Mary Poppins Comes Back

'Jane,' he said, 'there's no pudding.'

'Don't interrupt me, I'm counting!' said Jane, pressing her nose against the window-pane so that it was quite blunt and squashed at the tip.

'Counting what?' he asked, not very interested. His mind was full of rice-pudding and honey.

'Shooting stars. Look, there goes another. That's seven. And another! Eight. And one over the Park — that's nine!'

'O-o-h! And there's one going down Admiral Boom's chimney!' said Michael, sitting up suddenly and forgetting all about the pudding.

'And a little one — see! — streaking right across the Lane. Such frosty lights!' cried Jane. 'Oh, how I wish we were out there! What makes stars shoot, Mary Poppins?'

'Do they come out of a gun?' enquired Michael.

Mary Poppins sniffed contemptuously.

'What do you think I am? An Encyclop?dia? Everything from A to Z?' she demanded crossly. 'Come and eat your teas, please!' She pushed them towards their chairs and pulled down the blind. 'And No Nonsense. I'm in a hurry!'

And she made them eat so quickly that they were both afraid they would choke.

'Mayn't I have just one more piece?' asked Michael, stretching out his hand to the plate of bread-and-butter.

'You may not. You have already eaten more than is good for you. Take a ginger biscuit and go to bed.'

'But—'

'But me no buts or you'll be sorry!' she flung at him sternly.

'I shall have indigestion, I know I shall,' he said to Jane, but only in a whisper, for when Mary Poppins looked like that it was wiser not to make any remark at all. Jane took no notice. She was slowly eating her ginger biscuit and peering cautiously out at the frosty sky through a chink in the blind.

'Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen—'

'Did I or did I not say BED?' enquired the familiar voice behind them.

'All right, I'm just going! I'm just going, Mary Poppins!'

And they ran squealing to the Night-Nursery with Mary Poppins hurrying after them and looking Simply Awful.

Less than half-an-hour later Mary Poppins was tucking each one in tightly, pushing the sheets and blankets under the mattress with sharp furious little stabs.

'There!' she said, snapping the words between her lips. 'That's all for tonight. And if I hear One Word—' She did not finish the sentence but her look said all that was necessary.

'There'll be Trouble!' said Michael, finishing it for her. But he whispered it under his breath to his blanket for he knew what would happen if he said it aloud. She whisked out of the room, her starched apron rustling and crackling, and shut the door with an angry click. They heard her light feet hurrying away down the stairs — Tap-tap, Tap-tap — from landing to landing.

'She's forgotten to light the night-light,' said Michael, peering around the corner of his pillow. 'She must be in a hurry. I wonder where she's going!'

'And she's left the blind up!' said Jane, sitting up in bed. 'Hooray, now we can watch the shooting stars!'

The pointed roofs of Cherry Tree Lane were shiny with frost and the moonlight slid down the gleaming slopes and fell soundlessly into the dark gulfs between the houses. Everything glimmered and shone. The earth was as bright as the sky.

'Seventeen-Eighteen-Nineteen-Twenty—' said Jane, steadily counting as the stars shot down. As fast as one disappeared another came to take its place until it seemed that the whole sky was alive and dancing with the dazzle of shooting stars.

'It's like fireworks,' said Michael. 'Oh, look at that one! Or the Circus. Do you think they have circuses in Heaven, Jane?'

'I'm not sure!' said Jane doubtfully. 'There's the Great Bear and the Little Bear, of course, and Taurus-the- Bull and Leo-the-Lion. But I don't know about a Circus.'

'Mary Poppins would know,' said Michael, nodding wisely.

'Yes, but she wouldn't tell,' said Jane, turning again to the window. 'Where was I? Was it Twenty-one? Oh, Michael, such a beauty — do you see?' She bounced excitedly up and down in her bed, pointing to the window.

A very bright star, larger than any they had yet seen, was shooting through the sky towards Number Seventeen Cherry Tree Lane. It was different from the others for, instead of leaping straight across the dark, it was turning over and over, curving through the air very curiously.

'Duck your head, Michael!' shouted Jane suddenly. 'It's coming in here!'

They dived down into the blankets and burrowed their heads under the pillows.

'Do you think it's gone now?' came Michael's muffled voice presently. 'I'm nearly smothercated.'

'Of course I haven't gone!' A small clear voice answered him. 'What do you take me for?'

Very surprised, Jane and Michael threw off the bed-clothes and sat up. There, at the edge of the window-sill, perched on its shiny tail and gleaming brightly at them, was the shooting star.

'Come on, you two! Be quick!' it said, gleaming frostily across the room.

Michael stared at it.

'But — I don't understand—' he began.

A bright, glittering, very small laugh sounded in the room.

'You never do, do you?' said the star.

'You mean — we're to come with you?' said Jane.

'Of course! And mind you wrap up. It's chilly!'

They sprang out of their beds and ran for overcoats.

'Got any money?' the star asked sharply.

'There's twopence in my coat pocket,' said Jane doubtfully.

'Coppers? They'll be no good! Here, catch!' And with a little sizzling sound, as though a firework squib was going off, the star sent out a shower of sparks. Two of them shot right across the room and landed, one in Jane's hand and one in Michael's.

'Hurry, or we'll be late!'

The star streaked across the room, through the closed door and down the stairs, with Jane and Michael, tightly clasping their starry money, after it.

'Can I be dreaming I wonder?' said Jane to herself, as she hurried down Cherry Tree Lane.

'Follow!' cried the star as, at the end of the Lane, where the frosty sky seemed to come down to meet the pavement, it leapt into the air and disappeared.

'Follow! Follow!' came the voice from somewhere in the sky. 'Just as you are, step on a star!'

Jane seized Michael's hand and raised her foot uncertainly from the pavement. To her surprise she found that the lowest star in the sky was easily within her reach. She stepped up, balancing carefully. The star seemed quite steady and solid.

'Come on, Michael!'

They hurried up the frosty sky, leaping over the gulfs between the stars.

'Follow!' cried the voice, far ahead of them. Jane paused and, glancing down, caught her breath to see how high they were. Cherry Tree Lane — indeed, the whole world — was as small and sparkly as a toy on a Christmas Tree.

'Are you giddy, Michael?' she said, springing on to a large flat star.

'N-o-o. Not if you hold my hand.'

They paused. Behind them the great stairway of stars led down to earth, but before them there were no more to be seen, nothing but a thick blue patch of naked sky.

Michael's hand trembled in Jane's.

'W-w-what shall we do now?' he said, in a voice that tried not to sound frightened.

'Walk up! Walk up! Walk up and see the sights! Pay your money and take your choice! The two-Tailed