"Then you'd better not go to the North Pole!" She snapped the parrot umbrella open and gathered up Annabel. "The Equator — that's the place for you!" She turned away with a snort of contempt.
"Wake up, John and Barbara, please! Jane and Michael, take the rug and wrap it round yourselves and the Twins."
Raindrops bigger than sugar-plums were tumbling all about them. They drummed and thumped on the children's heads as they wrapped themselves in the rug.
"We're a parcel!" cried Michael excitedly. "Tie us up with string, Mary Poppins, and send us through the post!"
"Run!" she commanded, taking no notice. And away they hurried, stumbling and tumbling, over the rainy grass.
The dogs came barking along beside them and, forgetting their promise to Mary Poppins, shook themselves over her skirt.
"All that sun and all this rain! One after another! Who'd 'ave thought it?"
The Park Keeper shook his head in bewilderment. He could still hardly believe it.
"An explorer would!" snapped Mary Poppins. She gave her head a satisfied toss. "And so would I — so there!"
"Too big for your boots — that's what you are!" The Park Keeper's words were worse than they sounded. For he whispered them into his coat-collar in case she should overhear. But, even so, perhaps she guessed them, for she flung at him a smile of conceit and triumph as she hurried after the children.
Off she tripped through the streaming Park, picking her way among the puddles. Neat and trim as a fashion-plate she crossed Cherry Tree Lane and flitted up the garden path of Number Seventeen….
Jane emerged from the plaid bundle and patted her soaking hair.
"Oh, bother!" she said. "I've lost my feather."
"That settles it, then," said Michael calmly. "You can't be Minnehaha!"
He unwound himself and felt in his pocket. "Ah, here's my ant! I've got him safely!"
"Oh, I don't mean Minnehaha, really — but somebody," persisted Jane, "somebody else inside me. I know. I always have the feeling."
The black ant hurried across the table.
"I don't," Michael said, as he gazed at it. "I don't feel anything inside me but my dinner and Michael Banks."
But jane was thinking her own thoughts.
"And Mary Poppins," she went on. "She's somebody in disguise, too. Everybody is."
"Oh, no, she's not!" said Michael stoutly. "I'm absolutely certain!"
A light step sounded on the landing.
"Who's not what?" enquired a voice.
"You, Mary Poppins!" Michael cried. "Jane says you're somebody in disguise. And I say you aren't. You're nobody!"
Her head went up with a quick jerk and her eyes had a hint of danger.
"I hope," she said, with awful calmness, "that I did not hear what I think I heard. Did you say I was nobody, Michael?"
"Yes! I mean — no!" He tried again. "I really meant to say, Mary Poppins, that you're not really anybody!"
"Oh, indeed?" Her eyes were now as black as a boot-button. "If I'm not anybody, Michael, who am I–I'd like to know!"
"Oh, dear!" he wailed. "I'm all muddled. You're not somebody, Mary Poppins — that's what I'm trying to say."
Not somebody in her tulip hat! Not somebody in her fine blue skirt! Her reflection gazed at her from the mirror, assuring her that she and it were an elegant pair of somebodies.
"Well!" She drew a deep breath and seemed to grow taller as she spoke. "You have often insulted me, Michael Banks. But I never thought I would see the day when you'd tell me I wasn't somebody. What am I, then, a painted portrait?"
She took a step towards him.
"I m-m-mean—" he stammered, clutching at Jane. Her hand was warm and reassuring and the words he was looking for leapt to his lips.
"I don't mean somebody, Mary Poppins! I mean not somebody else! You're Mary Poppins through and through! Inside and outside. And round about. All of you is Mary Poppins. That is how I like you!"
"Humph!" she said, disbelievingly. But the fierceness faded away from her face.
With a laugh of relief he sprang towards her, embracing her wet blue skirt.
"Don't grab me like that, Michael Banks. I am not a Dutch Doll, thank you!"
"You are!" he shouted. "No, you're not! You only look like one. Oh, Mary Poppins, tell me truly! You aren't anybody in disguise? I want you just as you are!"
A faint, pleased smile puckered her mouth. Her head gave a prideful toss.
"Me! Disguised! Certainly not!"
With a loud sniff at the mere idea, she disengaged his hands.
"But, Mary Poppins—" Jane persisted. "Supposing you weren't Mary Poppins, who would you choose to be?"
The blue eyes under the tulip hat turned to her in surprise.
There was only one answer to such a question.
"Mary Poppins!" she said.
CHAPTER TWO
The Faithful Friends
Faster, please!" said Mary Poppins, tapping on the glass panel with the beak of her parrot-headed umbrella.
Jane and Michael had spent the morning at the Barber's shop, and the Dentist's, and because it was late, as a great treat, they were taking a taxi home.
The Taxi Man stared straight before him and gave his head a shake.
"If I go any faster," he shouted, "it'll make me late for me dinner."
"Why?" demanded Jane, through the window. It seemed such a silly thing to say. Surely, the quicker a Taxi Man drove the earlier he would arrive!
"Why?" echoed the Taxi Man, keeping his eye on the wheel. "A Naccident — that's why! If I go any faster, I'll run into something — and that'll be a Naccident. And a Naccident — it's plain enough! — will make me late for me dinner. Oh, dear!" he exclaimed, as he put on the brake. "Red again, I see!"
He turned and put his head through the window. His bulgy eyes and drooping whiskers made him look like a seal.
"There's always trouble at these 'ere signals!" He waved his hand at the stream of cars all waiting for the lights to change.
And now it was Michael who asked him why.
"Don't you know nothing?" the Taxi Man cried. "It's because of the chap on duty!"
He pointed to the signal-box, where a helmeted figure, with his head on his hand, was gazing into the distance.
"Absent-minded — that's what 'e is. Always staring and moping. And 'alf the time 'e forgets the lights. I've known them stay red for a whole morning. If it's goin' to be like that today I'll never get me dinner. You 'aven't got a sangwidge on you?" He looked at Michael, hopefully. "No? Nor yet a chocolate drop?" Jane smiled and shook her head.
The Taxi Man sighed despondently.
"Nobody thinks of nobody these days."
"I'm thinking of someone!" said Mary Poppins. And she looked so stern and disapproving that he turned away in dismay.
"They're green!" he cried, as he looked at the lights. And, huddling nervously over the wheel, he drove along Park Avenue as though pursued by wolves.
Bump! Bump! Rattle! Rattle! The three of them jolted and bounced on their seats.
"Sit up straight!" said Mary Poppins, sliding into a corner. "You are not a couple of Jack-in-the-boxes!"
"I know I'm not," said Michael, gasping. "But I feel like one and my bones are shaking—" He gulped quickly and bit his tongue and left the sentence unfinished. For the taxi had stopped with a frightful jerk and flung them all to the floor.
"Mary Poppins," said Jane in a muffled voice, "I think you're sitting on me!"
"My foot! My foot! It's caught in something!"
"I'll thank you, Michael," said Mary Poppins, "to take it out of my hat!"
She rose majestically from the floor, and seizing her parrot-headed umbrella sprang out on to the pavement.
"Well, you said to go faster," the Taxi Man muttered, as she thrust the fare into his hand. She glared at him in offended silence. And in order to escape that look he shrank himself down inside his collar so that nothing was left but his whiskers.
"Don't bother
about a tip," he begged. "It's really been a p-p-pleasure."
"I had no intention of bothering!" She opened the gate of Number Seventeen with an angry flick of her hand.
The Taxi Man started up his engine and jerked away down the Lane. "She's upset me, that's what she's done!" he murmured. "If I do get home in time for me dinner I shan't be able to eat it!"
Mary Poppins tripped up the path, followed by Jane and Michael.
Mrs. Banks stood in the front hall, looking up at the stairs.
"Oh, do be careful, Robertson Ay!" she was saying anxiously. He was carrying a cardboard box and lurching slowly from stair to stair as though he were almost asleep.
"Never a moment's peace!" he muttered. "First it's one thing, then another. There!" He gave a sleepy heave, thrust the package into the nursery and fell in a snoring heap on the landing.
Jane dashed upstairs to look at the label.
"What's in it — a present?" shouted Michael.
The Twins, bursting with curiosity, were jumping up and down. And Annabel peered through her cot railings and banged her rattle loudly.
"Is this a nursery or a bear-pit?" Mary Poppins stepped over Robertson Ay as she hurried into the room.
"A bear-pit!" Michael longed to answer. But he caught her eye and refrained.
"Really!" Mrs. Banks protested, as she stumbled over Robertson Ay. "He chooses such inconvenient places! Oh, gently, children! Do be careful! That box belongs to Miss Andrew!"
Miss Andrew! Their faces fell.
"Then it isn't presents!" said Michael blankly. He gave the box a push.
"It's probably full of medicine bottles!" said Jane, in a bitter voice.
"It's not," insisted Mrs. Banks. "Miss Andrew has sent us all her treasures. And I thought, Mary Poppins" — she glanced at the stiff white shape beside her—"I thought, perhaps, you could keep them here!" She nodded towards the mantelpiece.
Mary Poppins regarded her in silence. If a pin had fallen you could have heard it.
"Am I an octopus?" she enquired, finding her voice at last.
"An octopus?" cried Mrs. Banks. Had she ever suggested such a thing? "Of course you're not, Mary Poppins."
"Exactly!" Mary Poppins retorted. "I have only one pair of hands."
Mrs. Banks nodded uneasily. She had never expected her to have more.
"And that one pair has enough to do without dusting anyone's treasures."
"But Mary Poppins, I never dreamed—" Mrs. Banks was getting more and more flustered. "Ellen is here to do the dusting. And it's only until Miss Andrew comes back — if, of course, she ever does. She behaved so strangely when she was here. Why are you giggling, Jane?"
But Jane only snickered and shook her head. She remembered that strange behaviour!
"Where has she gone to?" Michael asked.
"She seems to have had some sort of a shock — what are you laughing at, children? — and the doctor has ordered a long voyage, away to the South Seas. She says—" Mrs. Banks fished into her pocket and brought out a crumpled letter. "And while I am away," she read out,
"I shall leave my valuables with you. Be sure they are put in a safe place where nothing can happen to them. I shall expect, on my return, to find everything exactly as it is — nothing broken, nothing mended. Tell George to wear his overcoat. This weather is changeable."
"So you see, Mary Poppins," said Mrs. Banks, looking up with a flattering smile, "the nursery does seem the best place. Anything left in your charge is always perfectly safe!"
"There's safety and safety!" sniffed Mary Poppins. "And I hope I see further than my nose!" It was tilted upwards, as she spoke, even more than usual.
"Oh, I am sure you do!" murmured Mrs. Banks, wondering, for the hundredth time, why Mary Poppins — no matter what the situation — was always so pleased with herself.
"Well, now I think I must go and—" But without saying what she was going to do, she ran out of the nursery, jumped over Robertson Ay's legs and bustled away down the stairs.
"Allow me, Michael, if you please!" Mary Poppins seized his wrist, as he pulled the lid off the box. "Remember what curiosity did — it killed the cat, you know!"
Her quick hands darted among the papers, and briskly unwrapped a little bundle. Out came a bird with a chipped nose and a Chelsea china lamb.
"Funny sort of treasures," said Michael. "I could mend this bird with a piece of putty. But I mustn't — so Miss Andrew said. They're to stay exactly as they are."
"Nothing does that," said Mary Poppins, with a priggish look on her face.
"You do!" he insisted, gallantly.
She sniffed, and glanced at the nursery mirror. Her reflection gave a similar sort of sniff and glanced at Mary Poppins. Each of them, it was easy to see, highly approved of the other.
"I wonder why she kept this?" Jane took an old cracked tile from the box. The picture showed a boatload of people rowing towards an island.
"To remind her of her youth," said Michael.
"To give more trouble," snapped Mary Poppins, shaking the dust from another wrapping.
Back and forth the children ran, collecting and setting up the treasures — a cottage in a snowstorm, with Home Sweet Home on the glass globe; a pottery hen on a yellow nest; a red-and-white china clown; a winged horse of celluloid, prancing on its hind legs; a flower vase in the shape of a swan; a little red fox of carved wood; an egg-shaped piece of polished granite; a painted apple with a boy and a girl playing together inside it; and a roughly made, full-rigged ship in a jam-jar.
"I hope that's all," grumbled Michael. "The mantelpiece is crowded."
"Only one more," said Mary Poppins, as she drew out a knobbly bundle. A couple of china ornaments came forth from the paper wrapper. Her eyebrows went up as she looked at them and she gave a little shrug. Then she handed one each to Jane and Michael.
Weary of running back and forth, they set the ornaments hurriedly at either end of the mantelpiece. Then Jane looked at hers and blinked her eyes.
A china lion, with his paw on the chest of a china huntsman, was reclining beneath a banana tree which, of course, was also china. The man and the animal leaned together, smiling blissfully. Never, thought Jane, in all her life, had she seen two happier creatures.
"He reminds me of somebody!" she exclaimed, as she gazed at the smiling huntsman. Such a manly figure he looked, too, in his spruce blue jacket and black top-boots.
"Yes," agreed Michael. "Who can it be?"
He frowned as he tried to recall the name. Then he looked at his half of the china pair and gave a cry of dismay.
"Oh! Jane! What a pity! My lion has lost his huntsman!"
It was true. There stood another banana tree, there sat another painted lion. But in the other huntsman's place there was only a gap of roughened china. All that remained of his manly shape was one black shiny boot.
"Poor lion!" said Michael. "He looks so sad!"
And, indeed, there was no denying it. Jane's lion was wreathed in smiles, but his brother had such a dejected look that he seemed to be almost in tears.
"You'll be looking sad in a minute — unless you get ready for lunch!"
Mary Poppins' face was so like her voice that they ran to obey her without a word.
But they caught a glimpse, as they rushed away, of her starched white figure standing there, with its arms full of crumpled paper. She was gazing with a reflective smile at Miss Andrew's broken treasure — and it seemed to them that her lips moved.
Michael gave Jane a fleeting grin.
"I expect she's only saying 'Humph!'"
But Jane was not so sure….
"Let's go to the swings," suggested Michael, as they hurried across the Lane after lunch.
"Oh, no! The Lake. I'm tired of swinging."
"Neither swings nor lakes," said Mary Poppins. "We are taking the Long Walk!"
"Oh, Mary Poppins," grumbled Jane, "the Long Walk's far too long!"
"I can't walk all that way," said Michael. "I've eaten much
too much."
The Long Walk stretched across the Park from the Lane to the Far Gate, linking the little countrified road to the busy streets they had travelled that morning. It was wide and straight and uncompromising — not like the narrow, curly paths that led to the Lake and the Playground. Trees and fountains bordered it, but it always seemed to Jane and Michael at least ten miles in length.
"The Long Walk — or the short walk home! Take your choice!" Mary Poppins warned them.
Michael was just about to say he would go home, when Jane ran on ahead.
"I'll race you," she cried, "to the first tree!"
Michael could never bear to be beaten. "That's not fair! You had a good start!" And off he dashed at her heels.
"Don't expect me to keep up with you! I am not a centipede!"
Mary Poppins sauntered along, enjoying the balmy air, and assuring herself that the balmy air was enjoying Mary Poppins. How could it do otherwise, she thought, when under her arm was the parrot-umbrella and over her wrist a new black handbag?
The perambulator creaked and groaned. In it, the Twins and Annabel, packed as close as birds in a nest, were playing with the blue duck.
"That's cheating, Michael!" grumbled Jane. For accidentally on purpose, he had pushed her aside and was running past.
From tree to tree they raced along, first one ahead and then the other, each of them trying to win. The Long Walk streamed away behind them and Mary Poppins and the perambulator were only specks in the distance.
"Next time you push me I'll give you a punch!" said Michael, red in the face.
"If you bump into me again I'll pull your hair, Michael!"
"Now, now!" the Park Keeper warned them sternly. "Observe the rules! No argle-bargling!"
He was meant to be sweeping up the twigs but, instead, he was chatting with the Policeman, who was leaning against a maple-tree, whiling away his time.
Jane and Michael stopped in their tracks. Their race, they were both surprised to find, had brought them right across the Park and near to the Far Gate.
The Park Keeper looked at them severely. "Always argufying!" he said. "I never did that when I was a boy. But then I was a Nonly child, just me and me poor old mother. I never 'ad nobody to play with. You two don't know when you're lucky!"
Mary Poppins in the Park mp-4 Page 3
