A light footstep made him glance up. Mary Poppins came tripping in, buttoning on her apron. Everything about her tonight – the darting movements, the stern glance, even the way her nose turned up – was deliciously familiar.
“What would you like me to do, Mary Poppins?” He hoped she would ask for something tremendous.
“Whatever you like,” she answered calmly, with the same extravagant courtesy she had shown him all day long.
“Don’t, Mary Poppins! Don’t!” he pleaded.
“Don’t what?” she enquired, with annoying calm.
“Don’t speak to me in that elegant way. I can’t bear any more luck!”
“But luck,” she said brightly, “was what you wanted!”
“It was. But it isn’t. I’ve had enough. Oh, don’t be polite and kind.”
The cool smile faded from her face.
“And am I not usually polite? Have you ever known me to be unkind? What do you take me for – a Hyena?”
“No, not a hyena, Mary Poppins. And you are polite and you are kind! But today I like you best when you’re angry. It makes me feel much safer.”
“Indeed? And when am I angry, I’d like to know?”
She looked, as she spoke, very angry indeed. Her eyes flashed, her cheeks were scarlet. And for once, the sight delighted him. Now that her chilly smile was gone, he didn’t mind what happened. She was her own familiar self and he no longer a stranger.
“And when you sniff – that’s when I like you!” he added with stupendous daring.
“Sniff?” she said, sniffing. “What an idea!”
“And when you say ‘Humph’ – like a camel!”
“Like a what?” She looked quite petrified. Then she bristled wrathfully. She reminded him of the wave of cats as she crossed the Nursery like an oncoming storm.
“You dare to stand there,” she accused him sternly, taking a step with every word, just as the King had done, “and tell me I’m a Dromedary? Four legs and a tail and a hump or two?”
“But, Mary Poppins, I only meant—”
“That is enough from you, Michael. One more piece of impertinence and you’ll go to bed, spit-spot.”
“I’m in it already, Mary Poppins,” he said in a quavering voice. For by now she had backed him through the Nursery into his room and on to his bed.
“First a Hyena and then a Camel. I suppose I’ll be a Gorilla next!”
“But—”
“Not another word!” she spluttered, giving her head a proud toss as she stalked out of the room.
He knew he had insulted her, but he couldn’t really be sorry. She was so exactly like herself that all he could feel was gladness.
Off went his clothes and in he dived, hugging his pillow to him. Its cheek was warm and friendly now as it pressed against his own.
The shadows crept slowly across his bed as he listened to the familiar sounds – bath-water running, the Twins’ chatter and the rattle and clink of Nursery supper.
The sounds grew fainter. . . the pillow grew softer. . .
But, suddenly, a delicious something – a scent of a flavour – filled the room, and made him sit up with a start.
A cup of chocolate hovered above him. Its fragrance came sweetly to his nose and mingled with the fresh-toast scent of Mary Poppins’ apron. There she stood, like a starched statue, gazing calmly down.
He met her glance contentedly, feeling it plunging into him and seeing what was there. He knew that she knew that he knew she was not a Camel. The day was over, his adventure behind him. The Cat Star was far away in the sky. And it seemed to him, as he stirred his chocolate, he had everything he wanted.
“I do believe, Mary Poppins,” he said, “that I’ve nothing left to wish for.”
She smiled a superior, sceptical smile.
“Humph!” she remarked. “That’s lucky!”
Chapter Four
THE CHILDREN IN THE STORY
RATTLE! RATTLE! RATTLE!
Clank! Clank! Clank!
Up and down went the lawn-mower, leaving stripes of newly cut grass in its wake.
Behind it panted the Park Keeper, pushing with all his might. At the end of each stripe he paused for a moment to glance round the Park and make sure that everybody was Observing the Rules.
Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he spied a large net waving backwards and forwards behind the laurels.
“Benjamin!” he called warningly. “Benjamin Winkle, Remember the Bye-laws!”
The Keeper of the Zoological Gardens thrust his head round a clump of leaves and put his finger to his lips. He was a small, nervous-looking man, with a beard like a ham-frill fringing his face.
“Sh!” he whispered. “I’m after an Admiral!”
“A n’ Admiral? Well, you won’t find ’im in a laurel bush. ’E’s over there, at the end of the Lane. Big ’ouse, with a telescope on the flagpole.”
“I mean a Red Admiral!” hissed the Keeper of the Zoological Gardens.
“Well, ’e’s red enough for anything. Got a face like a stormy sunset.”
“It’s not a man I’m after, Fred.” The Keeper of the Zoological Gardens gave the Park Keeper a look of solemn reproach. “I’m catching butterflies for the Insect House, and all I’ve got –” he glanced dejectedly into his net – “is one Cabbage White.”
“Cabbage?” cried the Park Keeper, rattling off down the lawn. “If you want a cabbage, I’ve some in my garden. H’artichokes too. And turnips! Fine day, Egbert!” he called to the Policeman, who was taking a short-cut through the Park, in the course of his daily duties.
“Might be worse,” the Policeman agreed, glancing up at the windows of Number Seventeen, in the hope of catching a glimpse of Ellen.
He sighed. “And might be better!” he added glumly. For Ellen was nowhere to be seen.
Rattle, rattle! Clank, clank!
The sunlight spangled the stripy lawn and spread like a fan over Park and Lane. It even went so far as to shine on the Fair Ground, and the Swinging-boats and the Merry-go-round and the big blue banner with MUDGE’S FAIR printed on it in gold.
The Park Keeper paused at the end of a stripe and sent a hawk-like glance about him.
A fat man with a face like a poppy was sauntering through the little gate that led from the Fair. He had a bowler hat on the back of his head and a large cigar in this mouth.
“Keep Off the Grass!” the Park Keeper called to him.
“I wasn’t on it!” retorted the fat man, with a look of injured innocence.
“Well, I’m just givin’ you a Word of Warnin’. All Litter to be placed in the Baskets – especially, Mr Mudge, in the Fair Ground!”
“Mr Smith,” said the fat man in a fat, confident voice, “if you find so much as a postage stamp when the Fair’s over, I’ll – well, I’ll be surprised. You’ll be able to eat your dinner off that Fair Ground, or my name’s not Willie Mudge.”
And he stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his jacket and swaggered off, looking very important.
“Last year,” the Park Keeper shouted after him, “I swept up sacks of postage stamps! And I don’t eat me dinner there. I go ’ome for it!”