Mary Poppins in the Park Read Online Free PDF

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?"
    But Jane only snickered and shook her head. She remembered that strange behaviour!
    "Where has she gone