“But – this isn’t the way home!” complained Michael, dragging his feet so that his toes scraped along the pavement.
“Isn’t the Park on the way home, I’d like to know?” she demanded, turning fiercely upon him.
“Yes – but—”
“There are more ways than one of going through a Park,” she remarked, and led them round to a side of it they had never seen before.
The sun shone warmly down. The tall trees bowed over the railings and rustled their leaves. Up in the branches two sparrows were fighting over a piece of straw. A fat squirrel hopped along the stone balustrade and sat up on his hindquarters, asking for nuts.
But today these things did not matter. Jane and Michael were not interested. All they could think of was the fact that Mary Poppins had spent the whole Pound Note on unimportant things and had kept nothing over.
Tired and disappointed, they trailed after her towards the Gates.
Over the entrance, a new one they had never seen before, spread a tall stone arch, splendidly carved with a Lion and a Unicorn. And beneath the arch sat an old, old woman, her face as grey as the stone itself, and as withered and wrinkled as a walnut. On her little old knees she held a tray piled up with what looked like small coloured strips of rubber; and above her head, tied firmly to the Park railings, a cluster of bright balloons bobbed and bounced and bounded.
“Balloons! Balloons!” shouted Jane. And, loosening her hand from John’s sticky fingers, she ran towards the old woman. Michael bounded after her, leaving Barbara alone and lost in the middle of the pavement.
“Well, my deary-ducks!” said the Balloon Woman, in an old, cracked voice. “Which will you have? Take your choice! And take your time!” She leant forward and shook her tray in front of them.
“We only came to look,” Jane explained. “We’ve got no money.”
“Tch, tch, tch! What’s the good of looking at a balloon? You’ve got to feel a balloon, you’ve got to hold a balloon, you’ve got to know a balloon. Coming to look! What good will that do you?”
The old woman’s voice crackled like a little flame. She rocked herself on her stool.
Jane and Michael stared at her helplessly. They knew she was speaking the truth. But what could they do?
“When I was a girl,” the old woman went on, “people really understood balloons. They didn’t just come and look! They took – yes, they took! There wasn’t a child that went through these gates without one. They wouldn’t have insulted the Balloon Woman in those days by just looking and passing by!”
She bent her head back and gazed up at the bouncing balloons above her.
“Ah, my loves and doves!” she cried. “They don’t understand you any more – nobody but the old woman understands. You’re old-fashioned now. Nobody wants you!”
“We do want one!” said Michael stoutly. “But we haven’t any money. She spent the whole Pound Note on—”
“And who is ‘she’?” enquired a voice close behind him.
He turned, and his face went pink.
“I meant – er – that you – er—” he began nervously.
“Speak politely of your betters!” remarked Mary Poppins, and, stretching her arm over his shoulder, she put half-a-crown on the Balloon Woman’s tray.
Michael stared at it, shining there among the limp unblown balloons.
“Then there was some change left over!” said Jane, wishing she had not thought so crossly of Mary Poppins.
The Balloon Woman, her old eyes sparkling, picked up the coin and gazed at it for a long moment.
“Shiny, shiny, King-and-Crown!” she cried. “I haven’t seen one of these since I was a girl.” She cocked her head at Mary Poppins. “Do you want a balloon, my lass?”
“If you please!” said Mary Poppins, with haughty politeness.
“How many, my deary-duck, how many?”
“Four!”
Jane and Michael, almost jumping out of their skins, turned and flung their arms round Mary Poppins.
“Oh, Mary Poppins, do you mean it? One each? Really? – Really?”
“I hope I always say what I mean,” she said primly, looking very conceited.
They sprang towards the tray and began to turn over the coloured balloon-cases.
The Balloon Woman slipped the silver coin into a pocket of her skirt. “There, my shiny!” she said, giving the pocket a loving pat. Then, with excited, trembling hands, she helped the children turn over the cases.
“Go carefully, my Deary-Ducks!” she warned them. “Remember, there’s balloons and balloons. Take your choice and take your time. There’s many a child got the wrong balloon and his life was never the same after.”
“I’ll have this one!” said Michael, choosing a yellow one with red markings.
“Well, let me blow it up and you can see if it’s the right one,” said the Balloon Woman.
She took it from him and with one gigantic puff blew it up. Zip! There it was. You could hardly think such a tiny person could have so much breath in her body. The yellow balloon, neatly marked with red, bobbed at the end of its string.
“But, I say!” said Michael, staring. “It’s got my name on it!”
And, sure enough, the red markings on the balloon were letters spelling out the two words – “Michael Banks”.
“Aha!” cackled the Balloon Woman. “What did I tell you? You took your time and the choice was right!”
“See if mine is!” said Jane, handing the Balloon Woman a limp blue balloon.
She puffed and blew it up, and there appeared across the fat blue globe the words “Jane Caroline Banks” in large white letters.
“Is that your name, my deary-duck?” said the Balloon Woman.
Jane nodded.
The Balloon Woman laughed to herself, a thin, old cackling laugh, as Jane took the balloon from her and bounced it on the air.
“Me! Me!” cried John and Barbara, plunging fat hands among the balloon-cases. John drew out a pink one and, as she blew it up, the Balloon Woman smiled. There, round the balloon, the words could clearly be seen. “John and Barbara Banks – one between them because they are twins.”
“But,” said Jane, “I don’t understand. How did you know? You never saw us before.”
“Ah, my deary-duck, didn’t I tell you there was balloons and balloons and that these were extra-special?”
“But did you put the names on them?” said Michael.
“I?” the old woman chuckled. “Nary I!”
“Then who did?”
“Ask me another, my deary-duck! All I know is that the names are there! And there’s a balloon for every single person in the world if only they choose properly.”
“One for Mary Poppins too?”
The Balloon Woman cocked her head and looked at Mary Poppins with a curious smile.
“Let her try!” She rocked herself on her little stool. “Take your choice and take your time! Choose and see!”
Mary Poppins sniffed importantly. Her hand hovered for a moment over the empty balloons and then pounced on a red one. She held it out at arm’s length and, to their astonishment, the children saw it slowly filling with air of its own accord. Larger and larger it grew till it became the size of Michael’s. But still it swelled until it was three times as large as any other balloon. And across it appeared in letters of gold the two words “Mary Poppins”.