I want to know how youve been behaving since I went away! remarked Mary Poppins sternly. Then she took out the Thermometer and held it up to the light.
Careless, Thoughtless and Untidy, she read out.
Jane stared.
Im not surprised! said Mary Poppins, and thrust the Thermometer into Michaels mouth. He kept his lips tightly pressed upon it until she plucked it out and read:
A very Noisy, Mischievous, Troublesome little Boy.
Im not, he said angrily.
For answer she thrust the Thermometer under his nose and he spelt out the large red letters.
A-V-E-R-Y-N-O-I-S
You see? said Mary Poppins, looking at him triumphantly. She opened Johns mouth and popped in the Thermometer.
Peevish and Excitable. That was Johns temperature.
And, when Barbaras was taken, Mary Poppins read out the two words, Thoroughly Spoilt.
Humph! she snorted. Its about time I came back!
Then she popped it quickly in her own mouth, left it there for a moment, and took it out.
A very Excellent and Worthy Person, Thoroughly Reliable in every Particular.
A pleased and conceited smile lit up her face as she read her temperature aloud.
I thought so, she said priggishly. Now Tea and Bed!
It seemed to them no more than a minute before they had drunk their milk and eaten their Coconut Cakes and were in and out of the bath. As usual, everything that Mary Poppins did had the speed of electricity. Hooks and eyes rushed apart, buttons darted eagerly out of their holes, sponge and soap ran up and down like lightning, and towels dried with one rub.
Mary Poppins walked along the row of beds tucking them all in. Her starched white apron crackled, and she smelt deliciously of newly-made toast.
When she came to Michaels bed, she bent down and rummaged under it for a minute. Then she carefully drew out her
camp bedstead with her possessions laid upon it in neat piles. The cake of Sunlight soap, the toothbrush, the packet of hairpins, the bottle of scent, the small folding armchair and the box of throat lozenges. Also the seven flannel nightgowns, the four cotton ones, the boots, the dominoes, the two bathing caps and the postcard album.
Jane and Michael sat up and stared.
Where did they come from? demanded Michael. Ive been under my bed simply hundreds of times and I know they werent there before.
Mary Poppins did not reply. She had begun to undress.
Jane and Michael exchanged glances. They knew it was no good asking, because Mary Poppins never explained anything.
She slipped off her starched white collar and fumbled at the clip of a chain round her neck.
Whats inside that? enquired Michael, gazing at a small gold locket that hung on the end of the chain.
A portrait.
Whose?
Youll know when the time comes not before! she snapped.
When will the time come?
When I go!
They stared at her with startled eyes.
But, Mary Poppins, cried Jane, you wont ever leave us again, will you? Oh, say you wont!
Mary Poppins glared at her.
A nice life Id have, she remarked, if I spent all my days with you!
But you will stay? persisted Jane eagerly.
Mary Poppins tossed the locket up and down on her palm.
Ill stay till the chain breaks! she said briefly.
And, popping a cotton nightgown over her head, she began to undress beneath it.
Thats all right, Michael whispered across to Jane. I noticed the chain and its a very strong one.
He nodded to her reassuringly. They curled up in their beds and lay watching Mary Poppins as she moved mysteriously beneath the tent of her nightgown. And they thought of her first arrival at Cherry Tree Lane and all the strange and astonishing things that had happened afterwards; of how she had flown away on her umbrella when the wind changed; of the long, weary days without her and of her marvellous descent from the sky this afternoon.
Suddenly Michael remembered something.
My Kite! he said, sitting up in bed. I forgot all about it! Wheres my Kite?
Mary Poppins head came up through the neck of her nightgown.
Kite? she said crossly. Which Kite? What Kite?
My green-and-yellow Kite with the tassels. The one you came down on, at the end of the string.
Mary Poppins stared at him. He could not tell if she was more astonished than angry, but she looked as if she was both.
And her voice when she spoke was worse than her look.
Did I understand you to say that she repeated the words slowly, between her teeth that I came down from somewhere on the end of a string?
But you did! faltered Michael. Today. Out of a cloud. We saw you!
On the end of a string. Like a Monkey or a Spinning-Top? Me, Michael Banks?
Mary Poppins, in her fury, seemed to have grown to twice her usual size. She hovered over him in her nightgown, huge and angry, waiting for him to reply.
He clutched the bed-clothes for support.
Dont say any more, Michael! Jane whispered warningly across from her bed. But he had gone too far now to stop.
Then wheres my Kite he said recklessly. If you didnt come down er, in the way I said wheres my Kite? Its not on the end of the string.
O-ho? And I am, I suppose? she enquired with a scoffing laugh.