More about Mary Poppins / И снова о Мэри Поппинз

“She can come up if she wants to, even without laughing – and she knows it.” And he looked mysteriously and secretly at Mary Poppins as she stood down there on the hearth-rug.

“Well,” said Mary Poppins, “it’s all very silly and undignified, but, since you’re all up there and don’t seem able to get down, I suppose I’d better come up, too.”

With that, to the surprise of Jane and Michael, she put her hands down at her sides and without a laugh, without even the faintest glimmer of a smile, she shot up through the air and sat down beside Jane.

“How many times, I should like to know,” she said snappily, “have I told you to take off your coat when you come into a hot room?” And she unbuttoned Jane’s coat and laid it neatly on the air beside the hat.

“That’s right, Mary, that’s right,” said Mr Wigg contentedly, as he leant down and put his spectacles on the mantelpiece. “Now we’re all comfortable – ”

“There’s comfort and comfort,*” sniffed Mary Poppins.

“And we can have tea,” Mr Wigg went on, apparently not noticing her remark. And then a startled look came over his face.

“My goodness!” he said. “How dreadful! I’ve just realised – that table’s down there and we’re up here. What are we going to do? We’re here and it’s there. It’s an awful tragedy – awful! But oh, it’s terribly comic!” And he hid his face in his handkerchief and laughed loudly into it. Jane and Michael, though they did not want to miss the crumpets and the cakes, couldn’t help laughing too, because Mr Wigg’s mirth* was so infectious.

Mr Wigg dried his eyes.

“There’s only one thing for it,” he said. “We must think of something serious. Something sad, very sad. And then we shall be able to get down. Now – one, two, three! Something very sad, mind you!”

They thought and thought, with their chins on their hands.

Michael thought of school, and that one day he would have to go there.

Jane thought: “I shall be grown up in another fourteen years*!” But that didn’t sound sad at all but quite nice and rather funny. She could not help smiling at the thought of herself grown up, with long skirts and a hand-bag.

“There was my poor old Aunt Emily,” thought Mr Wigg out loud. “She was run over by an omnibus. Sad. Very sad. Unbearably sad. Poor Aunt Emily. But they saved her umbrella.