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.”