In a flash Michael dropped the stick. Away he bounded, with Jane at his heels.
“Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins!” they cried, and flung themselves upon her.
Behind them the Twins were crowing like cocks in the morning, and the Park Keeper was opening and shutting his mouth as though he would like to say something but could not find the words.
“At last! At last! At last!” shouted Michael wildly, clutching at her arm, her bag, her umbrella – anything so long as he might touch her and feel that she was really true.
“We knew you’d come back! We found the letter that said au revoir!” cried Jane, flinging her arms round the waist of the blue overcoat.
A satisfied smile flickered for a moment over Mary Poppins’ face – up from the mouth, over the turned-up nose, into the blue eyes. But it died away swiftly.
“I’ll thank you to remember,” she remarked, disengaging herself from their hands, “that this is a Public Park and not a Bear Garden. Such goings on! I might as well be at the Zoo. And where, may I ask, are your gloves?”
They fell back, fumbling in their pockets.
“Humph! Put them on, please!”
Trembling with excitement and delight, Jane and Michael stuffed their hands into their gloves and put on their hats.
Mary Poppins moved towards the perambulator. The Twins cooed happily as she strapped them in more securely and straightened the rug. Then she glanced round.
“Who put that Duck in the pond?” she demanded, in that stern, haughty voice they knew so well.
“I did,” said Jane. “For the Twins. He was going to New York.”
“Well, take him out, then!” said Mary Poppins. “He is not going to New York – wherever that is – but Home to Tea.”
And, slinging her carpet-bag over the handle of the perambulator, she began to push the Twins towards the gate.
The Park Keeper, suddenly finding his voice, blocked her way.
“See here!” he said, staring. “I shall have to report this. It’s against the Regulations. Coming down out of the sky like that. And where from, I’d like to know, where from?”
He broke off, for Mary Poppins was eyeing him up and down in a way that made him feel he would rather be somewhere else.
“If I was a Park Keeper,” she remarked primly, “I should put on my cap and button my coat. Excuse me!”
And, haughtily waving him aside, she pushed past with the perambulator.
Blushing, the Keeper bent to pick up his hat. When he looked up again, Mary Poppins and the children had disappeared through the gate of Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane.
He stared at the path. Then he stared up at the sky and down at the path again.
He took off his hat, scratched his head, and put it on again.
“I never saw such a thing!” he said shakily. “Not even when I was a boy.”
And he went away muttering and looking very upset. . .
“Why, it’s Mary Poppins!” said Mrs Banks, as they came into the hall. “Where did you come from? Out of the blue?”
“Yes,” began Michael joyfully, “she came down on the end—”
He stopped short, for Mary Poppins had fixed him with one of her terrible looks.
“I found them in the Park, ma’am,” she said, turning to Mrs Banks, “so I brought them home!”
“Have you come to stay, then?”
“For the present, ma’am.”
“But, Mary Poppins, last time you were here you left without a Word of Warning. How do I know you won’t do it again?”
“You don’t, ma’am,” replied Mary Poppins calmly.
Mrs Banks looked rather taken aback.
“But – but will you, do you think?” she asked uncertainly.
“I couldn’t say, ma’am, I’m sure.”
“Oh!” said Mrs Banks, because, at the moment, she couldn’t think of anything else.
And before she had recovered from her surprise, Mary Poppins had taken her carpet-bag and was hurrying the children upstairs.
Mrs Banks, gazing after them, heard the Nursery door shut quietly. Then, with a sigh of relief, she ran to the telephone.
“Mary Poppins has come back!” she said happily, into the receiver.
“Has she, indeed?” said Mr Banks at the other end. “Then perhaps I will too.”
And he rang off.
Upstairs Mary Poppins was taking off her overcoat. She hung it on a hook behind the Night-Nursery door. Then she removed her hat and placed it neatly on one of the bed-posts.
Jane and Michael watched the familiar movements. Everything about her was just as it had always been. They could hardly believe she had ever been away.
Mary Poppins bent down and opened the carpet-bag.
It was quite empty except for a large Thermometer.
“What’s that for?” asked Jane curiously.
“You!” said Mary Poppins.
“But I’m not ill!” Jane protested. “It’s two months since I had measles.”
“Open!” said Mary Poppins, in a voice that made Jane shut her eyes very quickly and open her mouth. The Thermometer slipped in.
“I want to know how you’ve been behaving since I went away!” remarked Mary Poppins sternly.
Then she took out the Thermometer and held it up to the light.
“Careless, Thoughtless and Untidy,” she read out.
Jane stared.
“I’m not surprised!” said Mary Poppins, and thrust the Thermometer into Michael’s mouth. He kept his lips tightly pressed upon it until she plucked it out and read:
“A very Noisy, Mischievous, Troublesome little Boy.”
“I’m not,” he said angrily.
For answer she thrust the Thermometer under his nose and he spelt out the large red letters.
“A-V-E-R-Y-N-O-I-S. . .”
“You see?” said Mary Poppins, looking at him triumphantly. She opened John’s mouth and popped in the Thermometer.
“Peevish and Excitable.” That was John’s temperature.
And, when Barbara’s was taken, Mary Poppins read out the two words, “Thoroughly Spoilt.”
“Humph!” she snorted. “It’s about time I came back!”
Then she popped it quickly in her own mouth, left it there for a moment, and took it out.
“A very Excellent and Worthy Person, Thoroughly Reliable in every Particular.”
A pleased and conceited smile lit up her face as she read her temperature aloud.
“I thought so,” she said priggishly. “Now – Tea and Bed!”
It seemed to them no more than a minute before they had drunk their milk and eaten their Coconut Cakes and were in and out of the bath. As usual, everything that Mary Poppins did had the speed of electricity. Hooks and eyes rushed apart, buttons darted eagerly out of their holes, sponge and soap ran up and down like lightning, and towels dried with one rub.
Mary Poppins walked along the row of beds tucking them all in. Her starched white apron crackled, and she smelt deliciously of newly-made toast.
When she came to Michael’s bed, she bent down and rummaged under it for a minute. Then she carefully drew out her camp bedstead with her possessions laid upon it in neat piles. The cake of Sunlight soap, the toothbrush, the packet of hairpins, the bottle of scent, the small folding armchair and the box of throat lozenges. Also the seven flannel nightgowns, the four cotton ones, the boots, the dominoes, the two bathing caps and the postcard album.