More about Mary Poppins / И снова о Мэри Поппинз

“Running round and round that garden seat as if you’d gone mad! One’d think you’d been naughty enough for one day. Come along!” said Mary Poppins.

Michael pushed out his mouth sulkily.

“All round the world and back again in a minute – what a wonderful box!” Jane was saying happily.

“Give me my compass!” demanded Michael rudely.

“My compass, thank you,” said Mary Poppins, and she put it away in her pocket.

Michael looked at her as if he would like to kill her, and, indeed, what he felt was very like what he looked.

But he just shrugged his shoulders and stalked off in front of them all and would not say a word to anybody.

“I could beat* that boy any day,” he assured himself as he went through the gate of Number Seventeen and up the stairs…

* * *

The burning weight still hung heavily within him. After the adventure with the compass it seemed to grow worse, and towards the evening he grew naughtier and naughtier. He pinched the Twins when Mary Poppins was not looking, and when they cried he said in a falsely kind voice:

“Why, darlings, what is the matter?”

But Mary Poppins was not deceived by it.

“You’ve got something coming to you!” she said significantly. But the burning thing inside him would not let him care. He just shrugged his shoulders and pulled Jane’s hair. And after that he went to the supper table and upset his bread-and-milk.

“And that,” said Mary Poppins, “is the end. Such deliberate naughtiness I never saw.

In all my born days I never did, and that’s a fact. Off you go! Straight into bed with you and not another word!”

He had never seen her look so terrible.

But still he didn’t care.

He went into the Night-nursery and undressed. No, he didn’t care. He was bad, and if they didn’t look out he’d be worse. He didn’t care. He hated everybody. If they weren’t careful he would run away and join a circus. There! Off went a button. Good – there would be fewer to do up in the morning.

And another! All the better. Nothing in all the world could ever make him feel sorry. He would get into bed without brushing his hair or his teeth – certainly without saying his prayers.

He was just about to get into bed and, indeed, had one foot already in it, when he noticed the compass lying on the top of the chest of drawers.

Very slowly he withdrew his foot and tiptoed across the room. He knew now what he would do.