Mary Poppins pulled the thin sheets over her, and something told her this was her last night in the camp bed in the small bedroom in California. The family had been mended, the latest in a long line. Lying in bed, she reflected on all the places in the world she had been within the last two and a half years. Russia, Canada, America, Ireland, Italy, France, Australia, and Greece, just to name a few. Then there had been India, China, Spain, Germany, and Austria, for some of the more memorable ones. Countries bled into each other, the only clear memories being faces and names. She occupied her thoughts with the faces. Small Chinese girls with their long, dark hair, little Svetlana in Russia, who wanted nothing more than to be a ballerina. Nerea in Spain, tall with large brown eyes and high cheek bones, Janey in Melbourne, Australia who always wore her hair in two plaits with ribbons at the ends, Ramin in Canada, a tiny boy with an angelic voice, the family in Austria, with seven children and a single father, poor man. Achlys in Greece, large, pale blue eyes and blonde, nearly white hair. Sisters Marguerite and Christine in Paris, perfect opposites of each other, Marguerite blonde and light, Christine dark and sad, and their mother, Antoinette, the ballet mistress with hair the colour of honey.
In the midst of so many children's faces, one took her quite by surprise. Not a child at all, but tall, well-built, with mussed dark hair, the bluest eyes she had ever seen in a man, a patched jacket, and a smudge of soot on his neck he had not managed to wash off. Bert. The thought of him both gladdened and saddened her.
As she turned over onto her side, the Wind did something it never did. It whispered at the window the name of the location of her next assignment. A broad smile spread across her face as she heard it.
London. She was going home.
