“Michael!” she said in a startled whisper. “It’s gone. Everything’s gone!”
He looked round. Yes! Jane was right. The little street and the old-fashioned houses were nowhere to be seen. There was only the shadowy Park before them and the well-known curve of Cherry Tree Lane.
“Well, where have we been all afternoon?” said Michael, staring about him.
But it needed someone wiser than Jane to answer that question truly.
“We must have been somewhere,” she said sensibly.
But that was not enough for Michael. He rushed away to Mary Poppins and pulled at her best blue skirt.
“Mary Poppins, where have we been today? What’s happened to Mr Twigley?”
“How should I know?” snapped Mary Poppins. “I’m not an Encyclopaedia.”
“But he’s gone! And the street’s gone! And I suppose the musical box has gone too – the one he went round on this afternoon!”
Mary Poppins stood still on the kerb and stared.
“A cousin of mine on a musical box? What nonsense you do talk, Michael Banks!”
“But he did!” cried Jane and Michael together. “We all went round on musical boxes. Each of us to our own true music. And yours was ‘Pop Goes the Weasel’.”
Her eyes blazed sternly through the darkness. She seemed to grow larger as she glared.
“Each to our – weasel? Round and round?” Really, she was so angry she could hardly get the words out.
“On top of a musical box, did you say? So, this is what I get for my pains! You spend the afternoon with a well-brought-up, self-respecting pair like my cousin and myself. And all you can do afterwards is to make a mock of us. Round and round with a weasel, indeed! For Two Pins I’d leave you – here, on this spot – and never come back! I warn you!”
“On top of a musical weasel!” she fumed, as she stalked through the gathering dusk.
Snap, snap, went her heels along the pavement. Even her back had an angry look.
Jane and Michael hurried after her. It was no good arguing with Mary Poppins, especially when she looked like that. The best thing to do was to say nothing. And be glad there was nobody in the Lane to offer her Two Pins. In silence they walked along beside her, and thought of the afternoon’s adventure and looked at each other and wondered…
“Oh, Mary Poppins!” said Mrs Banks brightly, as she opened the front door. “I’m sorry, but I don’t need your cousin, after all. I tried the piano again just now. And it’s quite in tune. In fact, better than ever.”
“I’m glad of that, ma’am,” said Mary Poppins, stealing a glance at herself in the mirror. “My cousin will make no charge.”
“Well, I should think not!” cried Mrs Banks indignantly. “Why, he hasn’t even been here.”
“Exactly, ma’am,” said Mary Poppins. She sniffed as she turned towards the stairs.
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