With a little push, Michael spun them round. And again a push. And again a spin. And soon they were all revolving gently in the middle of the room.
“Michael,” said Mary Poppins severely,” I am not a Merry-go-round!”
But he only laughed and hugged her tighter.
“The Faithful Friends are together,” he cried. “All the Faithful Friends!”
Chapter Three
LUCKY THURSDAY
“IT’S DOD FAIR!” grumbled Michael.
He pressed his nose to the window-pane and sniffed a tear away. And, as if to taunt him, a gust of rain rattled against the glass.
All day the storm had raged. And Michael, because he had a cold, was not allowed to go out. Jane and the Twins had put on gum-boots and gone to play in the Park. Even Annabel, wrapped in a mackintosh, had sailed off under the parrot umbrella, looking as proud as a queen.
Oh, how lonely Michael felt! It was Ellen’s Day Out. His mother had gone shopping. Mrs Brill was down in the kitchen. And Robertson Ay, up in the attic, was asleep in a cabin trunk.
“Get up and play in your dressing-gown. But don’t put a toe outside the Nursery!” Mary Poppins had warned him.
So there he was, all by himself, with nothing to do but grumble. He built a castle with his blocks, but it tumbled down when he blew his nose. He tried cutting his hair with his penknife, but the blade was far too blunt. And at last there was nothing left to do but breathe on the rainy window-pane and draw a picture there.
The Nursery clock ticked the day away. The weather grew wetter and Michael grew crosser.
But then, at sunset, the clouds lifted and a line of crimson shone from the West. Everything glittered in rain and sun. Rat-tat-tat – on the black umbrellas, the Cherry-Trees dropped their weight of water. The shouts of Jane and John and Barbara floated up to the window. They were playing leap-frog over the gutters on their way home from the Park.
Admiral Boom came splashing past, looking like a shiny sunflower in his big yellow sou-wester.
The Ice Cream Man trundled along the Lane, with a waterproof cape spread over his tricycle. And in front of it the notice said:
DON’T STOP ME
I WANT MY TEA
He glanced at Number Seventeen and waved his hand to the window. Michael, on any other day, would gladly have answered back. But today he deliberately took no notice. He huddled on the window-seat, glumly watching the sunset, and looking over Miss Lark’s roof at the first faint star in the sky.
“The others ged all the fud,” he sniffed. “I wish I could have sobe luck!”
Then footsteps clattered on the stairs. The door burst open and Jane ran in.
“Oh, Michael, it was lovely!” she cried. “We were up to our knees in water.”
“Then I hobe you catch a code!” he snapped. He gave a guilty glance round to see if Mary Poppins had heard. She was busy unwrapping Annabel and shaking the rain from her parrot umbrella.
“Don’t be cross. We all missed you,” said Jane in a coaxing voice.
But Michael did not want to be coaxed. He wanted to be as cross as he liked. Nobody, if he could help it, was going to alter his bad mood. Indeed, he was almost enjoying it.
“Dode touch be, Jade. You’re all wet!” he said in a sulky voice.
“So are we!” chirped John and Barbara, running across to hug him.
“Oh, go away!” he cried angrily, turning back to the window. “I dode want to talk to any of you. I wish you’d all leave be alode!”
“Miss Lark’s roof is made of gold!” Jane gazed out at the sunset. “And there’s the first star – wish on it! How does the tune go, Michael?”
He shook his head and wouldn’t tell, so she sang the song herself.
“Star light
Star bright,
First star I’ve seen tonight,
Wish I may
Wish I might
That the wish may come true
That I wish tonight.”
She finished the song and looked at the star.
“I’ve wished,” she whispered, smiling.
“It’s easy for you to sbile, Jade – you havvd got a code!” He blew his nose for the hundredth time and gave a gloomy sniff. “I wish I was biles frob everywhere! Sobewhere I could have sobe fud. Hullo, whad’s that?” he said, staring, as a small dark shape leapt on to the sill.
“What’s what?” she murmured dreamily.
“John! Barbara! And you too, Jane! Take off your coats at once. I will not have supper with Three Drowned Rats!” said Mary Poppins sharply.
They slithered off the window-seat and hurried to obey her. When Mary Poppins looked like that it was always best to obey.
The dark shape crept along the sill and a speckled face peeped in. Could it be – yes, it was! – a cat. A tortoiseshell cat with yellow eyes and a collar made of gold.
Michael pressed his nose to the pane. And the cat pressed its nose to the other side and looked at him thoughtfully. Then it smiled a most mysterious smile and, whisking off the window-sill, it sprang across Miss Lark’s garden and disappeared over the roof.
“Who owns it, I wonder?” Michael murmured, as he gazed at the spot where the cat had vanished. He knew it couldn’t belong to Miss Lark. She only cared for dogs.
“What are you looking at?” called Jane, as she dried her hair by the fire.
“Dothing!” he said in a horrid voice. He was not going to share the cat with her. She had had enough fun in the Park.
“I only asked,” she protested mildly.
He knew she was trying to be kind and something inside him wanted to melt. But his crossness would not let it.
“As I oddly adswered!” he retorted.
Mary Poppins looked at him. He knew that look and he guessed what was coming, but he felt too tired to care.
“You,” she remarked in a chilly voice, “can answer questions in bed. Spit-spot and in you go – and kindly close the door!”
Her eyes bored into him like gimlets as he stalked away to the Night Nursery and kicked the door to with a bang.
The steam-kettle bubbled beside his bed, sending out fragrant whiffs of balsam. But he turned his nose away on purpose and put his head under the blankets.
“Dothing dice ever happeds to be,” he grumbled to his pillow.
But it offered its cool white cheek in silence as if it had not heard.
He gave it a couple of furious thumps, burrowed in like an angry rabbit, and immediately fell asleep.
A moment later – or so it seemed – he woke to find the morning sun streaming in upon him.
“What day is today, Mary Poppins?” he shouted.
“Thursday,” she called from the next room. Her voice, he thought, was strangely polite.
The camp bed groaned as she sprang out. He could always tell what she was doing simply by the sound – the clip-clip of hooks and eyes, the swish of the hairbrush, the thump of her shoes and the rattle of the starched apron as she buttoned it round her waist. Then came a moment of solemn silence as she glanced approvingly at the mirror. And after that a hurricane as she whisked the others out of bed.
“May I get up too, Mary Poppins?”
She answered “Yes!”, to his surprise, and he scrambled out like lightning in case she should change her mind.