"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 am 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.
CHAPTER TWO
The Faithful Friends
Faster, please!" said Mary Poppins, tapping on the glass panel with the beak of her parrot-headed umbrella.
Jane and Michael had spent the morning at the Barber's shop, and the Dentist's, and because it was late, as a great treat, they were taking a taxi home.
The Taxi Man stared straight before him and gave his head a shake.
"If I go any faster," he shouted, "it'll make me late for me dinner."
"Why?" demanded Jane, through the window. It seemed such a silly thing to say. Surely, the quicker a Taxi Man drove the earlier he would arrive!
"Why?" echoed the Taxi Man, keeping his eye on the wheel. "A Naccident — that's why! If I go any faster, I'll run into something — and that'll be a Naccident. And a Naccident — it's plain enough! — will make me late for me dinner. Oh, dear!" he exclaimed, as he put on the brake. "Red again, I see!"
He turned and put his head through the window. His bulgy eyes and drooping whiskers made him look like a seal.
"There's always trouble at these 'ere signals!" He waved his hand at the stream of cars all waiting for the lights to change.
And now it was Michael who asked him why.
"Don't you know nothing?" the Taxi Man cried. "It's because of the chap on duty!"
He pointed to the signal-box, where a helmeted figure, with his head on his hand, was gazing into the distance.
"Absent-minded — that's what 'e is. Always staring and moping. And 'alf the time 'e forgets the lights. I've known them stay red for a whole morning. If it's goin' to be like that today I'll never get me dinner. You 'aven't got a sangwidge on you?" He looked at Michael, hopefully. "No? Nor yet a chocolate drop?" Jane smiled and shook her head.
The Taxi Man sighed despondently.
"Nobody thinks of nobody these days."
"I'm thinking of someone!" said Mary Poppins. And she looked so stern and disapproving that he turned away in dismay.
"They're green!" he cried, as he looked at the lights. And, huddling nervously over the wheel, he drove along Park Avenue as though pursued by wolves.
Bump! Bump! Rattle! Rattle! The three of them jolted and bounced on their seats.
"Sit up straight!" said Mary Poppins, sliding into a corner. "You are not a couple of Jack-in-the-boxes!"
"I know I'm not," said Michael, gasping. "But I feel like one and my bones are shaking—" He gulped quickly and bit his tongue and left the sentence unfinished. For the taxi had stopped with a frightful jerk and flung them all to the floor.
"Mary Poppins," said Jane in a muffled voice, "I think you're sitting on me!"
"My foot! My foot! It's caught in something!"
"I'll thank you, Michael," said Mary Poppins, "to take it out of my hat!"
She rose majestically from the floor, and seizing her parrot-headed umbrella sprang out on to the pavement.
"Well, you said to go faster," the Taxi Man muttered, as she thrust the fare into his hand. She glared at him in offended silence. And in order to escape that look he shrank himself down inside his collar so that nothing was left but his whiskers.
"Don't bother about a tip," he begged. "It's really been a p-p-pleasure."
"I had no intention of bothering!" She opened the gate of Number Seventeen with an angry flick of her hand.
The Taxi Man started up his engine and jerked away down the Lane. "She's upset me, that's what she's done!" he murmured. "If I do get home in time for me dinner I shan't be able to eat it!"
Mary Poppins tripped up the path, followed by Jane and Michael.
Mrs. Banks stood in the front hall, looking up at the stairs.
"Oh, do be careful, Robertson Ay!" she was saying anxiously. He was carrying a cardboard box and lurching slowly from stair to stair as though he were almost asleep.
"Never a moment's peace!" he muttered. "First it's one thing, then another. There!" He gave a sleepy heave, thrust the package into the nursery and fell in a snoring heap on the landing.
Jane dashed upstairs to look at the label.
"What's in it — a present?" shouted Michael.
The Twins, bursting with curiosity, were jumping up and down. And Annabel peered through her cot railings and banged her rattle loudly.
"Is this a nursery or a bear-pit?" Mary Poppins stepped over Robertson Ay as she hurried into the room.
"A bear-pit!" Michael longed to answer. But he caught her eye and refrained.
"Really!" Mrs. Banks protested, as she stumbled over Robertson Ay. "He chooses such inconvenient places! Oh, gently, children! Do be careful! That box belongs to Miss Andrew!"
Miss Andrew! Their faces fell.
"Then it isn't presents!" said Michael blankly. He gave the box a push.
"It's probably full of medicine bottles!" said Jane, in a bitter voice.
"It's not," insisted Mrs. Banks. "Miss Andrew has sent us all her treasures. And I thought, Mary Poppins" — she glanced at the stiff white shape beside her—"I thought, perhaps, you could keep them here!" She nodded towards the mantelpiece.
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?"