The red balloon bounced through the air; the old woman tied a string to it, and, with a little cackling laugh, handed it back to Mary Poppins.
Up into the dancing air danced the four balloons. They tugged at their strings as though they wanted to be free of their moorings. Then the wind caught them and flung them backwards and forwards, to the North, to the South, to the East, to the West.
“Balloons and balloons, my deary-ducks! One for everybody if only they knew it!” cried the Balloon Woman happily.
At that moment an elderly gentleman in a top-hat, turning in at the Park Gates, looked across and saw the balloons. The children saw him give a little start. Then he hurried up to the Balloon Woman.
“How much?” he said, jingling his money in his pocket.
“Sevenpence-halfpenny. Take your choice and take your time!”
He took a brown one and the Balloon Woman blew it up. The words “The Honourable William Wetherall Wilkins” appeared on it in green letters.
“Good gracious!” said the elderly gentleman. “Good gracious, that’s my name!”
“You chose well, my deary-duck. Balloons and balloons!” said the old woman.
The elderly gentleman stared at his balloon as it tugged at its string.
“Extraordinary!” he said, and blew his nose with a trumpeting sound. “Forty years ago, when I was a boy, I tried to buy a balloon here. But they wouldn’t let me. Said they couldn’t afford it. Forty years – and it’s been waiting for me all this time. Most extraordinary!’
And he hurried away, bumping into the Arch because his eyes were fixed on the balloon. The children saw him giving little excited leaps in the air as he went.
“Look at him!” cried Michael, as the Elderly Gentleman bobbed higher and higher. But at that moment his own balloon began pulling at the string and he felt himself lifted off his feet.
“Hello, hello! How funny! Mine’s doing it too!”
“Balloons and balloons, my deary-duck!” said the Balloon Woman, and broke into her cackling laugh as the Twins, both holding their balloon by its single string, bounced off the ground.
“I’m going, I’m going!” shrieked Jane as she, too, was borne upwards.
“Home, please!” said Mary Poppins.
Immediately, the red balloon soared up, dragging Mary Poppins after. Up and down she bounced, with Annabel and the parcels in her arms. Through the Gates and above the path the red balloon bore Mary Poppins, her hat very straight, her hair very tidy, and her feet as trimly walking the air as they usually walked the earth. Jane and Michael and the Twins, tugged jerkily up and down by their balloons, followed her.
“Oh, oh, oh!” cried Jane, as she was whirled past the branch of an elm tree. “What a delicious feeling!”
“I feel as if I were made of air!” said Michael, knocking into a Park seat and bouncing off it again. “What a lovely way to go home!”
“O-o-h! E-e-e-h!” squeaked the Twins, tossing and bobbing together.
“Follow me, please, and don’t dawdle!” said Mary Poppins, looking fiercely over her shoulder, for all the world as if they were walking sedately on the ground instead of being tugged through the air.
Past the Park Keeper’s house they went and down the Lime Walk. The Elderly Gentleman was there, bouncing along ahead of them.
Michael turned for a moment and looked behind him.
“Look, Jane, look! Everybody’s got one!”
She turned. In the distance a group of people, all carrying balloons, were being jerked up and down in the air.
“The Ice Cream Man has bought one!” she cried, staring and just missing a statue.
“Yes, and the Sweep! And there – do you see? – is Miss Lark!”
Across the lawn a familiar figure came bouncing, hatted and gloved, and holding a balloon bearing the name “Lucinda Emily Lark”. She bobbed across the Elm Walk, looking very pleased and dignified, and disappeared round the edge of a fountain.
By this time the Park was filling with people and every one of them had a balloon with a name on it, and everyone was bouncing in the air.
“Heave ho, there! Room for the Admiral! Where’s my port? Heave ho!” shouted a huge, nautical voice, as Admiral and Mrs Boom went rolling through the air. They held the string of a large white balloon with their name on it in blue letters.
“Masts and mizzens! Cockles and shrimps! Haul away, my hearties!” roared Admiral Boom, carefully avoiding a large oak tree.
The crowd of balloons and people grew thicker. There was hardly a patch of air in the park that was not rainbowy with balloons. Jane and Michael could see Mary Poppins threading her way primly among them and they, too, hurried as fast as they could through the throng, with John and Barbara bobbing at their heels.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! My balloon won’t bounce me. I must have chosen the wrong one!” said a voice at Jane’s elbow.
An old-fashioned lady with a quill in her hat and a feather boa round her neck was standing on the path just below Jane. At her feet lay a purple balloon across which was written in letters of gold, “The Prime Minister”.
“What shall I do?” she cried. “The old woman at the Gates said ‘Take your choice and take your time, my deary-duck!’And I did. But I’ve got the wrong one. I’m not the Prime Minister!”
“Excuse me, but I am!” said a voice at her side, as a tall man, very elegantly dressed and carrying a rolled umbrella, stepped up to her.
The lady turned. “Oh, then this is your balloon! Let me see if you’ve got mine!”
The Prime Minister, whose balloon was not bouncing him at all, showed it to her. Its name was “Lady Muriel Brighton-Jones”.
“Yes, you have! We’ve got mixed!” she cried, and handing the Prime Minister his balloon, she seized her own. Presently they were off the ground, and flying among the trees, talking as they went.
“Are you married?” Jane and Michael heard Lady Muriel ask.
And the Prime Minister answered, “No. I can’t find the right sort of middle-aged lady – not too young and not too old and rather jolly, because I’m so serious myself.”
“Would I do?” said Lady Muriel Brighton-Jones. “I can enjoy myself quite a lot.”
“Yes, I think you’d do very nicely,” said the Prime Minister and, hand in hand, they joined the tossing throng.
By this time the Park was really rather crowded. Jane and Michael, bobbing across the lawns after Mary Poppins, constantly bumped into other bouncing figures who had bought balloons from the Balloon Woman. A tall man, wearing a long moustache, a blue suit and a helmet, was being tugged through the air by a balloon marked “Police Inspector”, and another, bearing the words “Lord Mayor”, dragged along a round, fat person in a three-cornered hat, a red overall and a large, brass necklace.
“Move on, please! Don’t crowd the Park. Observe the Regulations! All Litter to be deposited in the Rubbish Baskets!”
The Park Keeper, roaring and ranting, and holding a small, cherry-coloured balloon marked “F. Smith”, threaded his way through the crowd. With a wave of his hand he moved on two dogs – a bull-dog, with the word “Cu” written on his balloon, and a fox-terrier whose name appeared to be “Albertine”.