“Leave my dogs alone! Or I shall take your number and report you!” cried a lady whose balloon said she was “The Duchess of Mayfield”.
But the Park Keeper took no notice and went bobbing by, crying “All Dogs on a Lead! Don’t crowd the Park! No smoking! Observe the Regulations!” till his voice was hoarse.
“Where’s Mary Poppins?” said Michael, whisking up to Jane.
“There! Just ahead of us!” she replied and pointed to the prim, tidy figure that bounced at the end of the largest balloon in the Park. They followed it homewards.
“Balloons and balloons, my deary-ducks!” cried a cackling voice behind them.
And turning, they saw the Balloon Woman. Her tray was empty and there was not a balloon anywhere near her, but in spite of that she was flying through the air as though a hundred invisible balloons were drawing her onwards.
“Every one sold!” she screamed as she sped by. “There’s a balloon for everyone if only they knew it. They took their choice and they took their time! And I’ve sold the lot! Balloons and balloons.”
Her pockets jingled richly as she flew by and, standing still in the air, Jane and Michael watched the small, withered figure shooting past the bobbing balloons, past the Prime Minister and the Lord Mayor, past Mary Poppins and Annabel, until the tiny shape grew tinier still and the Balloon Woman disappeared into the distance.
“Balloons and balloons, my deary-ducks!” The faint echo came drifting back to them.
“Step along, please!” said Mary Poppins. They flocked round her, all four of them. Annabel, rocked by the movement of Mary Poppins’ balloon, nestled closer to her and went to sleep.
The gate of Number Seventeen stood open, the front door was ajar. Mary Poppins, leaping neatly and bouncing primly, passed through and up the stairs. The children followed, jumping and bobbing. And when they reached the nursery door, their four pairs of feet clattered noisily to the ground. Mary Poppins floated down and landed without a sound.
“Oh, what a lovely afternoon!” said Jane, rushing to fling her arms round Mary Poppins.
“Well, that’s more than you are, at this moment. Brush your hair, please. I don’t care for scarecrows!” Mary Poppins said tartly.
“I feel like a balloon myself,” said Michael joyfully. “All airy-fairy-free!”
“I’d be sorry for the fairy that looked like you!” said Mary Poppins. “Go and wash your hands. You’re no better than a sweep!”
When they came back, clean and tidy, the four balloons were resting against the ceiling, their strings firmly moored behind the picture over the mantelpiece.
Michael gazed up at them – his own yellow one, Jane’s blue, the Twins’ pink and Mary Poppins’ red. They were very still. No breath of wind moved them. Light and bright, steady and still, they leant against the ceiling.
“I wonder!” said Michael softly, half to himself.
“You wonder what?” said Mary Poppins, sorting out her parcels.
“I wonder if it would all have happened if you hadn’t been with us.” Mary Poppins sniffed.
“I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t wonder much too much!” she replied.
And with that Michael had to be content. . .
Chapter Nine
NELLIE-RUBINA
“I DON’T BELIEVE it will ever stop – ever!”
Jane put down her copy of Robinson Crusoe and gazed gloomily out of the window.
The snow fell steadily, drifting down in large soft flakes, covering the Park and the pavements and the houses in Cherry Tree Lane with its thick, white mantle. It had not stopped snowing for a week and in all that time the children had not once been able to go out.
“I don’t mind – not very much,” said Michael from the floor, where he was busy arranging the animals of his Noah’s Ark. “We can be Esquimos and eat whales.”
“Silly – how could we get whales when it’s too snowy even to go out and buy cough-drops?”
“They might come here. Whales do, sometimes,” he retorted.
“How do you know?”
“Well, I don’t know, exactly. But they might. Jane, where’s the second giraffe? Oh, here he is – under the tiger!”
He put the two giraffes into the Ark together. sang Michael. And, because he hadn’t got a kangaroo, he sent an antelope in with the elephant, and Mr and Mrs Noah behind them to keep order.
“The Animals went in Two-by-Two,
The Elephant and the Kangaroo”
“I wonder why they never have any relations!” he remarked presently.
“Who don’t?” said Jane crossly, for she didn’t want to be disturbed.
“The Noahs. I’ve never seen them with a daughter or a son or an uncle or an aunt. Why?”
“Because they don’t have them,” said Jane. “Do be quiet.”
“Well, I was only remarking. Can’t I remark if I want to?”
He was beginning to feel cross now, and very tired of being cooped up in the Nursery. He scrambled to his feet and swaggered over to Jane.
“I only said. . .” he began annoyingly, jogging the hand that held the book.
But, at that, Jane’s patience gave way and she hurled Robinson Crusoe across the room.
“How dare you disturb me?” she shouted, turning on Michael.
“How dare you not let me make a remark?”
“I didn’t!”
“You did!”
And in another moment Jane was shaking Michael furiously by the shoulders, and he had gripped a great handful of her hair.
“What is all this?”
Mary Poppins stood in the doorway, glowering down at them.
They fell apart.
“She sh-sh-shook me!” wailed Michael, but he looked guiltily at Mary Poppins.
“He p-p-pulled my hair!” sobbed Jane, hiding her head in her arms, for she dared not face that stern gaze.
Mary Poppins stalked into the room. She had a pile of coats, caps and mufflers on her arm; and the Twins, round-eyed and interested, were at her heels.
“I would rather,” she remarked with a sniff, “have a family of Cannibals to look after. They’d be more human!”
“But she did sh-sh-shake me—” Michael began again.
“Tell-Tale-Tit, Your Tongue shall be slit!” jeered Mary Poppins. Then, as he seemed to be going to protest, “Don’t dare answer back!” she said warningly, and tossed him his overcoat. “Get your things on, please! We’re going out!”
“Out?”
They could hardly believe their ears! But at the sound of that word all their crossness melted away. Michael, buttoning up his leggings, felt sorry he had annoyed Jane, and looked across to find her putting on her woollen cap and smiling at him.
“Hooray, hooray, hooray!” they shouted, stamping and clapping their woollen-gloved hands.
“Cannibals!” she said fiercely, and pushed them in front of her down the stairs.
The snow was no longer falling but was piled in heavy drifts all over the garden, and beyond, in the Park, it lay upon everything like a thick white quilt. The naked branches of the Cherry Trees were covered with a glistening rind of snow; and the Park railings, that had once been green and slender, were now white and rather woolly.