Читать книгу Mary Poppins in the Park - P. Travers L. - Страница 6

THE SUMMER DAY was hot and still. The Cherry-Trees that bordered the Lane could feel their cherries ripening – the green slowly turning to yellow and the yellow blushing red.

The houses dozed in the dusty gardens with their shutters over their eyes. “Do not disturb us!” they seemed to say. “We rest in the afternoon.”

And the starlings hid themselves in the chimneys with their heads under their wings.

Over the Park lay a cloud of sunlight as thick and as golden as syrup. No wind stirred the heavy leaves. The flowers stood up, very still and shiny, as though they were made of metal.

Down by the Lake the benches were empty. The people who usually sat there had gone home out of the heat. Neleus, the little marble statue, looked down at the placid water. No goldfish flirted a scarlet tail. They were all sitting under the lily-leaves – using them as umbrellas.

The lawns spread out like a green carpet, motionless in the sunlight. Except for a single, rhythmic movement, you might have thought that the whole Park was only a painted picture. To and fro, by the big magnolia, the Park Keeper was spearing up rubbish and putting it into a litter-basket.

He stopped his work and looked up as two dogs trotted by.

They had come from Cherry Tree Lane, he knew, for Miss Lark was calling from behind her shutters.

“Andrew! Willoughby! Please come back! Don’t go swimming in that dirty Lake. I’ll make you some Iced Tea!”

Andrew and Willoughby looked at each other, winked, and trotted on. But as they passed the big magnolia, they started and pulled up sharply. Down they flopped on the grass, panting – with their pink tongues lolling out.

Mary Poppins, neat and prim in her blue skirt and a new hat trimmed with a crimson tulip, looked at them over her knitting. She was sitting bolt upright against the tree, with a plaid rug spread on the lawn around her. Her handbag sat tidily by her side. And above her, from a flowering branch, the parrot umbrella dangled.

She glanced at the two thumping tails and gave a little sniff.

“Put in your tongues and sit up straight! You are not a pair of wolves.”

The two dogs sprang at once to attention. And Jane, lying on the lawn, could see they were doing their very best to put their tongues in their cheeks.

“And remember, if you’re going swimming,” Mary Poppins continued, “to shake yourselves when you come out. Don’t come sprinkling us!”

Andrew and Willoughby looked reproachful.

“As though, Mary Poppins,” they seemed to say, “we would dream of such a thing!”

“All right, then. Be off with you!” And they sped away like shots from a gun.

“Come back!” Miss Lark cried anxiously.

But nobody took any notice.

“Why can’t I swim in the Park Lake?” asked Michael in a smothered voice. He was lying face downwards in the grass, watching a family of ants.

“You’re not a dog!” Mary Poppins reminded him.

“I know, Mary Poppins. But if I were—” Was she smiling or not? He couldn’t be sure, with his nose pressed into the earth.

“Well – what would you do?” she enquired, with a sniff.

He wanted to say that if he were a dog he would do just as he liked – swim or not, as the mood took him, without asking leave of anyone. But what if her face was looking fierce? Silence was best, he decided.

“Nothing!” he said, in a meek voice. “It’s too hot to argue, Mary Poppins!”

“Out of nothing comes nothing!” She tossed her head in its tulip hat. “And I’m not arguing, I’m talking!” She was having the last word, as usual.

The sunlight caught her knitting-needles as it shone through the broad magnolia leaves on the little group below. John and Barbara, leaning their heads on each other’s shoulders, were dozing and waking, waking and dozing. Annabel was fast asleep in Mary Poppins’ shadow. Light and darkness dappled them all and splotched the face of the Park Keeper as he dived at a piece of newspaper.

“All Litter to be placed in the Baskets! Obey the Rules!” he said sternly.

Mary Poppins looked him up and down. Her glance would have withered an oak-tree.

“That’s not my litter,” she retorted.

“Oh?” he said disbelievingly.

“No!” she replied, with a virtuous snort.

“Well, someone must ’ave put it there. It doesn’t grow – like roses!”

He pushed his cap to the back of his head and mopped behind his ears. What with the heat, and her tone of voice, he was feeling quite depressed.

“’Ot weather we’re ’avin’!” he remarked, eyeing her nervously. He looked like an eager, lonely dog.

“That’s what we expect in the middle of summer!” Her knitting-needles clicked.

The Park Keeper sighed and tried again.

“I see you brought yer parrot!” he said, glancing up at the black silk shape that hung among the leaves.

“You mean my parrot-headed umbrella,” she haughtily corrected him.

He gave a little anxious laugh. “You don’t think it’s going to rain, do you? With all this sun about?”

“I don’t think, I know,” she told him calmly. “And if I,” she went on, “were a Park Keeper, I wouldn’t be wasting half the day like some people I could mention! There’s a piece of orange peel over there – why don’t you pick it up?”

She pointed with her knitting-needle and kept it pointing accusingly while he speared up the offending litter and tossed it into a basket.

“If she was me,” he said to himself, “there’d be no Park at all. Only a nice tidy desert!” He fanned his face with his cap.

“And anyway,” he said aloud, “it’s no fault of mine I’m a Park Keeper. I should ’ave been a Nexplorer by rights, away in foreign parts. If I’d ’ad me way I wouldn’t be ’ere. I’d be sittin’ on a piece of ice along with a Polar Bear!”

He sighed and leant upon his stick, falling into a daydream.

“Humph!” said Mary Poppins loudly. And a startled dove in the tree above her ruffled its wing in surprise.

A feather came slowly drifting down. Jane stretched out her hand and caught it.

“How deliciously it tickles!” she murmured, running the grey edge over her nose. Then she tucked the feather above her brow and bound her ribbon round it.

“I’m the daughter of an Indian Chief. Minnehaha, Laughing Water, gliding along the river.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” contradicted Michael. “You’re Jane Caroline Banks.”

“That’s only my outside,” she insisted. “Inside I’m somebody quite different. It’s a very funny feeling.”

“You should have eaten a bigger lunch. Then you wouldn’t have funny feelings. And Daddy’s not an Indian Chief, so you can’t be Minnehaha!”

He gave a sudden start as he spoke and peered more closely into the grass.

“There he goes!” he shouted wildly, wriggling forward on his stomach and thumping his toes.

“I’ll thank you, Michael,” said Mary Poppins, “to stop kicking my shins. What are you – a Performing Horse?”

“Not a horse, a hunter, Mary Poppins! I’m tracking in the jungle!”

“Jungles!” scoffed the Park Keeper. “My vote is for snowy wastes!”

“If you’re not careful, Michael Banks, you’ll be tracking home to bed. I never knew such a silly pair. And you’re the third,” snapped Mary Poppins, eyeing the Park Keeper. “Always wanting to be something else instead of what you are. If it’s not Miss Minne-what’s-her-name, it’s this or that or the other. You’re as bad as the Goose-girl and the Swineherd!”

“But it isn’t geese or swine I’m after. It’s a lion, Mary Poppins. He may be only an ant on the outside but inside – ah, at last, I’ve got him! – inside he’s a man-eater!”

Michael rolled over, red in the face, holding something small and black between his finger and thumb.

“Jane,” he began in an eager voice. But the sentence was never finished. For Jane was making signs to him, and as he turned to Mary Poppins he understood their meaning.

Her knitting had fallen on the rug and her hands lay folded in her lap. She was looking at something far away, beyond the Lane, beyond the Park, perhaps beyond the horizon.

Carefully, so as not to disturb her, the children crept to her side. The Park Keeper plumped himself down on the rug and stared at her, goggle-eyed.

“Yes, Mary Poppins?” prompted Jane. “The Goose-girl – tell us about her!”

Michael pressed against her skirt and waited expectantly. He could feel her legs, bony and strong, beneath the cool blue linen.

From under the shadow of her hat she glanced at them for a short moment and looked away again.

“Well, there she sat,” she began gravely, speaking in the soft accents that were so unlike her usual voice.

“There she sat, day after day, amid her flock of geese, braiding her hair and unbraiding it for lack of something to do. Sometimes she would pick a fern and wave it before her like a fan, the way the Lord Chancellor’s wife might do, or even the Queen, maybe.

“Or again, she would weave a necklace of flowers and go to the brook to admire it. And every time she did that she noticed that her eyes were blue – bluer than any periwinkle – and her cheeks like the breast of a robin. As for her mouth – not to mention her nose! – her opinion of these was so high she had no words fit to describe them.”

“She sounds like you, Mary Poppins,” said Michael. “So terribly pleased with herself!”

Her glance came darting from the horizon and flickered at him fiercely.

“I mean, Mary Poppins—” he began to stammer. Had he broken the thread of the story?

“I mean,” he went on flatteringly, “you’ve got pink cheeks and blue eyes too. Like lollipops and bluebells.”

A slow smile of satisfaction melted her angry look, and Michael gave a sigh of relief as she took up the tale again.

Well, she went on, there was the brook, and there was the Goose-girl’s reflection. And each time she looked at it she was sorry for everyone in the world who was missing such a spectacle. And she pitied in particular the handsome Swineherd who herded his flock on the other side of the stream.

“If only,” she thought lamentingly, “I were not the person I am! If I were merely what I seem, I could then invite him over. But since I am something more than a goose-girl, it would not be right or proper.”

And reluctantly she turned her back and looked in the other direction.

She would have been surprised, perhaps, had she known what the Swineherd was thinking.

He too, for lack of a looking-glass, made use of the little river. And when it reflected his dark curls, and the curve of his chin and his well-shaped ears, he grieved for the whole human race, thinking of all it was missing. And especially he grieved for the Goose-girl.

“Undoubtedly,” he told himself, “she is dying of loneliness – sitting there in her shabby dress, braiding her yellow hair. It is very pretty hair too, and – but for the fact that I am who I am – I would willingly speak a word to her and while away the time.”

And reluctantly he turned his back and looked in the other direction.

What a coincidence, you will say! But there’s more to the story than that. Not only the Goose-girl and the Swineherd, but every creature in that place was thinking the same thoughts.

The geese, as they nibbled the buttercups and flattened the grass into star-like shapes, were convinced – and they made no secret of it – they were something more than geese.

And the swine would have laughed at any suggestion that they were merely pigs.

And so it was with the grey Ass who pulled the Swineherd’s cart to market; and the Toad who lived beside the stream, under one of the stepping-stones; and the barefoot Boy with the Toy Monkey who played on the bridge every day.

Each believed that his real self was infinitely greater and grander than the one to be seen with the naked eye.

Around his little shaggy body, the Ass was confident, a lordlier, finer, sleeker shape kicked its hooves in the daisies.

To the Toad, however, his true self was smaller than his outward shape, and very gay and green. He would gaze for hours at his reflection, but, ugly as it truly was, the sight never depressed him.

“That’s only my outside,” he would say, nodding at his wrinkled skin and yellow bulging eyes. But he kept his outside out of sight when the Boy was on the bridge. For he dreaded the curses that greeted him if he showed as much as a toe.

“Heave to!” the ferocious voice would cry. “Enemy sighted to starboard! A bottle of rum and a new dagger to the man who rips him apart!”

For the Boy was something more than a boy – as you’ll probably have guessed. Inside, he knew the Straits of Magellan as you know the nose on your face. Honest mariners paled at his fame, his deeds were a byword in seven seas. He could sack a dozen ships in a morning and bury the treasure so cleverly that even he could not find it.

To a passer-by it might have seemed that the Boy had two good eyes. But in his own private opinion, he was only possessed of one. He had lost the other in a hand-to-hand fight somewhere off Gibraltar. His everyday name always made him smile when people called him by it. “If they knew who I really am,” he would say, “they wouldn’t look so cheerful!”

As for the Monkey, he believed he was nothing like a monkey.

“This old fur coat,” he assured himself, “is simply to keep me warm. And I swing by my tail for the fun of it, not because I must.”

Well, there they all were, one afternoon, full of their fine ideas. The sun spread over them like a fan, very warm and cosy. The meadow flowers hung on their stems, bright as newly-washed china. Up in the sky the larks were singing – on and on, song without end, as though they were all wound up.

The Goose-girl sat among her geese, the Swineherd with his swine. The Ass in his field, and the Toad in his hole, were nodding sleepily. And the Boy and his Monkey lolled on the bridge discussing their further plans for bloodshed.

Suddenly the Ass snorted and his ear gave a questioning twitch. Larks were above and the brook beneath, but he heard among these daily sounds the echo of a footstep.

Along the path that led to the stream a ragged man was lounging. His tattered clothes were so old that you couldn’t find one bit of them that wasn’t tied with string. The brim of his hat framed a face that was rosy and mild in the sunlight, and through the brim his hair stuck up in tufts of grey and silver. His steps were alternately light and heavy, for one foot wore an old boot and the other a bedroom slipper. You would have to look for a long time to find a shabbier man.

But his shabbiness seemed not to trouble him – indeed he appeared to enjoy it. For he wandered along contentedly, eating a crust and a pickled onion and whistling between mouthfuls. Then he spied the group in the meadow, and stared, and his tune broke off in the middle.

“A beautiful day!” he said politely, plucking the hat-brim from his head and bowing to the Goose-girl.

She gave him a haughty, tossing glance, but the Tramp did not seem to notice it.

“You two been quarrelling?” he asked, jerking his head at the Swineherd.

The Goose-girl laughed indignantly. “Quarrelling? What a silly remark! Why, I do not even know him!”

“Well,” said the Tramp, with a cheerful smile, “would you like me to introduce you?”

“Certainly not!” She flung up her head. “How could I associate with a Swineherd? I’m a princess in disguise.”

“Indeed?” said the Tramp, looking very surprised. “If that is the case, I must not detain you. I expect you want to be back at the Palace, getting on with your work.”

“Work? What work?” The Goose-girl stared.

It was now her turn to look surprised. Surely princesses sat upon cushions, with slaves to perform their least command.

“Why, spinning and weaving. And etiquette! Practising patience and cheerfulness while unsuitable suitors beg for your hand. Trying to look as if you liked it when you hear, for the hundred-thousandth time, the King’s three silly riddles! Not many princesses – as you must know – have leisure to sit all day in the sun among a handful of geese!”

“But what about wearing a pearly crown? And dancing till dawn with the Sultan’s son?”

“Dancing? Pearls? Oh, my! Oh, my!” A burst of laughter broke from the Tramp, as he took from his sleeve a piece of sausage.

“Those crowns are as heavy as lead or iron. You’d have a ridge in your head in no time. And a princess’s duty – surely you know? – is to dance with her father’s old friends first. Then the Lord Chamberlain. Then the Lord Chancellor. And, of course, the Keeper of the Seal. By the time you get round to the Sultan’s son, it’s late and he’s had to go home.”

The Goose-girl pondered the Tramp’s words. Could he really be speaking the truth? All the goose-girls in all the stories were princesses in disguise. But oh, how difficult it sounded! What did one say to Lord Chamberlains? “Come here!” “Go there!” as one would to a goose? Spinning and weaving! Etiquette!

Perhaps, taking everything into account, it might be better, the Goose-girl thought, simply to be a goose-girl.

“Well, away to the Palace!” the Tramp advised her. “You’re wasting your time sitting here, you know! Don’t you agree?” he called to the Swineherd, who was listening from his side of the stream.

“Agree with what?” said the Swineherd quickly, as though he hadn’t heard a word. “I never concern myself with goose-girls,” he added untruthfully. “It would not be fitting or suitable. I am a prince in disguise!”

“You are?” cried the Tramp admiringly. “Then you’re occupying your time, I suppose, in getting up muscle to fight the Dragon.”

The Swineherd’s damask cheek grew pale. “What dragon?” he asked in a stifled voice.

“Oh, any that you chance to meet. All princes, as you yourself must know, have to fight at least one dragon. That is what princes are for.”

“Two-headed?” enquired the Swineherd, gulping.

“Two?” cried the Tramp. ‘Seven, you mean! Two-headed dragons are quite out of date.”

The Swineherd felt his heart thump. Suppose, in spite of all the stories, instead of the prince killing the monster, the monster should kill the prince? He was not, you understand, afraid. But he wondered whether, after all, he were not a simple swineherd.

“A fine lot of porkers you’ve got there!” The Tramp glanced appreciatively from the swine to his piece of sausage.

A snort of disgust went up from the herd. A raggedy tramp to be calling them porkers!

“Perhaps you are not aware,” they grunted, “that we are sheep in disguise!”

“Oh, dear!” said the Tramp, with a doleful air. “I’m sorry for you, my friends!”

“Why should you be sorry?” demanded the swine, sticking their snouts in the air.

“Why? Surely you know that the people here are extremely partial to mutton! If they knew there was a flock of sheep – however disguised – in this meadow—” He broke off, shaking his head and sighing. Then he searched among his tattered rags, discovered a piece of plum cake and munched it sombrely.

The swine, aghast, looked at each other. Mutton – what a frightful word! They had thought of themselves as graceful lambs prancing for ever in fields of flowers – never as legs of mutton. Would it not be wiser, they cogitated, to decide to be merely pigs?

“Here, goosey-ganders!” chirruped the Tramp. He tossed his crumbs to the Goose-girl’s flock.

The geese, as one bird, raised their heads and let out a snake-like hiss.

“We’re swans!” they cackled in high-pitched chorus. And then, as he did not seem to believe them, they added the word, “Disguised!”

“Well, if that’s the case,” the Tramp remarked, “you won’t be here very long. All swans, as you know, belong to the King. Dear me, what lucky birds you are! You will swim on the ornamental lake, and courtiers with golden scissors will clip your flying feathers. Strawberry jam on silver plates will be given you every morning. And not a care in the world will you have – not even the trouble of hatching your eggs, for these His Majesty eats for breakfast.”

“What!” cried the geese. “No grubs? No goslings?”

“Certainly not! But think of the honour!” The Tramp chuckled and turned away, bumping into a shaggy shape that was standing among the daisies.

The geese stood rigid in the grass, staring at each other.

Strawberry jam! Clipped wings! No hatching season! Could they have made a mistake, they wondered? Were they not, after all, just geese?

From something that once had been a pocket the Tramp extracted an apple.

“Pardon, friend!” he said to the Ass, as he took a juicy bite. “I’d offer you half – but you don’t need it. You’ve all this buttercup field.”

The Ass surveyed the scene with distaste. “It may be all very well for donkeys, but don’t imagine,” he remarked, “that I’m such an ass as I look. As you may be interested to know, I’m an Arab steed in disguise!”

“Indeed?” The Tramp looked very impressed. “How you must long, if that is so, for the country of your birth. Sandstorms! Mirages! Waterless deserts!”

“Waterless?” The Ass looked anxious.

“Well, practically. But that’s nothing to you. The way you Arab animals can live for weeks on nothing – nothing to eat, nothing to drink, nowhere to sleep – it’s wonderful!”

“But what about all those oases? Surely grass grows there?”

“Few and far between,” said the Tramp. “But what of that, my friend? The less you eat the faster you go! The less you drink the lighter you are! It only takes you half a jiffy to fling yourself down and shelter your master when his enemies attack!”

“But,” cried the Ass, “in that case, I should be shot at first!”

“Naturally,” the Tramp replied. “That’s why one admires you so – you noble Arab steeds. You’re ready to die at any moment!”

The Ass rubbed his forehead against his leg. Was he ready to die at any moment? He could not honestly answer Yes. Weeks and weeks with nothing to eat! And here the buttercups and daisies were enough for a dozen asses. He might indeed be an Arab steed – but then again, he mightn’t. Up and down went his shaggy head as he pondered the difficult problem.

“That’s for you, old Natterjack!” The Tramp tossed the core of his apple under the stepping-stone.

“Don’t call me Natterjack!” snapped the Toad.

“Puddocky, then, if you prefer it!”

“Those are the names one gives to toads. I am a frog in disguise.”

“Oh, happy creature!” the Tramp exclaimed. “Sitting on lily-leaves all night, singing a song to the moon.”

“All night? I’d take my death of cold!”

“Catching spiders and dragon-flies for the lady-frog of your choice!”

“None for myself?” the Toad enquired.

“A frog that would a-wooing go – and you are certainly such a one! – wouldn’t want to catch for himself!”

The Toad was, however, not so sure. He liked a juicy spider. He was just deciding, after all, that he might as well be a toad, when – plop! – went a pebble right beside him and he hurriedly popped in his head.

“Who threw that?” said the Tramp quickly.

“I did,” came the answer from the bridge. “Not to hit him! Just to make him jump!”

“Good boy!” The Tramp looked up with a smile. “A fine, friendly lad like you wouldn’t hurt a toad!”

“Of course I wouldn’t. Or anything else. But don’t you call me boy or lad. I’m really a—”

“Wait! Don’t tell me! Let me guess! An Indian? No – a pirate!”

“That’s right!” said the Boy, with a curt nod, showing all the gaps in his teeth in a terrible pirate smile. “If you want to know my name,” he snarled, “just call me One-eyed Corambo!”

“Got your cutlass?” the Tramp enquired. “Your skull-and-crossbones? Your black silk mask? Well, I shouldn’t hang about here any longer! Landlubbers aren’t worth robbing! Set your course away from the North. Make for Tierra del Fuego.”

“Been there,” the Boy said loftily.

“Well, any other place you like – no pirate lingers long on land. Have you been –” the Tramp lowered his voice – “have you been to Dead Man’s Drop?”

The Boy smiled and shook his head.

“That’s the place for me,” he cried, reaching for his monkey. “I’ll just go and say goodbye to my mother and—”

“Your mother! Did I hear aright? One-eyed Corambo hopping off to say goodbye to his mother! A pirate captain wasting time by running home – well, really!” the Tramp was overcome with amusement.

The Boy looked at him doubtfully. Where, he wondered, was Dead Man’s Drop? How long would it take him to go and come? His mother would be anxious. And apart from that – as he’d reason to know – she was making pancakes for supper. It might be better, just for today, to be his outer self. Corambo could wait until tomorrow; Corambo was always there.

“Taking your monkey along as a mascot?” The Tramp looked quizzically at the toy.

He was answered by an angry squeal. “Don’t you call me a monkey!” it jabbered. “I’m a little boy in disguise!”

“A boy!” cried the Tramp. “And not at school?”

“School?” said the Monkey nervously. “‘Two and two make five,’ you mean, and all that sort of thing?”

“Exactly,” said the Tramp gravely. “You’d better hurry along now before they find you’re missing. Here!” He scrabbled among his rags, drew two chocolates from under his collar, and offered one to the Monkey.

But the little creature turned its back. School – he hadn’t bargained for that. Better, any day of the week, to be a moth-eaten monkey. He felt a sudden rush of love for his old fur coat and his glass eyes and his wrinkled jungle tail.

“You take it, Corambo!” The Tramp grinned. “Pirates are always hungry.” He handed one chocolate to the Boy and ate the other himself.

“Well,” he said, licking his lips, “time flies and so must I!” He glanced round at the little group and gave a cheerful nod.

“So long!” He smiled at them rosily. And thrusting his hands among his rags, he brought out a piece of bread and butter, and sauntered away across the bridge.

The Boy gazed after him thoughtfully, with a line across his brow. Then suddenly he threw up his hand.

“Hey!” he cried.

The Tramp paused.

“What is your name? You never told us! Who are you?” said the Boy.

“Yes, indeed!” came a score of voices. “Who are you?” the Goose-girl asked; and the Swineherd, the geese, the swine and the Ass echoed the eager question. Even the Toad put out his head and demanded: “Who are you?”

“Me?” cried the Tramp, with an innocent smile. “If you really want to know,” he said, “I’m an angel in disguise.”

He bowed to them amid his tatters and waved as he turned away.

“Ha, ha, ha! A jolly good joke!”

The Boy burst into a peal of laughter. Jug-jug-jug! in his throat it went. That tattered old thing an angel!

But suddenly the laugh ceased. The Boy screwed up his eyes, looked again and stared.

The Tramp was skipping along the road, hopping for joy, it seemed. Each time he skipped his feet went higher, and the earth – could it really be true? the Boy wondered – was falling away beneath him. Now he was skimming the tops of the daisies and presently he was over the hedge, skipping higher and higher. Up, up he went and cleared the woodland, plumbing the depths of the sky. Then he spread himself on the sunny air and stretched his arms and legs.

And as he did so the tattered rags fluttered along his back. Something, the watchers clearly saw, was pushing them aside.

Then, feather by feather, from under each shoulder, a broad grey pinion showed. Out and out the big plumes stretched, on either side of the Tramp, until he was only a tattered scrap between his lifting wings. They flapped for a moment above the trees, balancing strongly against the air, then with a sweeping sea-gull movement they bore him up and away.

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” the Goose-girl sighed, knitting her brows in a frown. For the Tramp had put her in an awkward predicament. She was almost – if not quite – convinced she was not the daughter of a King, and now – well look at him! All those feathers under his rags! If he was an angel, what was she? A goose-girl – or something grander?

Her mind was whirling. Which was true? Shaking her head in bewilderment, she glanced across the stream at the Swineherd, and the sight of him made her burst out laughing. Really, she couldn’t help it.

There he sat, gazing up at the sky, with his curls standing on end with surprise, and his eyes as round as soup-plates.

“Ahem!” She gave a delicate cough. “Perhaps it will not be necessary to fight the Dragon now!”

He turned to her with a startled look. Then he saw that she was smiling gently and his face suddenly cleared. He laughed and leapt across the stream.

“You shall have your golden crown,” he cried. “I’ll make it for you myself!”

“Gold is too heavy,” she said demurely, behind her ferny fan.

“Not my kind of gold.” The Swineherd smiled. He gathered a handful of buttercups, wove them into a little wreath and set it on her head.

And from that moment the question that was once so grave – were they goose-girl and swineherd, or prince and princess? – seemed to them not to matter. They sat there gazing at each other, forgetting everything else.

The geese, who were also quite amazed, glanced from the fading speck in the sky to their neighbours in the meadow.

“Poor pigs!” they murmured mockingly. “Roast mutton with onion sauce!”

“You’ll look pretty foolish,” the swine retorted, “on an ornamental lake!”

But though they spoke harshly to each other, they could not help feeling, privately, that the Tramp had put them in a very tight corner.

Then an old goose gave a high-pitched giggle.

“What does it matter?” he cackled gaily. “Whatever we are within ourselves, at least we look like geese!”

“True!” agreed an elderly pig. “And we have the shape of swine!”

And at that, as though released from a burden, they all began to laugh. The field rang with their mingled cries and the larks looked down in wonder.

“What does it matter – cackle, cackle! What does it matter – ker-onk, ker-onk!”

“Hee-haw!” said the Ass, as he flung up his head and joined in the merry noise.

“Thinking about your fine oasis?” the Toad enquired sarcastically.

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! I am indeed! What an ass I was, not to see it before. I’ve only just realised, Natterjack, that my oasis is not in the desert. Hee-haw! Hee-haw! It’s under my hoof – here in this very field.”

“Then you’re not an Arab steed after all?” the Toad enquired, with a jeer.

“Ah,” said the Ass, “I wouldn’t say that. But now –” he glanced at the flying figure – “I’m content with my disguise!”

He snatched at a buttercup hungrily as though he had galloped a long distance through a leafless, sandy land.

The Toad looked up with a wondering eye.

“Could I be content with my disguise?” He pondered the question gravely. And as he did so a hazel nut fell from a branch above him. It hit his head and bounced off lightly, bobbing away on the stream.

“That would have stunned a frog,” thought the Toad, “but I, in my horny coat, felt nothing.” A gratified smile, very large and toothy, split his face in the middle. He thrust out his head and craned it upwards.

“Come on with your pebbles, boy!” he croaked. “I’ve got my armour on!”

But the Boy did not hear the puddocky challenge. He was leaning back against the bridge, watching the Tramp on his broad wings flying into the sunset. Not with surprise – perhaps he was not yet old enough to be surprised at things – but his eyes had a look of lively interest.

He watched and watched till the sky grew dusky and the first stars twinkled out. And when the little flying speck was no longer even a speck, he drew a long, contented sigh and turned again to the earth.

That he was Corambo, he did not doubt. He had never doubted it. But now he knew he was other things, as well as a one-eyed pirate. And far above all – he rejoiced at it – he was just a barefoot boy. And, moreover, a boy who was feeling peckish and ready for his supper.

“Come on!” he called to the Toy Monkey. He tucked it comfortably under his arm, with its tail around his wrist. And the two of them kept each other warm as they wandered home together.

The long day fell away behind him to join his other days. All he could think of now was the night. He could sense already the warmth of the kitchen, the sizzling pancakes on the stove and his mother bending above them. Her face, framed in its ring of curls, would be ruddy and weary – like the sun. For, indeed, as he had many times told her, the sun has a mother’s face.

And presently, there he was on the doorstep and there was she as he had pictured her. He leant against her checked apron and broke off a piece of pancake.

“Well, what have you been doing?” she smiled.

“Nothing,” he murmured contentedly.

For he knew – and perhaps she knew it too – that ‘nothing’ is a useful word. It can mean exactly what you like – anything – everything …

The end of the story died away.

Mary Poppins sat still and silent.

Around her lay the motionless children, making never a sound. Her gaze, coming back from the far horizon, flickered across their quiet faces and over the head of the Park Keeper, as it nodded dreamily.

“Humph!” she remarked, with a haughty sniff. “I recount a chapter of history and you all fall fast asleep!”

“I’m not asleep,” Jane reassured her. “I’m thinking about the story.”

“I heard every word,” said Michael, yawning.

The Park Keeper rocked, as if in a trance. “A Nexplorer in disguise,” he murmured, “sittin’ in the midnight sun and climbin’ the North Pole!”

“Ouch!” cried Michael, starting up. “I felt a drop on my nose!”

“And I felt one on my chin,” said Jane.

They rubbed their eyes and looked about them. The syrupy sun had disappeared and a cloud was creeping over the Park. Plop! Plop! Patter, patter! The big drops drummed on the leaves.

The Park Keeper opened his eyes and stared.

“It’s rainin’!” he cried in astonishment. “And me with no umbrella!”

He glanced at the dangling shape on the bough and darted towards the parrot.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” said Mary Poppins. Quick as a needle, she grasped the handle.

“I’ve a long way to go and me chest is bad and I oughtn’t to wet me feet!” The Park Keeper gave her a pleading glance.

“Then you’d better not go to the North Pole!” She snapped the parrot umbrella open and gathered up Annabel. “The Equator – that’s the place for you!” She turned away with a snort of contempt.

“Wake up, John and Barbara, please! Jane and Michael, take the rug and wrap it round yourselves and the Twins.”

Raindrops bigger than sugar-plums were tumbling all about them. They drummed and thumped on the children’s heads as they wrapped themselves in the rug.

“We’re a parcel!” cried Michael excitedly. “Tie us up with string, Mary Poppins, and send us through the post!”

“Run!” she commanded, taking no notice. And away they hurried, stumbling and tumbling, over the rainy grass.

The dogs came barking along beside them and, forgetting their promise to Mary Poppins, shook themselves over her skirts.

“All that sun and all this rain! One after another! Who’d ’ave thought it?” The Park Keeper shook his head in bewilderment. He could still hardly believe it.

“An explorer would!” snapped Mary Poppins. She gave her head a satisfied toss. “And so would I – so there!”

“Too big for your boots – that’s what you are!” The Park Keeper’s words were worse than they sounded. For he whispered them into his coat-collar in case she should overhear. But, even so, perhaps she guessed them, for she flung at him a smile of conceit and triumph as she hurried after the children.

Off she tripped through the streaming Park, picking her way among the puddles. Neat and trim as a fashion-plate she crossed Cherry Tree Lane and flitted up the garden path of Number Seventeen …

Jane emerged from the plaid bundle and patted her soaking hair.

“Oh, bother!” she said. “I’ve lost my feather.”

“That settles it, then,” said Michael calmly. “You can’t be Minnehaha!”

He unwound himself and felt in his pocket. “Ah, here’s my ant! I’ve got him safely!”

“Oh, I don’t mean Minnehaha, really – but somebody,” persisted Jane, “somebody else inside me. I know. I always have the feeling.”

The black ant hurried across the table.

“I don’t,” Michael said, as he gazed at it. “I don’t feel anything inside me but my dinner and Michael Banks.”

But Jane was thinking her own thoughts.

“And Mary Poppins,” she went on. “She’s somebody in disguise too. Everybody is.”

“Oh, no, she’s not!” said Michael stoutly. “I’m absolutely certain!”

A light step sounded on the landing.

“Who’s not what?” enquired a voice.

“You, Mary Poppins!” Michael cried. “Jane says you’re somebody in disguise. And I say you aren’t. You’re nobody!”

Her head went up with a quick jerk and her eyes had a hint of danger.

“I hope,” she said, with awful calmness, “that I did not hear what I think I heard. Did you say I was nobody, Michael?”

“Yes! I mean – no!” He tried again. “I really meant to say, Mary Poppins, that you’re not really anybody!”

“Oh, indeed?” Her eyes were now as black as a boot-button. “If I’m not anybody, Michael, who am I – I’d like to know!”

“Oh, dear!” he wailed. “I’m all muddled. You’re not somebody, Mary Poppins – that’s what I’m trying to say.”

Not somebody in her tulip hat! Not somebody in her fine blue skirt! Her reflection gazed at her from the mirror, assuring her that she and it were an elegant pair of somebodies.

“Well!” She drew a deep breath and seemed to grow taller as she spoke. “You have often insulted me, Michael Banks. But I never thought I would see the day when you’d tell me I wasn’t somebody. What am I, then, a painted portrait?”

She took a step towards him.

“I m-m-mean …” he stammered, clutching at Jane. Her hand was warm and reassuring and the words he was looking for leapt to his lips.

“I don’t mean somebody, Mary Poppins! I mean not somebody else! You’re Mary Poppins through and through! Inside and outside. And round about. All of you is Mary Poppins. That is how I like you!”

“Humph!” she said disbelievingly. But the fierceness faded away from her face.

With a laugh of relief he sprang towards her, embracing her wet blue skirt.

“Don’t grab me like that, Michael Banks. I’m not a Dutch doll, thank you!”

“You are!” he shouted. “No, you’re not! You only look like one. Oh, Mary Poppins, tell me truly! You aren’t anybody in disguise? I want you just as you are!”

A faint, pleased smile puckered her mouth. Her head gave a prideful toss.

“Me! Disguised! Certainly not!”

With a loud sniff at the mere idea, she disengaged his hands.

“But, Mary Poppins,” Jane persisted. “Supposing you weren’t Mary Poppins, who would you choose to be?”

The blue eyes under the tulip hat turned to her in surprise.

There was only one answer to such a question.

“Mary Poppins!” she said.