Mary Poppins Opens the Door Read Free

and their breath broke from them in a happy shout.
    "Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins! Mary Poppins!" Half-laughing, half-weeping, they flung themselves upon her.
    "You've c-come b-back, at 1-last!" stammered Michael excitedly, as he clutched her neatly shod foot. It was warm and bony and quite real and it smelt of Black Boot-polish.
    "We knew you'd come back. We trusted you!" Jane seized Mary Poppins' other foot and dragged at her cotton stocking.
    Mary Poppins' mouth crinkled with the ghost of a smile. Then she looked at the children fiercely.
    "I'll thank you to let go my shoes!" she snapped. "I am not an object in a Bargain Basement!"
    She shook them off and stepped down from the tree, as John and Barbara, mewing like kittens, rushed over the grass towards her.
    "Hyenas!" she said with an angry glare, as she loosened their clutching fingers. "And what, may I ask, are you all doing—running about in the Park at night and looking like Blackamoors?"
    Quickly they pulled out handkerchiefs and began to rub their cheeks.
    "My fault, Miss Poppins," the Sweep apologised. "I been sweeping the Drawing-room chimbley."
    "Somebody will be sweeping
you,
if you don't look out!" she retorted.
    "But-but! Glog-glog! Er-rumph! Glug-glug!" Speechless with astonishment, the Park Keeper blocked their path.
    "Out of my way, please!" said Mary Poppins, haughtily brushing him aside as she pushed the children in front of her.
    "This is the Second Time!" he gasped, suddenly finding his voice. "First it's a Kite and now it's a—You can't do things like this, I tell you! It's against the Law. And, furthermore, it's all against Nature."

    Out of the glowing core of light emerged a curious figure
    He flung out his hand in a wild gesture and Mary Poppins popped into it a small piece of cardboard.
    "Wot's this?" he demanded, turning it over.
    "My Return Ticket," she calmly replied.
    And Jane and Michael looked at each other and nodded wisely together.
    "Ticket—wot ticket? Buses have tickets and so do trains. But you came down on I-don't-know-what! Where did you come from? 'Ow did you get 'ere? That's what I want to know!"
    "Curiosity Killed a Cat!" said Mary Poppins primly. She pushed the Park Keeper to one side and left him staring at the little green ticket as though it were a ghost.
    The children danced and leapt about her as they came to the Park Gates.
    "Walk quietly, please," she told them crossly. "You are not a School of Porpoises! And which of you, I'd like to know, has been playing with lighted candles?"
    The Matchman scrambled up from his knees.
    "I lit it, Mary," he said eagerly. "I wanted to write you a——" He waved his hands. And there on the pavement, not quite finished, was the one word
WELCOM
    Mary Poppins smiled at the coloured letters. "That's a lovely greeting, Bert," she said softly.
    The Matchman seized her black-gloved hand, and looked at her eagerly. "Shall I see you on Thursday, Mary?" he asked.
    She nodded. "Thursday, Bert," she said. Then she flung a withering look at the children. "No dawdling, if you please!" she commanded, as she hurried them across the Lane to Number Seventeen.

    Up in the Nursery Annabel was screaming her head off. Mrs. Banks was running along the hall, calling out soothing phrases. As the children opened the Front Door, she gave one look at Mary Poppins, and collapsed upon the stairs.
    "Can it be you, Mary Poppins?" she gasped.
    "It can, ma'am," Mary Poppins said calmly.
    "But—where did you spring from?" Mrs. Banks cried.
    "She sprang right out of a——" Michael was just about to explain when he felt Mary Poppins' eyes upon him. He knew very well what that look meant. He stammered and was silent.

    "I came from the Park, ma'am," said Mary Poppins, with the patient air of a martyr.
    "Thank goodness!" breathed Mrs. Banks from her heart. Then she remembered all that had happened since Mary Poppins had left them. I mustn't seem
too
pleased, she thought. Or she'll be more uppish than ever!
    "You left me