"If you please!" said Mary Poppins with haughty politeness.
"How many, my deary-duck, how many?"
"Four!"
Jane and Michael, almost jumping out of their skins, turned and flung their arms round her.
"Oh, Mary Poppins, do you mean it? One each? Really-really?"
"I hope I always say what I mean," she said primly, looking very conceited.
They sprang towards the tray and began to turn over the coloured balloon-cases.
The Balloon Woman slipped the silver coin into a pocket in her skirt. "There, my shiny!" she said, giving the pocket a loving pat. Then, with excited trembling hands, she helped the children turn over the cases.
"Go carefully, my deary-ducks!" she warned them. "Remember, there's balloons and balloons, and one for everybody! Take your choice and take your time. There's many a child got the wrong balloon and his life was never the same after."
"I'll have this one!" said Michael, choosing a yellow one with red markings.
"Well, let me blow it up and you can see if it's the right one!" said the Balloon Woman.
She took it from him and with one gigantic puff blew it up. Zip! There it was! You would hardly think such a tiny person could have so much breath in her body. The yellow balloon, neatly marked with red, bobbed at the end of its string.
"But, I say!" said Michael staring. "It's got my name on it!"
And, sure enough, the red markings on the balloon were letters spelling out the two words—"MICHAEL BANKS."
"Aha!" cackled the Balloon Woman. "What did I tell you? You took your time and the choice was right!"
"See if mine is!" said Jane, handing the Balloon Woman a limp blue balloon.
She puffed and blew it up and there appeared across the fat blue globe the words "JANE CAROLINE BANKS" in large white letters.
"Is that your name, my deary-duck?" said the Balloon Woman.
Jane nodded.
The Balloon Woman laughed to herself, a thin, old cackling laugh, as Jane took the balloon from her and bounced it on the air.
"Me! Me!" cried John and Barbara, plunging fat hands among the balloon-cases. John drew out a pink one and, as she blew it up, the Balloon Woman smiled. There, round the balloon, the words could clearly be seen. "JOHN AND BARBARA BANKS-ONE BETWEEN THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE TWINS."
"But," said Jane, "I don't understand. How did you know? You never saw us before."
"Ah, my deary-duck, didn't I tell you there were balloons and balloons and that these were extra-special?"
"But did you put the names on them?" said Michael.
"I?" the old woman chuckled. "Nary I!"
"Then who did?"
"Ask me another, my deary-duck! All I know is that the names are there! And there's a balloon for everybody in the world if only they choose properly."
"One for Mary Poppins, too?"
The Balloon Woman cocked her head and looked at Mary Poppins with a curious smile.
"Let her try!" She rocked herself on her little stool. "Take your choice and take your time! Choose and see!"
Mary Poppins sniffed importantly. Her hand hovered for a moment over the empty balloons and then pounced on a red one. She held it out at arm's length and, to their astonishment, the children saw it slowly filling with air of it's own accord. Larger and larger it grew till it became the size of Michael's. But still it swelled until it was three times as large as any other balloon. And across it appeared in letters of gold the two words "MARY POPPINS."
The red balloon bounced through the air and the old woman tied a string to it and with a little cackling laugh, handed it back to Mary Poppins.
Up into the dancing air danced the four balloons. They tugged at their strings as though they wanted to be free of their moorings. The wind caught them and flung them backwards and forwards, to the North, to the South, to the East, to the West.
"Balloons and balloons, my deary-ducks! One for everybody if only they knew it!" cried the Balloon Woman, happily.
At that moment an elderly gentleman in a top hat, turning in at the Park Gates, looked across and saw the balloons. The children saw him give a little start. Then he hurried up to the Balloon Woman.
"How much?" he said, jingling his money in his pocket.
"Sevenpence halfpenny. Take your choice and take your time!"
He took a brown one and the Balloon Woman blew it up. The words "The Honourable WILLIAM WETHERILL WILKINS" appeared on it in green letters.
"Good Gracious!" said the elderly gentleman. "Good gracious, that's my name!"
"You choose well, my deary-duck. Balloons and balloons!" said the old woman.
The elderly gentleman stared at his balloon as it tugged at it's string.
"Extraordinary!" he said, and blew his nose with a trumpeting sound. "Forty years ago, when I was a boy, I tried to buy a balloon here. But they wouldn't let me. Said they couldn't afford it. Forty years— and it's been waiting for me all this time. Most extraordinary!"
And he hurried away, bumping into the arch because his eyes were fixed on the balloon. The children saw him giving little excited leaps in the air as he went.
"Look at him!" cried Michael as the Elderly Gentleman bobbed higher and higher. But at that moment his own balloon began pulling at the string and he felt himself lifted off his feet.
"Hello, hello! How funny! Mine's doing it, too!"
"Balloons and balloons, my deary-duck!" said the Balloon Woman and broke into her cackling laugh, as the Twins, both holding their balloon by its single string, bounced off the ground.
"I'm going, I'm going!" shrieked Jane as she, too, was borne upwards.
"Home, please!" said Mary Poppins.
Immediately, the red balloon soared up, dragging Mary Poppins after it. Up and down she bounced, with Annabel and the parcels in her arms. Through the Gates and above the path the red balloon bore Mary Poppins, her hat very straight, her hair very tidy and her feet as trimly walking the air as they usually walked the earth. Jane and Michael and the Twins, tugged jerkily up and down by their balloons, followed her.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried Jane as she was whirled past the branch of an elm tree, "What a delicious feeling!"
"I feel as if I were made of air!" said Michael, knocking into a Park seat and bouncing off it again. "What a lovely way to go home!"
"O-o-h! E-e-eh!" squeaked the Twins, tossing and bobbing together.
"Best foot forward, please, and don't dawdle!" said Mary Poppins, looking fiercely over her shoulder, for all the world as if they were walking sedately on the ground instead of being tugged through the air.
Past the Park Keeper's house they went and down the Lime Walk. The Elderly Gentleman was there bouncing along ahead of them.
Michael turned for a moment and looked behind him.
"Look, Jane, look! Everybody's got one!"
She turned. In the distance a group of people, all carrying balloons, were being jerked up and down in the air.
"The Ice Cream Man has bought one!" she cried, staring and just missing a statue.
"Yes, and the Sweep! And there — do you see? — is Miss Lark!"
Across the lawn a familiar figure came bouncing, hatted and gloved, and holding a balloon bearing the name "LUCINDA EMILY LARK." She bobbed across the Elm Walk, looking very pleased and dignified, and disappeared round the edge of a fountain.
By this time the Park was filling with people and every one of them had a balloon with a name on it and every one was bouncing in the air.
"Heave ho, there! Room for the Admiral! Where's my port? Heave ho!" shouted a huge, nautical voice as Admiral and Mrs. Boom went rolling through the air. They held the string of a large white balloon with their names on it in blue letters.
"Masts and mizzens! Cockles and shrimps! Haul away, my hearties!" roared Admiral Boom, carefully avoiding a large oak tree.
The crowd of balloons and people grew thicker. There was hardly a patch of air in the Park that was not rainbowy with balloons. Jane and Michael
could see Mary Poppins threading her way primly among them and they, too, hurried through the throng, with John and Barbara bobbing at their heels.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! My balloon won't bounce me. I must have chosen the wrong one!" said a voice at Jane's elbow.
An old-fashioned lady with a quill in her hat and a feather boa round her neck was standing on the path just below Jane. At her feet lay a purple balloon across which was written in letters of gold, "THE PRIME MINISTER."
"What shall I do?" she cried. "The old woman at the Gates said 'Take your choice and take your time, my deary-duck!' And I did. But I've got the wrong one. I'm not the Prime Minister!"
"Excuse me, but I am!" said a voice at her side, as a tall man, very elegantly dressed and carrying a rolled umbrella, stepped up to her.
The lady turned. "Oh, then this is your balloon! Let me see if you've got mine!"
The Prime Minister, whose balloon was not bouncing him at all, showed it to her. Its name was "LADY MURIEL BRIGHTON-JONES."
"Yes, you have! We've got mixed!" she cried, and handing the Prime Minister his balloon, she seized her own. Presently they were off the ground and flying among the trees, talking as they went.
"Are you married?" Jane and Michael heard Lady Muriel ask.
And the Prime Minister answered, "No. I can't find the right sort of middle-aged lady — not too young and not too old and rather jolly because I'm so serious myself."
"Would I do?" said Lady Muriel Brighton-Jones. "I enjoy myself quite a lot."
"Yes, I think you'd do very nicely," said the Prime Minister and, hand in hand, they joined the tossing throng.
By this time the Park was really rather crowded. Jane and Michael, bobbing across the lawns after Mary Poppins, constantly bumped into other bouncing figures who had bought balloons from the Balloon Woman. A tall man, wearing a long moustache, a blue suit, and a helmet, was being tugged through the air by a balloon marked "POLICE INSPECTOR"; and another, bearing the words "LORD MAYOR," dragged along a round, fat person in a three-cornered hat, a red overall and a large brass necklace.
"Move on, please! Don't crowd the Park. Observe the Regulations! All litter to be Deposited in the Rubbish Baskets!"
The Park Keeper, roaring and ranting, and holding a small cherry-coloured balloon marked "F. SMITH," threaded his way through the crowd. With a wave of his hand he moved on two dogs — a bulldog with the word "CU" written on his balloon and a fox-terrier whose name appeared to be "ALBERTINE."
"Leave my dogs alone! Or I shall take your number and report you!" cried a lady whose balloon said she was "THE DUCHESS OF MAYFIELD."
But the Park Keeper took no notice and went bobbing by, crying "All Dogs on a Lead! Don't crowd the Park! No Smoking! Observe the Regulations!" till his voice was hoarse.
"Where's Mary Poppins?" said Michael, whisking up to Jane.
"There! Just ahead of us!" she replied and pointed to the prim, tidy figure that bounced at the end of the largest balloon in the Park. They followed it homewards.
"Balloons and Balloons, my deary-ducks!" cried a cackling voice behind them.
And, turning, they saw the Balloon Woman. Her tray was empty and there was not a balloon anywhere near her, but in spite of that she was flying through the air as though a hundred invisible balloons were drawing her onwards.
"Every one sold!" she screamed as she sped by. "There's a balloon for every one if only they knew it. They took their choice and they took their time! And I've sold the lot! Balloons and Balloons."
Her pockets jingled richly as she flew by, and standing still in the air, Jane and Michael watched the small, withered figure shooting past the bobbing balloons, past the Prime Minister and the Lord Mayor, past Mary Poppins and Annabel, until the tiny shape grew tinier still and the Balloon Woman disappeared into the distance.
"Balloons and Balloons, my deary-ducks!" The faint echo came drifting back to them.
"Step along, please!" said Mary Poppins. They
By this time the Park was really rather crowded
flocked round her, all four of them. Annabel, rocked by the movement of Mary Poppins' balloon, nestled closer to her and went to sleep.
The gate of Number Seventeen stood open, the front door was ajar. Mary Poppins, leaping neatly and bouncing primly, passed through and up the stairs. The children followed, jumping and bobbing. And when they reached the nursery door, their four pairs of feet clattered noisily to the ground. Mary Poppins floated down and landed without a sound.
"Oh, what a lovely afternoon!" said Jane, rushing to fling her arms round Mary Poppins.
"Well, that's more than you are, at this moment. Brush your hair, please. I don't care for scarecrows," Mary Poppins said tartly.
"I feel like a balloon myself," said Michael joyfully, "All airy-fairy-free!"
"I'd be sorry for the fairy that looked like you!" said Mary Poppins. "Go and wash your hands. You're no better than a sweep!"
When they came back, clean and tidy, the four balloons were resting against the ceiling, their strings firmly moored behind the picture over the mantel-piece.
Michael gazed up at them — his own yellow one, Jane's blue, the Twins' pink and Mary Poppins' red. They were very still. No breath of wind moved them. Light and bright, steady and still, they leaned against the ceiling.
"I wonder!" said Michael softly, half to himself.
"You wonder what?" said Mary Poppins, sorting out her parcels.
"I wonder if it would all have happened if you hadn't been with us."
Mary Poppins sniffed.
"I shouldn't wonder if you didn't wonder much too much!" she replied.
And with that Michael had to be content.
CHAPTER NINE
Nellie-Rubina
I don't believe it will ever stop — ever!"
Jane put down her copy of Robinson Crusoe and gazed gloomily out of the window.
The snow fell steadily, drifting down in large soft flakes, covering the Park and the pavements and the houses in Cherry Tree Lane with its thick white mantle. It had not stopped snowing for a week and in all that time the children had not once been able to go out.
"I don't mind — not very much," said Michael from the floor where he was busy arranging the animals of his Noah's Ark. "We can be Esquimos and eat whales."
"Silly — how could we get whales when it's too snowy even to go and buy cough drops!"
"They might come here. Whales do, sometimes," he retorted.
"How do you know?"
"Well, I don't know, exactly. But they might. Jane, where's the second giraffe? Oh, here he is — under the tiger!"
He put the two giraffes into the Ark together.
"The Animals went in Two-by-Two,
The Elephant and the Kangaroo,"
sang Michael. And, because he hadn't got a kangaroo, he sent an antelope in with the elephant and Mr. and Mrs. Noah behind them to keep order.
"I wonder why they never have any relatives!" he remarked presently.
"Who don't?" said Jane crossly, for she didn't want to be disturbed.
"The Noahs. I've never seen them with a daughter or a son or an uncle or an aunt. Why?"
"Because they don't have them," said Jane. "Do be quiet."
"Well, I was only remarking. Can't I remark if I want to?"
He was beginning to feel cross now, and very tired of being cooped up in the Nursery. He scrambled to his feet and swaggered over to Jane.
"I only said—" he began annoyingly, jogging the hand that held the book.
But at that, Jane's patience gave way and she hurled Robinson Crusoe across the room.
"How dare you disturb me!" she shouted, turning on Michael.
"How dare you not let me make a remark!"
"I didn't!"
"You did!"
And in another moment Jane was shaking Michael furiously by the shoulders and he had gripped a great handful of her hair.
"WHAT IS ALL THIS?"
Mary Poppins stood in the
doorway, glowering down at them.
They fell apart.
"She sh-sh-shook me!" wailed Michael, but he looked guiltily at Mary Poppins.
"He p-p-pulled my hair!" sobbed Jane, hiding her head in her arms, for she dared not face that stern gaze.
Mary Poppins stalked into the room. She had a pile of coats, caps and mufflers on her arm, and the Twins, round-eyed and interested, were at her heels.
"I would rather," she remarked with a sniff, "have a family of Cannibals to look after. They'd be more human!"
"But she did sh-sh-shake me—" Michael began again.
"Tell-Tale-Tit, Your tongue shall be slit!" jeered Mary Poppins. Then, as he seemed to be going to protest, "Don't dare answer back!" she said warningly and tossed him his overcoat. "Get your things on, please! We're going out!"
"Out?"
They could hardly believe their ears! But at the sound of that word all their crossness melted away. Michael, buttoning up his leggings, felt sorry he had annoyed Jane and looked across to find her putting on her woolen cap and smiling at him.
"Hooray, hooray, hooray!" They shouted, stamping and clapping their woolen-gloved hands.
"Cannibals!" she said fiercely and pushed them in front of her down the stairs….
The snow was no longer falling but was piled in heavy drifts all over the garden, and beyond, in the Park, it lay over everything like a thick white quilt. The naked branches of the Cherry trees were covered with a glistening rind of snow, and the Park railings, that had once been green and slender, were now white and rather woolly.
Down the garden path Robertson Ay was languidly trailing his shovel, pausing every few inches to take a long rest. He was wearing an old overcoat of Mr. Banks' that was much too big for him. As soon as he had shovelled the snow from one piece of path, the coat, drifting behind him, swept a new drift of snow over the cleared patch.
But the children raced past him and down to the gate, crying and shouting and waving their arms.
Outside in the Lane everybody who lived in it seemed to be taking the air.
"Ahoy there, shipmates!" cried a roaring, soaring voice as Admiral Boom came up and shook them all by the hand. He was wrapped from head to foot in a large Inverness cape and his nose was redder than they had ever seen it.
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