Graffiti
Dark red, like strawberry jam, the liquid looked less than appealing. With scrunched up noses, Jane and Michael peered up at Mary Poppins, silently questioning if they had to.
"I thought you wanted to," she frowned.
Jane looked back down into the stone bowl and then at her nanny. "Will it stain, Mary Poppins?"
"Nothing that a bit of soap and warm water won't fix," she reasoned.
That was good enough for them. Reaching into the bowl, they plunged their hands into the liquid, bringing it out and pressing their reddened hands against the cave wall. They pulled back to find their hands imprinted there.
"I'm going to write my name!" Michael exclaimed in his excitement.
Jane didn't want to be left out. "Me too!"
They signed their name beside the handprint, going as far as to draw a little stick-figured family beside it. Jane added another figure beside them. One that was holding an umbrella and had a large smile on their face.
"That's you, Mary Poppins. So you will be remembered with us."
"I don't look like that," she chastised. The smug smile on her face gave her away. "Now, hurry, children. It's nearly time for tea and we mustn't miss it."
The two groaned, although they reached out, their red-stained hands not once marking her pristine gloves as they clung onto her.
Ø
"Oh, look, Michael!" Jane almost barrelled into the glass case, pressing herself against it, her nose nearly flattened all the way upward. "Look!"
He copied her stance. "Blimey, will you look at that!"
There, displayed in the Natural History Museum, were their two handprints. Faded with time, their names barely legible, the markings were still visible. And so was the stick-figured family.
"Wait until mother and father hear that our art is in the Museum," Michael beamed. "This will be the first of many, I'm sure."
A hurried step was heard behind them and then an irritated sniff. "Get away from the glass!"
The Banks children stepped back, though they could not be dismayed at such a time. Mary Poppins had promised them that they could have their own caveman drawings, and there they were. Jane and Michael shared a meaningful look before being ushered into the next section. If ever they didn't believe, they knew those markings would be displayed there forever. Nobody else could boast of that.