Mary Poppins Comes Back

by P. L. Travers

  “You’ll need this,” he said earnestly, “if you ever get to come to the Park.”

  Luti spelled out the strange words. “What is a Bye-law?” he wanted to know.

  The Park Keeper scratched his head. “I don’t rightly know myself, but it’s something you have to remember.”

  To remember something he did not know! This seemed like a riddle to Luti. But he put the paper into his pocket and decided to think about it.

  Even Andrew and Willoughby from Number Sixteen, came each with a bone in his mouth. And when Luti opened the gate they deposited the bones before him, and walked home waving their tails proudly and feeling noble and generous.

  “Peace and blessings!” said Luti, smiling – which was what he said to everyone – and hid the bones under the hedge so that some day another dog would find them.

  Everyone wanted to know him. If they had lost Number Eighteen, they had been given a sun-browned stranger who for one hour, every day, smiled upon them and blessed them.

  But the stolen hour was mostly spent with Jane and Michael at the hole in the fence, which seemed to be no longer a hole but a place where North and South met, and roses and columbines took the air with waving coconut palms.

  Jane and Michael shared their toys, and taught Luti to play Ludo, while he made them whistles from leaves of grass, told them about the coral island and stories of his ancestors who came from the Land of the Sun. And of his Grandmother, Keria, who knew the language of birds and beasts and how to subdue a thunderstorm. Jane and Michael many times wished they had a Wise Woman for a grandmother. Aunt Flossie would never be able to deal with thunder. All she could do was escape from it by getting under a bed.

  And always, as if by chance – but they knew that nothing she did was by chance – Mary Poppins would be at hand, rocking Annabel to sleep, playing with John and Barbara, or sitting on the garden seat reading Everything a Lady Should Know.

  But there came a day when the clock struck two and Jane and Michael went to the hole to find no Luti there.

  It was Monday, and therefore Washing Day. It was also dim and misty as though a cloud had swallowed the sun.

  “Just my luck!” said Mrs Brill, as she pegged the sheets on the lines. “I need the sun, but it doesn’t need me.”

  The mist did not bother Jane and Michael. They merely waited, peering through it, for a glimpse of a well-known figure. But when at last it did come, it was not the Luti they knew. He was bent and huddled like an old, old man, with his arms hugging his chest. And as he threw himself down beside them, they saw that he was weeping.

  “What is it, Luti? We have brought you some pears. Don’t you want to eat them?”

  “No, no, I am troubled in my heart. Something is trying to speak to me. I can hear a knocking.”

  “Where?” They looked about uneasily. There was no sound anywhere but the rise and fall of Miss Andrew’s snoring.

  “In here.” Luti beat his breast, rocking himself to and fro. “They are calling to me – knock, knock, knock! Keria said I would surely know. They are telling me to come home. Alas, what must I do?” He looked at the children, with streaming eyes. “The lady with the flower in her hat – she would understand.”

  “Mary Poppins!” Michael shouted. “Mary Poppins, where are you?”

  “I am not deaf, nor in Timbuctoo. And you, Michael, are not a Hyena. Kindly speak more quietly. Annabel is asleep.”

  The hat with the pink rose bobbing on it leant over the top of the fence. “Tell me, what is the matter, Luti?” Mary Poppins looked down at the sobbing child.

  “I hear a knocking inside me, here.” Luti put his hand on his heart. “I think they are sending for me.”

  “Then the moment has come for you to go home. Climb through the hole and follow me.”

  “But Missanda – her porridge, her medicines, and my learning of many things!” Luti eyed her anxiously.

  “Miss Andrew will be taken care of,” said Mary Poppins firmly. “Come with me, all of you. There is not much time.”

  Jane and Michael helped the half-willing boy hurriedly through the gap. And Mary Poppins took his hand, placing it closely beside her own on the handle of the perambulator, as the little procession made its way through a corridor of wet white sheets.

  They were all silent as they hurried through the misty garden, across the Lane where the ripe cherries hung from the branches, each cluster veiled in white, and into the Park with its hazy shapes of bushes, trees and swings.

  The Park Keeper, like an eager dog, came lolloping towards them. “Observe the Rules. Remember the Bye-laws! You’ve got it on your piece of paper,” he said, looking at Luti.

  “Observe them yourself,” said Mary Poppins. “There’s some wastepaper over there. Put it in the litter bin.”

  The Park Keeper turned sulkily away and went towards the litter. “Who does she think she is?” he muttered. But no answer came to his question.

  Mary Poppins marched on, stopping only at the edge of the Lake to admire her own reflection, with its misty rose-bedecked hat and the wide knitted scarf with its matching roses that today she wore round her shoulders.

  “Where are we going, Mary Poppins?”Where could they go in the mist, thought Jane.

  “Walk up, walk up!” said Mary Poppins. And it seemed to the children that she was herself walking up, putting her foot upon the cloud as if it were a staircase and tilting up the perambulator as though climbing a hill.

  And suddenly, they were all climbing, leaving the Park behind them, walking upon the misty substance that seemed as firm as a snowdrift. Luti leant against Mary Poppins as though she were the one safe thing in the world, and together they pushed the perambulator while Jane and Michael followed.

  “Observe the Rules!” the Park Keeper shouted. “You can’t climb the clouds. It’s against the Bye-laws! I shall have to inform the Prime Minister.”

  “Do!” Mary Poppins called over her shoulder, as she led them higher and higher.

  On they went, ever upwards, with the mist growing firmer at every step and the sky around them brighter. Till at last, as though they had come to the top of a staircase, a gleaming cloud-field had spread out before them as flat and white as a plate. The sun lay across it in stripes of gold and, to the children’s astonishment, a huge full moon confronted them, anchored, as it were, at the edge of a cloud.

  It was crowded with objects of every description – umbrellas, handbags, books, toys, luggage, parcels, cricket bats, caps, coats, slippers, gloves, the kind of things people leave behind them in buses or trains or on seats in a park.

  And among these varied articles, with a small iron cooking stove beside it, stood an old battered armchair, and in the chair sat a bald-headed man in the act of raising a cup to his lips.

  “Uncle! Stop! Don’t you dare drink it!” Mary Poppins’ voice rang out sharply and the cup banged down into its saucer.

  “What, what? Who? Where?” With a start, the man lifted his head. “Oh, it’s you, Mary! You gave me a fright. I was just going to take a sip of cocoa.”

  “You were, indeed, and you know quite well that cocoa makes one sleepy!” She leant in and took the cup from his hand.

  “It’s not fair,” grumbled the uncle. “Everyone else can indulge themselves with a soothing drink. But not me, not the poor Man-in-the-Moon. He has to stay awake night and day to keep a watch on things. And anyway, people should be more careful and not go losing tins of cocoa – yes, and cups to put the cocoa in.”

  “That’s our cup!” Michael exclaimed. “Mrs Brill said when she broke it that it would be needed somewhere else.”

  “Well, it was. So I glued the bits together. And then someone dropped a tin of cocoa.” He glanced at the tin on the edge of the stove and Jane remembered that such a one had fallen from the string bag on their way home from the grocer’s.

  “And I had a packet of sugar by me, so you see, with three such treats coming together, I just couldn’t resist them. I’m sorry, Mary. I won’t
do it again, I promise. “The Man-in-the-Moon looked shamefaced.

  “You won’t get the chance,” said Mary Poppins, seizing the tin from the top of the stove and stuffing it into her handbag.

  “Well, goodbye cocoa, goodbye sleep!” The Man-in-the-Moon sighed heavily. Then he grinned and looked at Jane and Michael. “Did you ever know anyone like her?” he asked.

  “Never, never!” they both replied.

  “Of course you didn’t,” he beamed proudly. “She’s the One and Only.”

  “Do all lost things come to the Moon?” Jane thought of the lost things in the world and wondered if there was room for them.

  “Mostly, yes,” said the Man-in-the-Moon. “It’s a kind of storehouse.”

  “And what’s at the back of it?” asked Michael. “We only see this side.”

  “Ah, if I knew that, I’d know a lot. It’s a mystery, a kind of riddle – a front without a back you might say, as far as I’m concerned. Besides, it’s very overcrowded. You couldn’t relieve me of anything, could you? Something you might have lost in the Park?”

  “I can!” said Jane suddenly, for among the parcels and umbrellas she had spied a shabby, familiar shape.

  “The Blue Duck!” She reached for the faded toy. “The Twins dropped it out of the perambulator.”

  “And there’s my dear old mouth organ.” Michael pointed to a metal shape on the shelf above the stove. “But it doesn’t make music any more. It’s really no use to me.”

  “Nor to me, either. I have tried it. A musical instrument that can’t make music! Take it, there’s a good fellow, and put it in your pocket.”

  Michael reached for the mouth organ and as he did so, something that was lying beside it toppled sideways and came bouncing down, rolling out over the cloud.

  “Oh, that is mine, my lost coconut!” Luti stepped out from behind Mary Poppins and seized the moving object. It was brown and shaggy, round as a ball, one side of it closely shaven with a round face carved upon it.

  Luti hugged the hairy thing to his breast.

  “My father carved it,” he said proudly, “and I lost it one day in the tide of the sea.”

  “And now the tide has given it back. But you, young man, should be on your way. They are all waiting for you on the island and Keria is at her clay stove making spells with herbs for your safe return. Your father has lately hurt his arm and he needs your help in the canoe. “The Man-in-the-Moon spoke firmly to Luti.

  “He is on his way,” said Mary Poppins. “That is why we are here.”

  “Ha! I knew you had something up your sleeve. You never visit me, Mary, my dear, just for a friendly cup of tea – or perhaps I should say cocoa!” The Man-in-the-Moon grinned impishly.

  “I want you to keep an eye on him. He is young for such a long journey, Uncle.”

  “As if I could help it – you know that. Not a wink will I take, much less forty! Trust your old uncle, my girl.”

  “How do you know Keria?” asked Jane. The thought of the Wise Woman far away filled her with a kind of dream. She wished she could know her too.

  “In the same way that I know everyone. It’s my job to watch and wake. The world turns and I turn with the world; mountain and sea, city and desert; the leaf on the bough and the bough bare; men sleeping, waking, working; the cradle child, the old woman, the wise ones and the not so wise; you in your smock, Michael in his sailor blouse; the children on Luti’s South Sea island in their girdles of leaves and wreaths of flowers such as he too will wear in the morning. Those things he has on now, Mary, would be most unsuitable.”

  “I have thought of that, thank you,” said Mary Poppins, unfastening Luti’s stiff collar and, with her usual lightning speed, sweeping off jacket and knickerbockers and Mr Banks’ big boots. Then, as he stood there in his underwear, she wound about him, as one would a parcel, her knitted scarf with its pink roses that matched the one on her hat.

  “But my treasures! I must take them with me.” Luti eyed her earnestly.

  Mary Poppins took from the perambulator a battered paper bag. “Fuss, fuss, fuss!” she said, with a sniff, as he fished in the pockets of his jacket.

  “I could take care of the dagger for you.” Michael was secretly envious. He had often had thoughts of becoming a pirate.

  “One must never give away a gift. My father will use it for his carving and cutting twigs for the fire.”

  Luti stuffed the dagger into his bag with the fan, the wooden King and Queen and the Admiral’s canoe. Last of all came a dark and sticky lump of something wrapped up in a handkerchief.

  “The chocolate bar!” Jane exclaimed. “We thought you had eaten it up.”

  “It was too precious,” said Luti simply. “We have no such sweetmeats on the island. They shall have a taste of it, all of them.”

  He reached an arm out of the scarf and stowed the bag in its woollen folds. Then he picked up the shaggy coconut, held it for a moment to his heart, before thrusting it at the children.

  “Remember me, please,” he said shyly. “I am indeed sad to leave you.”

  Mary Poppins picked up the folded clothes and laid them neatly on the floor of the moon.

  “Come, Luti, it is time to go. I will show you the way. Jane and Michael, take care of the little one. Uncle, remember your promise.”

  She put her arm round the pink knitted bundle and Luti turned within it, smiling.

  “Peace and blessings!” He held up his hand.

  “Peace and blessings!” cried Jane and Michael.

  “Do exactly as she tells you,” said the Man-in-the-Moon, “and Peace and blessings, my boy!”

  They watched him being marched away over the white cloudy field to the place where it met the sky. There Mary Poppins bent down to him, pointing to a string of cloudlets that floated like puffballs in the blue. They saw Luti nod as he gazed at them, saw him hold up his hand in a farewell gesture, then his bare legs took a little run that ended in an enormous leap.

  “Oh, Luti!” they cried anxiously, and gasped with relief as he landed safely in the middle of the nearest puffball. Then he was skimming lightly across it and jumping on to the next. Oh, on he went, bounding over the gulfs of air between the floating clouds.

  A shrill sound came back to them. He was singing, they could distinguish the words:

  “I am Luti, Son of the Sun,

  I am wearing a garment of roses,

  I am going home to my island,

  Peace and blessings, O clouds!”

  Then he was silent and lost to sight. Mary Poppins was standing beside them and the moon, when they turned to look at it, was off on its course sailing away.

  “Goodbye!” called Jane and Michael, waving. And the faint shape of an arm waved back with an answering call of “Au Revoir!”.

  Mary Poppins brandished her parrot-headed umbrella and then turned to the children. “Now, quick march and best foot forward!”

  The pink rose bobbed jauntily on her hat as she gave the perambulator a twist and sent it rolling on a downward slope.

  They seemed to be sliding rather than walking with the cloud growing mistier every second. Soon the shapes of trees loomed through the haze and suddenly, instead of air, there was solid earth beneath their feet and the Park Keeper and the Prime Minister were coming towards them, on the Long Walk, the emerging sun bright on their faces.

  “There they are, just like I told you, coming right down out of the sky, breaking the Rules and the Bye-laws!”

  “Nonsense, Smith, they had merely walked into the mist and now that it’s lifted you can see them again. It has nothing to do with the Bye-laws. Good afternoon, Miss Mary Poppins. I must apologise for the Park Keeper. One would think, to hear him talk, that you had been visiting the Moon, ha, ha!”

  The Prime Minister laughed at his own joke.

  “One would indeed!” Mary Poppins replied, with a gracious, innocent smile.

  “And what have you done with the other one?” the Park Keeper demanded. “The little brown
fellow – left him up in the air?” He had seen Luti with the family troupe and now he was with it no longer.

  The Prime Minister regarded him sternly. “Really, Smith, you go too far. How could anyone be left in the sky, supposing he could get there? You see, as we all do, shapes in the mist and your imagination runs away with you. Get on with your work in the Park, my man, and don’t go molesting innocent people who are simply strolling through it. But now I must run away myself. They say there is trouble in the Lane. Someone appears to have lost their wits and I must look into it, I suppose. Good day to you, Miss Poppins. Next time you go climbing into the blue, pray give my respects to the Man-in-the-Moon!”

  And, again laughing heartily, the Prime Minister swept off his hat and hurried away through the Park Gates.

  Mary Poppins smiled to herself as she and the children followed closely behind him.

  Angrily staring after them, the Park Keeper stood in the Long Walk. She had made a fool of him again! He was sure she had been up in the sky and he wished with all his heart she had stayed there.

  There was, indeed, trouble in the Lane.

  A large woman, with a big black bag in one hand, and tearing her hair with the other, was standing at the gate of Number Eighteen, alternately shouting and sobbing.

  And Miss Lark’s dogs, usually so quiet, were jumping up and down, barking at her.

  Of course it was Miss Andrew.

  Mary Poppins, cautiously walking on tiptoe, signalled to the children to do the same as they followed in the steps of the Prime Minister.

  He was clearly nervous when he reached the scene.

  “Er – is there anything, madam, I can do to help you?”

  Miss Andrew seized him by the arm. “Have you seen Luti?” she demanded. “Luti has gone. I have lost Luti. Oh, oh, oh!”

  “Well,” the Prime Minister glanced around anxiously. “I am not quite sure what a Luti is.”

  It might, he thought, be a dog, or a cat, even, perhaps a parrot. “If I knew, I could, perhaps, be of use.”

  “He looks after me and measures my medicines and gives them to me at the proper times.”