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’m 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 light 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 to 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.”