Mary Poppins Comes Back

ILLUSTRATED BY
Mary Shepard

An Odyssey/Harcourt Brace Young Classic
Harcourt Brace & Company
San Diego New York London

"
They saw before them their own pictured faces
"

Copyright 1935 by P. L. Travers
Copyright renewed 1963 by P. L. Travers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work
should be mailed to: Permissions Department, Harcourt Brace & Company,
6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

First Harcourt Brace Young Classics edition 1997
First Odyssey Classics edition 1997
First published 1935

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Travers, P. L., 1906–1996.
Mary Poppins comes back/P. L. Travers.
p. cm.
Summary: Mary Poppins comes back on the end
of a kite string, stays with the Banks family for a while,
and then disappears on a merry-go-round horse.
[1. Fantasy.] I. Shepard, Mary, 1909– ill. II. Title.
ISBN 0-15-201718-6
ISBN 0-15-201719-4 (pb)
PZ7.T689Mas8 1997 [Fic] 74-17258

Printed in the United States of America

Text set in Minister Light
Designed by Linda Lockowitz

A C E F D B
A C E F D B
(pb)

To Pip,
this Keepsake

CHAPTER ONE:
The Kite
[>]

CHAPTER TWO:
Miss Andrew's Lark
[>]

CHAPTER THREE:
Bad Wednesday
[>]

CHAPTER FOUR:
Topsy-Turvy
[>]

CHAPTER FIVE:
The New One
[>]

CHAPTER SIX:
Robertson Ay's Story
[>]

CHAPTER SEVEN:
The Evening Out
[>]

CHAPTER EIGHT:
Balloons
and
Balloons
[>]

CHAPTER NINE:
Nellie-Rubina
[>]

CHAPTER TEN:
Merry-go-round
[>]

"They saw before them their own pictured faces"
Frontispiece

She sat down at the foot of the stairs
[>]

"Mine, mine, mine!"
[>]

"Now—all together—pull!"
[>]

On sailed the curious figure, its feet neatly clearing
the tops of the trees
[>]

While she looked at herself in the window
[>]

She glanced round the garden
[>]

"Let me out, I say! Let me out!"
[>]

"Home—to his meadows," she replied
[>]

Three little boys who were playing horses
[>]

She got out the brushes and the painting-book
[>]

"Do you think we will let you go?" he enquired
[>]

The strong hand pulled her onwards
[>]

Bearing the initials—M.P.
[>]

Mary Poppins looked at herself in the three bottles
[>]

Turning over and over
[>]

Mary Poppins landed neatly on her head
in front of Mr. Turvy and the children
[>]

Firmly held in Miss Tartlet's grasp
[>]

"Ever get a day off?"
[>]

She fell back against Robertson Ay
[>]

"Where has she come from—out of an egg?"
[>]

She sat down in the old arm-chair
[>]

She glanced at her sunlit reflection
[>]

Then the Queen had an idea
[>]

"How deep is the sea?"
[>]

Presently a rainbow streamed out of the sun
[>]

Something curved and shining
fell at the Queen's feet—the bent sceptre;
followed by the King's crown
[>]

Three little kids were rushing about wildly
[>]

The Dragon burst into tears
[>]

There, all alone in the Royal Box,
sat a well-known figure
[>]

Mary Poppins and the Sun
were dancing together
[>]

"The Kiss! The Kiss!"
[>]

Beneath the arch sat an old, old woman
[>]

Tugged jerkily up and down by their balloons
[>]

With a wave of his hand he moved on two dogs
[>]

By this time the Park was rather crowded
[>]

The Balloon Woman was flying through the air
[>]

An enormous jar stood on the shelf
at the end of the room
[>]

In his hand he carried a wooden cuckoo
[>]

Against the darkling, sparkling sky
the flat white clouds stuck fast
[>]

Mary Poppins put Barbara in front
of Michael and John behind Jane
[>]

Climbed upon a dappled horse called Caramel
[>]

It was the gold locket with its broken golden chain
[>]

Away it went and away, growing smaller
and smaller
[>]

Also insets and tailpieces

It was one of those mornings when everything looks very neat and bright and shiny, as though the world had been tidied up overnight.

In Cherry Tree Lane the houses blinked as their blinds went up, and the thin shadows of the cherry trees fell in dark stripes across the sunlight. But there was no sound anywhere, except for the tingling of the Ice Cream Man's bell as he wheeled his cart up and down.

"
STOP ME AND BUY ONE
"

said the placard in front of the cart. And presently a Sweep came round the corner of the Lane and held up his black sweepy hand.

The Ice Cream Man went tingling up to him.

"Penny one," said the Sweep. And he stood leaning on his bundle of brushes as he licked out the Ice Cream with the tip of his tongue. When it was all gone he gently wrapped the cone in his handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

"Don't you eat cones?" said the Ice Cream Man, very surprised.

"No. I collect them!" said the Sweep. And he picked up his brushes and went in through Admiral Boom's front gate because there was no Tradesmen's Entrance.

The Ice Cream Man wheeled his cart up the Lane again and tingled, and the stripes of shadow and sunlight fell on him as he went.

"Never knew it so quiet before!" he murmured, gazing from right to left, and looking out for customers.

At that very moment a loud voice sounded from Number Seventeen. The Ice Cream Man cycled hurriedly up to the gate, hoping for an order.

"I won't stand it! I simply will not stand any more!" shouted Mr. Banks, striding angrily from the front door to the foot of the stairs and back again.

"What is it?" said Mrs. Banks anxiously, hurrying out of the dining-room. "And what is that you are kicking up and down the hall?"

Mr. Banks lunged out with his foot and something black flew half-way up the stairs.

"My hat!" he said between his teeth. "My Best Bowler Hat!"

He ran up the stairs and kicked it down again. It spun for a moment on the tiles and fell at Mrs. Banks' feet.

"Is anything wrong with it?" said Mrs. Banks, nervously. But to herself she wondered whether there was not something wrong with Mr. Banks.

"Look and see!" he roared at her.

Trembling, Mrs. Banks stooped and picked up the hat. It was covered with large, shiny, sticky patches and she noticed it had a peculiar smell.

She sniffed at the brim.

"It smells like boot-polish," she said.

"It
is
boot-polish," retorted Mr. Banks. "Robertson Ay has brushed my hat with the boot-brush—in fact, he has polished it."

Mrs. Banks' mouth fell with horror.

"I don't know what's come over this house," Mr. Banks went on. "Nothing ever goes right—hasn't for ages! Shaving water too hot, breakfast coffee too cold. And now—this!"

He snatched his hat from Mrs. Banks and caught up his bag.

"I am going!" he said. "And I don't know that I shall ever come back. I shall probably take a long sea-voyage."

Then he clapped the hat on his head, banged the front door behind him and went through the gate so quickly that he knocked over the Ice Cream Man, who had been listening to the conversation with interest.

"It's your own fault!" he said crossly. "You'd no right to be there!" And he went striding off towards the City, his polished hat shining like a jewel in the sun.

The Ice Cream Man got up carefully and, finding there were no bones broken, he sat down on the kerb, and made it up to himself by eating a large Ice Cream....

"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Banks as she heard the gate slam. "It is quite true. Nothing
does
go right nowadays. First one thing and then another. Ever since Mary Poppins left without a Word of Warning everything has gone wrong."

She sat down at the foot of the stairs and took out her handkerchief and cried into it.

And as she cried, she thought of all that had happened since that day when Mary Poppins had so suddenly and so strangely disappeared.

"Here one night and gone the next—most upsetting!" said Mrs. Banks gulping.

Nurse Green had arrived soon after and had left at the end of a week because Michael had spat at her. She was followed by Nurse Brown who went out for a walk one day and never came back. And it was not until later that they discovered that all the silver spoons had gone with her.

And after Nurse Brown came Miss Quigley, the Governess, who had to be asked to leave because she played scales for three hours every morning before breakfast and Mr. Banks did not care for music.

"And then," sobbed Mrs. Banks to her handkerchief, "there was Jane's attack of measles, and the bath-room geyser bursting and the Cherry Trees ruined by frost and——"

"If you please, m'm——!" Mrs. Banks looked up to find Mrs. Brill, the cook, at her side.

"The kitchen flue's on fire!" said Mrs. Brill gloomily.

"Oh, dear. What next?" cried Mrs. Banks. "You must tell Robertson Ay to put it out. Where is he?"

"Asleep, m'm, in the broom-cupboard. And when that boy's asleep, nothing'll wake him—not if it's an Earthquake, or a regiment of Tom-toms," said Mrs. Brill, as she followed Mrs. Banks down the kitchen stairs.

Between them they managed to put out the fire but that was not the end of Mrs. Banks' troubles.

She had no sooner finished luncheon than a crash, followed by a loud thud, was heard from upstairs.