Mary Poppins regarded her in silence. If a pin had fallen you could have heard it.
“Am I an octopus?” she enquired, finding her voice at last.
“An octopus?” cried Mrs Banks. Had she ever suggested such a thing? “Of course you’re not, Mary Poppins.”
“Exactly!” Mary Poppins retorted. “I have only one pair of hands.”
Mrs Banks nodded uneasily. She had never expected her to have more.
“And that one pair has enough to do without dusting anyone’s treasures.”
“But, Mary Poppins, I never dreamed—” Mrs Banks was getting more and more flustered. “Ellen is here to do the dusting. And it’s only until Miss Andrew comes back – if, of course, she ever does. She behaved so strangely when she was here. Why are you giggling, Jane?”
But Jane only snickered and shook her head. She remembered that strange behaviour.
“Where has she gone to?” Michael asked.
“She seems to have had some sort of a shock – what are you laughing at, children? – and the doctor has ordered a long voyage, away to the South Seas. She says. . .” Mrs Banks fished into her pocket and brought out a crumpled letter.
“And while I am away,’” she read out,“‘I shall leave my valuables with you. Be sure they are put in a safe place where nothing can happen to them. I shall expect, on my return, to find everything exactly as it is – nothing broken, nothing mended. Tell George to wear his overcoat. This weather is changeable.’”
“So you see, Mary Poppins,” said Mrs Banks, looking up with a flattering smile, “the Nursery does seem the best place. Anything left in your charge is always perfectly safe!”
“There’s safety and safety!” sniffed Mary Poppins. “And I hope I see further than my nose!” It was tilted upwards, as she spoke, even more than usual.
“Oh, I am sure you do!” murmured Mrs Banks, wondering, for the hundredth time, why Mary Poppins – no matter what the situation – was always so pleased with herself.
“Well, now I think I must go and—” But without saying what she was going to do, she ran out of the Nursery, jumped over Robertson Ay’s legs and bustled away down the stairs.
“Allow me, Michael, if you please!” Mary Poppins seized his wrist, as he pulled the lid off the box. “Remember what curiosity did – it killed the cat, you know!”
Her quick hands darted among the papers, and briskly unwrapped a little bundle. Out came a chipped nose and a Chelsea china lamb.
“Funny sort of treasures,” said Michael. “I could mend this bird with a piece of putty. But I mustn’t – so Miss Andrew said. They’re to stay exactly as they are.”
“Nothing does that,” said Mary Poppins, with a priggish look on her face.
“You do!” he insisted gallantly.
She sniffed, and glanced at the Nursery mirror. Her reflection gave a similar sort of sniff and glanced at Mary Poppins. Each of them, it was easy to see, highly approved of the other.
“I wonder why she kept this?” Jane took an old cracked tile from the box. The picture showed a boat-load of people rowing towards an island.
“To remind her of her youth,” said Michael.
“To give more trouble,” snapped Mary Poppins, shaking the dust from another wrapping.
Back and forth the children ran, collecting and setting up the treasures – a cottage in a snowstorm, with Home Sweet Home on the glass globe; a pottery hen on a yellow nest; a red-and-white china clown; a winged horse of celluloid, prancing on its hind legs; a flower vase in the shape of a swan; a little red fox of carved wood; an egg-shaped piece of polished granite; a painted apple with a boy and a girl playing together inside it; and a roughly made, full-rigged ship in a jam-jar.
“I hope that’s all,” grumbled Michael. “The mantelpiece is crowded.”
“Only one more,” said Mary Poppins, as she drew out a knobbly bundle. A couple of china ornaments came forth from the paper wrapper. Her eyebrows went up as she looked at them and she gave a little shrug. Then she handed one each to Jane and Michael.
Weary of running back and forth, they set the ornaments hurriedly at either end of the mantelpiece. Then Jane looked at hers and blinked her eyes.
A china lion, with his paw on the chest of a china huntsman, was reclining beneath a banana tree which, of course, was also china. The man and the animal leant together, smiling blissfully. Never, thought Jane, in all her life, had she seen two happier creatures.
“He reminds me of somebody!” she exclaimed, as she gazed at the smiling huntsman. Such a manly figure he looked too, in his spruce blue jacket and black top-boots.
“Yes,” agreed Michael. “Who can it be?”
He frowned as he tried to recall the name. Then he looked at his half of the china pair and gave a cry of dismay.
“Oh, Jane! What a pity! My lion has lost his huntsman!”
It was true. There stood another banana tree, there sat another painted lion. But in the other huntsman’s place there was only a gap of roughened china. All that remained of his manly shape was one black shiny boot.
“Poor lion!” said Michael. “He looks so sad!”
And, indeed, there was no denying it. Jane’s lion was wreathed in smiles, but his brother had such a dejected look that he seemed to be almost in tears.
“You’ll be looking sad in a minute – unless you get ready for lunch!”
Mary Poppins’ face was so like her voice that they ran to obey her without a word.
But they caught a glimpse, as they rushed away, of her starched white figure standing there, with its arms full of crumpled paper. She was gazing with a reflective smile at Miss Andrew’s broken treasure – and it seemed to them that her lips moved.
Michael gave Jane a fleeting grin.
“I expect she’s only saying ‘Humph!’”
But Jane was not so sure. . .
“Let’s go to the swings,” suggested Michael, as they hurried across the Lane after lunch.
“Oh, no! The Lake. I’m tired of swinging.”
“Neither swings nor lakes,” said Mary Poppins. “We are taking the Long Walk!”
“Oh, Mary Poppins,” grumbled Jane, “the Long Walk’s far too long!”
“I can’t walk all that way,” said Michael. “I’ve eaten much too much.”
The Long Walk stretched across the Park from the Lane to the Far Gate, linking the little countrified road to the busy streets they had travelled that morning. It was wide and straight and uncompromising – not like the narrow, curly paths that led to the Lake, and the Playground. Trees and fountains bordered it, but it always seemed to Jane and Michael at least ten miles in length.
“The Long Walk – or the short walk home! Take your choice!” Mary Poppins warned them.
Michael was just about to say he would go home, when Jane ran on ahead.
“I’ll race you,” she cried, “to the first tree!”
Michael could never bear to be beaten. “That’s not fair! You had a good start!” And off he dashed at her heels.
“Don’t expect me to keep up with you! I am not a centipede!”
Mary Poppins sauntered along, enjoying the balmy air, and assuring herself that the balmy air was enjoying Mary Poppins. How could it do otherwise, she thought, when under her arm was the parrot-umbrella and over her wrist a new black handbag?
The perambulator creaked and groaned. In it, the Twins and Annabel, packed as close as birds in a nest, were playing with the blue duck.
“That’s cheating, Michael!” grumbled Jane. For accidentally on purpose, he had pushed her aside and was running past.
From tree to tree they raced along, first one ahead and then the other, each of them trying to win. The Long Walk streamed away behind them and Mary Poppins and the perambulator were only specks in the distance.
“Next time you push me I’ll give you a punch!” said Michael, red in the face.
“If you bump into me again I’ll pull your hair, Michael!”
“Now
, now!” the Park Keeper warned them sternly. “Observe the Rules! No argle-bargling!”
He was meant to be sweeping up the twigs, but, instead, he was chatting with the Policeman, who was leaning against a maple-tree, whiling away his time.
Jane and Michael stopped in their tracks. Their race, they were both surprised to find, had brought them right across the Park and near to the Far Gate.
The Park Keeper looked at them severely. “Always argufying!” he said. “I never did that when I was a boy. But then I was a Nonly child, just me and me poor old mother. I never ’ad nobody to play with. You two don’t know when you’re lucky!”
“Well, I dunno!” the Policeman said. “Depends on how you look at it. I had someone to play with, you might say, but it never did me any good!”
“Brothers or sisters?”Jane enquired, all her crossness vanishing. She liked the Policeman very much. And today he seemed to remind her of someone, but she couldn’t think who it was.
“Brothers!” the Policeman informed her, without enthusiasm.
“Older or younger?” Michael asked. Where, he wondered to himself, had he seen another face like that?
“Same age,” replied the Policeman flatly.
“Then you must have been twins, like John and Barbara!’
“I was triplets,” the Policeman said.
“How lovely!” cried Jane, with a sigh of envy.
“Well, it wasn’t so lovely, not to my mind. The opposite, I’d say. ‘Egbert,’ my mother was always asking, ‘why don’t you play with Herbert and Albert?’ But it wasn’t me – it was them that wouldn’t. All they wanted was to go to the Zoo, and when they came back they’d be animals – tigers tearing about the house and letting on it was Timbuctoo or around the Gobi Desert. I never wanted to be a tiger. I liked playing bus-conductors and keeping things neat and tidy.”
“Like ’er!” The Park Keeper waved to a distant fountain where Mary Poppins was leaning over to admire the set of her hat.
“Like her,” agreed the Policeman, nodding. “Or,” he said, grinning, “that nice Miss Ellen.”
“Ellen’s not neat,” protested Michael. “Her hair straggles and her feet are too big.”
“And when they grew up,” demanded Jane, “what did Herbert and Albert do?” She liked to hear the end of a story.
“Do?” said the Policeman, very surprised. “What one triplet does, the others do. They joined the police, of course!”
“But I thought you were all so different!”
“We were and we are!” the Policeman argued. “Seeing as how I stayed in London, and they went off to distant lands. Wanted to be near the jungle, they said, and mix with giraffes and leopards. One of ’em – Herbert – he never came back. Just sent a note saying not to worry. ‘I’m happy,’ he said, ‘and I feel at home!’And after that, never a word – not even a card at Christmas.”
“And what about Albert?” the children prompted.
“Ah –Albert – yes! He did come back. After he met with his accident.”
“What accident?” they wanted to know. They were burning with curiosity.
“Lorst his foot,” the Policeman answered. “Wouldn’t say how, or why or where. Now he works on the traffic signals. Sits in his box and pines away. And sometimes,” The Policeman lowered his voice. “Sometimes he forgets the lights. Leaves them at red for a whole day till London’s at a standstill!”
Michael gave an excited skip. “He must be the one we passed this morning, in the box by the Far Gate!”
“That’s him all right!” The Policeman nodded.
“But what is he pining for?” asked Jane. She wanted every detail.
“For the jungle, he keeps on telling me. He says he’s got a friend there!”
“A funny place to ’ave a friend!” The Park Keeper glanced around the Park to see that all was in order.
“T’chah!” he exclaimed disgustedly. “That’s Willerby up to ’is tricks again! Look at ’im sittin’ up there on the wall! Come down out of that! Remember the Bye-laws! No dogs allowed on the Park Wall. I shall ’ave to speak to Miss Lark,” he muttered, “feedin’ ’im all that dainty food! ’E’s twice the size he was yesterday!”
“That’s not Willoughby!” said Michael. “It’s a much, much larger dog.”
“It isn’t a dog at all!” cried Jane. “It’s a—”
“Lumme! You’re right!” The Policeman stared. “It’s not a dog – it’s a lion!”
“Oh, what shall I do?” wailed the Park Keeper. “Nothing like this ever ’appened before, not even when I was a boy!”
“Go and get someone from the Zoo – it must have escaped from there! Here, you two—” the Policeman cried. He caught the children and swung them up to the top of a nearby fountain. “You stay there while I head off!”
“Observe the Rules!” shrieked the Park Keeper. “No lions allowed in the Park!” He gave one look at the tawny shape and ran in the opposite direction.
The Lion swung his head about, glancing along Cherry Tree Lane and then across the lawns. Then he leapt from the wall with a swift movement and made for the Long Walk. His curly mane blew out in the breeze like a large lacy collar.
“Take care!” cried Jane to the Policeman, as he darted forward with arms outspread. It would be sad indeed, she felt, if that manly figure were gobbled up.
“Gurrrr!” the Policeman shouted fiercely.
His voice was so loud and full of warning that everyone in the Park was startled.
Miss Lark, who was knitting by the Lake, came hurrying to the Long Walk with her dogs in close attendance.
“Such a commotion!” she twittered shrilly. “Whatever is the matter? Oh!” she cried, running round in a circle. “What shall I do? It’s a wild beast! Send for the Prime Minister!”
“Get up a tree!” the Policeman yelled, shaking his fist at the Lion.
“Which tree? Oh, how undignified!”
“That one!” screamed Michael, waving his hand.
Gulping and panting, Miss Lark climbed up, her hair catching in every twig and her knitting wool winding around her legs.
“Andrew and Willoughby, come up, please!” she called down anxiously. But the dogs were not going to lose their heads. They composed themselves at the foot of the tree and waited to see what would happen.
By this time everyone in the Park had become aware of the Lion. Terrified shouts rang through the air as people swung themselves into the branches or hid behind seats or statues.
“Call out the Firemen!” they all cried. “Tell the Lord Mayor! Send for a rope!”
But the Lion noticed none of them. He crossed the lawn in enormous leaps, making direct for the blue serge shape of the Officer of the Law.
“Gurrrr, I said!” the Policeman roared, taking out his baton.
The Lion merely tossed his head and flung himself into a crouching position. A ripple ran through all his muscles as he made ready to spring.
“Oh, save him, somebody!” cried Jane, with an anxious glance at the manly figure.
“Help!” screamed a voice from every tree.
“Prime Minister!” cried Miss Lark again.
And then the Lion sprang. He sped like an arrow through the air and landed beside the big black boots.
“Be off, I say!” the Policeman shouted, in a last protesting cry.
But as he spoke a strange thing happened. The Lion rolled over on his back and waved his legs in the air.
“Just like a kitten,” whispered Michael. But he held Jane’s hand a little tighter.
“Away with you!” the Policeman bellowed, waving his baton again.
But as though the words were as sweet as music, the Lion put out a long red tongue and licked the Policeman’s boots.
“Stop it, I tell you! Get along off!”
But the Lion only wagged its tail and, springing up on its hind legs, it clasped the blue serge jacket.
“Help! Oh, help!” the Policeman gasped.
“Coming!” cr
oaked a hoarse voice, as the Park Keeper crawled to the edge of the Walk with an empty Litter-basket over his head.
Beside him crept a small thin man with a butterfly net in his hand.
“I brought the Keeper of the Zoological Gardens!” the Park Keeper hissed at the Policeman. “Go on!” he urged the little man. “It’s your property – take it away!”
The Keeper of the Zoological Gardens darted behind a fountain. He took a careful look at the Lion as it hugged the dark blue waist.
“Not one of ours!” He shook his head. “It’s far too red and curly. Seems to know you!” he called to the Policeman. “What are you – a lion-tamer?”
“Never saw him before in my life!” The head in the helmet turned aside.
“Oh, wurra! wurra!” the Lion growled, in a voice that held a note of reproach.
“Will nobody send for the Prime Minister?” Miss Lark’s voice shrilled from her maple bough.
“I have been sent for, my dear madam!” a voice observed from the next tree. An elderly gentleman in striped trousers was scrambling into the branches.
“Then do something!” ordered Miss Lark in a frenzy.
“Shoo!” said the Prime Minister earnestly, waving his hat at the Lion.
But the Lion bared its teeth in a grin as it hugged the Policeman closer.
“Now, what’s the trouble? Who sent for me?” cried a loud, impatient voice.
The Lord Mayor hurried along the Walk with his Aldermen at his heels.
“Good gracious! What are you doing, Smith?” He stared in disgust at the Park Keeper. “Come out of that basket and stand up straight! It is there to be used for litter, Smith, and not some foolish game.”
“I’m usin’ it for armour, Your Worship! There’s a lion in the Park!”
“A lion, Smith? What nonsense you talk! The lions are in the Zoo!”
“A lion?” echoed the Aldermen. “Ha, ha! What a silly story!”
“It’s true!” yelled Jane and Michael at once. “Look out! He’s just behind you!”
The three portly figures turned, and their faces grew pale as marble.
The Lord Mayor waved a feeble hand at the trembling Aldermen.
“Get me water! Wine! Hot Milk!” he moaned.