched sentence.}
end{center}
end{document}

which produces the output

Notice that the second stretched sentence has an associated footnote as indicated by the asterisk. However, the actual footnote is indicated by a different symbol.

The unstretched sentence also indicates a footnotemark which corresponds to the actual footnote. But I am puzzled as to why an asterisk is being used again.

Is the vstretch command causing these problems? If so, how may I correct it? i.e., how may I get the first footnote to indicate an asterisk, and the dagger to appear as the footnotemark in the unstretched sentence and its associated footnote?

UPDATE

Per Ul. Fischer comment, I am posting the log file:

UPDATE 2
I have since discovered that If I relocate the footnotemark command as such:

vstretch{1.4}{textnormal{scalefont{1.5}{textcolor{red}{textbf{THIS IS THE FIRST STRETCHED SENTENCE}}}}} vskip 8pt hskip 42pt  vstretch{1.4}{textnormal{scalefont{1.5}{textcolor{red}{textbf{THIS IS THE SECOND.}}}}}footnotemark

The footnote marks and the text are produced correctly—though the first footnotemark (asterisk) is comparatively small and is not appropriately elevated:

REVISED QUESTION: With the said correction, how may I increase the size of the first footnotemark asterisk and elevate it to an appropriate position at the end of the sentence? Thank you.