“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.
Down the garden path Robertson Ay was languidly trailing his shovel, pausing every few inches to take a long rest. He was wearing an old overcoat of Mr Banks’ that was much too big for him. As soon as he had shovelled the snow from one piece of path, the coat, drifting behind him, swept a new drift of snow over the cleared patch.
But the children raced past him and down to the gate, crying and shouting and waving their arms.
Outside in the Lane everybody who lived in it seemed to be taking the air.
“Ahoy there, shipmates!” cried a roaring, soaring voice as Admiral Boom came up and shook them all by the hand. He was wrapped from head to foot in a large Inverness cape and his nose was redder than they had ever seen it.
“Good day!” said Jane and Michael politely.
“Port and starboard!” cried the Admiral. “I don’t call this a good day. Hur-rrrrrumph! A hideous, hoary, land-lubbery sort of day, I call it. Why doesn’t the Spring come? Tell me that!”
“Now, Andrew! Now, Willoughby! Keep close to Mother!”
Miss Lark, muffled up in a long fur
coat and wearing a fur hat like a tea-cosy, was taking a walk with her two dogs.
“Good morning, everybody!” She greeted them fussily. “What weather! Where has the sun gone? And why doesn’t the Spring come?”
“Don’t ask me, Ma’am!” shouted Admiral Boom. “No affair of mine. You should go to sea. Always good weather there! Go to sea!”
“Oh, Admiral Boom, I couldn’t do that! I haven’t the time. I am just off to buy Andrew and Willoughby a fur coat each.”
A look of shame and horror passed between the two dogs.
“Fur coats!” roared the Admiral. “Blast my binnacle! Fur coats for a couple of mongrels? Heave her over! Port, I say! Up with the Anchor! Fur coats!”
“Admiral! Admiral!” cried Miss Lark, stopping her ears with her hands. “Such language! Please, please remember I am not used to it. And my dogs are not mongrels. Not at all! One has a long pedigree and the other has at least a Kind Heart. Mongrels, indeed!”
And she hurried away, talking to herself in a high, angry voice, with Andrew and Willoughby sidling behind her, swinging their tails and looking very uncomfortable and ashamed.
The Ice Cream Man trundled past on his cycle, going at a terrific rate and ringing his bell madly.
“DON’T STOP ME OR I SHALL CATCH COLD” said the notice in front of his cart.
“Whenever’s that there Spring coming?” shouted the Ice Cream Man to the Sweep who at that moment came trudging round the corner. To keep out the cold he had completely covered himself with brushes so that he looked more like a porcupine than a man.
“Bur-rum, bur-rum, bumble!” came the voice of the Sweep through the brushes.
“What’s that?” said the Ice Cream Man.
“Bumble!” the Sweep remarked, disappearing in at Miss Lark’s Tradesman’s Entrance.
In the gateway to the Park stood the Keeper, waving his arms and stamping his feet and blowing on his hands.
“Need a bit of Spring, don’t we?” he said cheerfully to Mary Poppins as she and the children passed through.
“I’m quite satisfied!” replied Mary Poppins primly, tossing her head.
“Self-satisfied, I’d call it,” muttered the Keeper. But as he said it behind his hand, only Jane and Michael heard him.
Michael dawdled behind. He stooped and gathered up a handful of snow and rolled it between his palms.
“Jane, dear!” he called in a wheedling voice. “I’ve got something for you!”
She turned, and the snowball, whizzing through the air, caught her on the shoulder. With a squeal she began to burrow in the snow and presently there were snowballs flying through the air in every direction. And in and out, among the tossing, glistening balls, walked Mary Poppins, very prim and neat, and thinking to herself how handsome she looked in her woollen gloves and her rabbit-skin coat.
And just as she was thinking that, a large snowball grazed past the brim of her hat and landed right on her nose.
“Oh!” screamed Michael, putting up both hands to his mouth. “I didn’t mean to, Mary Poppins! I didn’t, really. It was for Jane!”
Mary Poppins turned; and her face, as it appeared through the fringe of broken snowball, was terrible.
“Mary Poppins,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry. It was a Naccident!”
“A Naccident or not,” she retorted, “that’s the end of your snowballing. Naccident, indeed! A Zulu would have better manners!”
She plucked the remains of the snowball from her neck and rolled them into a small ball between her woollen palms. Then she flung the ball right across the snowy lawn and went stamping haughtily after it.
“Now you’ve done it!” whispered Jane.
“I didn’t mean to,” Michael whispered back.
“I know. But you know what she is!”
Mary Poppins, arriving at the place where the snowball had fallen, picked it up and threw it again, a long, powerful throw.
“Where is she going?” said Michael suddenly. For the snowball was bowling away under the trees and, instead of keeping to the path, Mary Poppins was hurrying after it. Every now and then she dodged a little fall of snow as it tumbled softly from a branch.
“I can hardly keep up!” said Michael, stumbling over his own feet.
Mary Poppins quickened her steps. The children panted behind her. And when at last they caught up with the snowball they found it lying beside the strangest building they had ever seen.
“I don’t remember seeing this house before!” exclaimed Jane, her eyes wide with surprise.
“It’s more like an Ark than a house,” said Michael, staring.
The house stood solidly in the snow, moored by a thick rope to the trunk of a tree. Round it, like a veranda, ran a long narrow deck, and its high-peaked roof was painted bright scarlet. But the most curious thing about it was that though it had several windows there was not a single door.
“Where are we?” said Jane, full of curiosity and excitement.
Mary Poppins made no reply. She led the way along the deck and stopped in front of a notice that said:
KNOCK THREE AND A HALF TIMES
“What is half a knock?” whispered Michael to Jane.
“Sh!” she said, nodding towards Mary Poppins. And her nod said as clearly as if she had spoken – “We’re on the brink of an Adventure. Don’t spoil it by asking questions!”
Mary Poppins, seizing the knocker that hung above the notice, swung it upwards and knocked three times against the wall. Then, taking it daintily between the finger and thumb of her woollen glove, she gave the merest, tiniest, smallest, gentlest tap.
Like this:
RAP! RAP! RAP!. . . TAP!
Immediately, as though it had been listening and waiting for that signal, the roof of the building flew back on its hinges.
“Goodness Graciousness!” Michael could not restrain the exclamation, for the wind of the roof, as it swung open, nearly lifted his hat off.
Mary Poppins walked to the end of the narrow deck and began to climb a small, steep ladder. At the top she turned, and looking very solemn and important, beckoned with a woolly finger.
“Step up, please!”
The four children hurried after her.
“Jump!” cried Mary Poppins, leaping down from the top of the ladder into the house. She turned and caught the Twins as they came tumbling over the edge with Jane and Michael after them. And as soon as they were all safely inside, the roof closed over again and shut with a little click.
They gazed round them. Four pairs of eyes popped with surprise.
“What a funny room!” exclaimed Jane.
But it was really more than funny. It was extraordinary. The only piece of furniture in it was a large counter that ran along one end of the room. The walls were white-washed and, leaning against them, were piles of wood cut into the shape of trees and branches and all painted green. Small wooden sprays of leaves, newly painted and polished, were scattered about the floor. And several notices hung from the walls, saying
MIND THE PAINT!
or
DON’T TOUCH!
or
KEEP OFF THE GRASS!
But this was not all.
In one corner stood a flock of wooden sheep with the dye still wet on their fleeces. Crowded in another were small, stiff groups of flowers – yellow aconites, green-and-white snowdrops, and bright blue scyllas. All of them looked very shiny and sticky as though they had been newly varnished.
So did all the wooden birds and butterflies that were neatly piled in a third corner. So did the flat, white, wooden clouds that leant tidily against the counter.
But the enormous jar that stood on a shelf at the end of the room was not painted. It was made of green glass and filled to the brim with hundreds of small flat shapes of every kind and colour.
“You’re quite right, Jane,” said Michael, staring. “It is a funny room!”
“Funny!” said Mary Poppins, looking as though he had said something insulting.
; “Well – peculiar.”
“Peculiar?”
Michael hesitated. He could not find the right word.
“What I meant was—”
“I think it’s a lovely room, Mary Poppins,” said Jane, hastily coming to the rescue.
“Yes, it is,” said Michael, very relieved. “And,” he added cleverly, “I think you look very nice in that hat.”
He watched her carefully. Yes, her face was a little softer – there were even faint beginnings of a conceited smile round her mouth.
“Humph!” she remarked, and turned towards the end of the room.
“Nellie-Rubina!” she called. “Where are you? We’ve arrived!”
“Coming! Coming!”
The highest, thinnest voice they had ever heard seemed to rise up from beneath the counter. And, presently, from the same direction as the voice, a head, topped with a small, flat hat, popped up. It was followed by a round, rather solid body that held in one hand a pot of red paint, and in the other a plain wooden tulip.
Surely, surely, thought Jane and Michael, this was the strangest person they had ever seen!
From her face and size she seemed to be quite young, but somehow she looked as though she were made, not of flesh, but of wood. Her stiff, shiny black hair seemed to have been carved on her head and then painted. Her eyes were like small black holes drilled in her face, and surely that bright pink patch on her shiny cheek was paint!
“Well, Mary Poppins!” said this curious person, her red lips glistening as she smiled. “This is nice of you, I must say!” And, putting down the paint and the tulip, she came round the counter and shook hands with Mary Poppins.
Then it was that the children noticed she had no legs at all! She was quite solid from the waist downwards and moved with a rolling motion by means of a round flat disc where her feet should have been.
“Not at all, Nellie-Rubina,” said Mary Poppins, with unusual politeness. “It is a Pleasure and a Treat!”
“We’ve been expecting you, of course,” Nellie-Rubina went on, “because we wanted you to help with the—” She broke off, for not only had Mary Poppins flashed her a warning look, but she had caught sight of the children.
“Oh!” she cried, in her high, friendly voice. “You’ve brought Jane and Michael! And the Twins too. What a surprise!” She bowled across and shook hands jerkily with them all.