Jack turned sixteen on a Friday. His fellow handymen knew how to throw a party.
Bert had taken care of the Lord Mayor's chimney four springs ago, and he had laid aside that bit of extra money to save up and purchase Jack a brand-new bike….
The Sweep's job for the Mayor had been taken just before Mary Poppins had flown away on the west wind. Jack had been there to fly kites on the day she left. The wind had danced about so fair and strong; it was the perfect day for building and selling the kites with Bert at the Park entrance. When they'd run out of kites, Bert gave Jack the very last one.
"'Ere now," he'd said, tightening the tail for Jack. He knew full well Jack could do most things himself at twelve, but the leerie had a feeling Bert enjoyed pretending his student still needed a pair of adult hands at his side. "You been hard at it all day—your turn to have a bit of fun, Jackie."
"But won't y'need help packing it all in?" Jack had checked, loving the feeling of the kite's bow-adorned tail in his fingers. He gestured distractedly to the empty kite stand.
Bert glanced back at it carelessly. "Wot, this? I can tear this down m'self in a blink." He snapped his fingers. "You go on!"
So Jack had climbed to the highest wall near the gate and flown his kite from there. On his perch, he could see the Banks family—all of them—traipsing in with their own kite. It was the one from a few days earlier, the one Mary Poppins had refused to fix. Green and perfect, it looked as though it had ended up mended after all. There were bits of black-and-white paper patching up the holes, and unless he was much mistaken, a suffragette ribbon had been used as the tail. Michael and Jane were skipping alongside their breathless parents, and they all nodded cheerily to Bert on their way to the ideal flying spot.
It seemed everyone had been in the Park that last day of spring. The Lord Mayor had been talking about bringing in a Spring Fair, holding it at the Park in years to come. Jack liked the idea, but on that morning, with the cool breeze shoving his hat off his head and bringing all the town's inhabitants together for a few hours of fun, he thought the Fair could wait. It wasn't quite needed yet.
Mr. Banks was looking funny from where Jack sat. It seemed as though his hat had been knocked through, and his shirt collar was lopsided. But the smile on his face was so young and happy, it hardly mattered. Something wonderful must have happened to the Bankses, and Jack could feel it even several feet above them. For a moment he wanted to call out to the children, share their joy, but he held back. The aura of newness around that family belonged only to them, and he was pleased to simply look on.
Then the wind changed direction.
It was subtle at first, but when Jack's kite shot even higher into the air, further toward the right of him, it couldn't be ignored. He tugged at it for a moment, fighting with it playfully, until a strange feeling made his stomach turn over.
"I shall stay until the wind changes."
Releasing his kite, Jack sprang off the wall. He took off through the grass, ducking past Mrs. Lark and several giddy bank employees. He needed to get to Bert.
He stopped a good distance away from the kite stand, seeing Bert with his back to the crowd. That alone was so unusual, he knew Bert didn't need a warning. In fact, the cheery Match-Man was already grinning up at the sky, and it wasn't a grin for the many colorful kites bobbing about.
In the distance, close to the clouds, Jack saw a figure, getting smaller and smaller as it blew away. It was just near enough to identify. You could even see the fundamental details as she soared above Cherry Tree Lane, holding tight to her umbrella. Only one human being could manage a trip to the sky.
He heard Bert call out, "G'bye, Mary Poppins! Don't stay away too long."
There was every ounce of the Sweep's usual good nature and ease in his tone. But Jack heard something deeper, something a little sadder, hiding underneath it.
And as they both watched, Bert unaware Jack had noticed her too, Mary Poppins turned her head and smiled down at her old friend. Bert waved, just as Jack waved as often as he could before bed to Jane in her window. Mary Poppins could not wave back, holding her carpet bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other, but her smile seemed enough anyway.
Then her eyes—was it his imagination; wasn't it too far away to tell?—her eyes slid to the lamplighter.
Jack beamed at her, thinking this was what it must be like to say farewell to a favorite dream before waking up. He didn't wave or shout the way Bert had done; it would have been stealing. Instead he doffed his cap to her, and the Queen's soldiers themselves couldn't have poured more gallantry into the movement. Mary Poppins' smile stayed, and he could just make out the barest hint of a nod. The last words he'd heard from her—until we meet again—came whispering back to him. Perhaps this wasn't the last Cherry Tree Lane had seen of her.
Now Jack had turned sixteen, and he polished his gift—his new bicycle from his beloved mentor—with the same rag he used to clean the lamps every night. The old bike had been getting sort of small for him; he'd given it to one of the younger lamplighters-in-training.
"It ain't half a sight, Jack," Angus praised, looking it over as they all congregated behind St. Paul's Cathedral for the festivities.
Sweeps, leeries, newspaper vendors, milkmen, screevers, and all the other professions the handymen changed into—they were all there to celebrate with him. He'd cobbled together quite a family out of Bert's fellow street-people. They sat on the steps of the cathedral, the same old Bird Woman heard in the background calling for passersby to "Feed the birds—tuppence a bag!" Bert was on the lowest step, Angus sitting beside him, as Jack swung onto his bike and rubbed down the handles fondly.
"I'm namin' it," he announced.
"Namin' it?" repeated one of the other boy leeries. "Bit old for that. What for?"
"Aw, let 'im alone," Bert chuckled. "It's his day, innit? Proper bike needs a proper name."
"Tell us what it is, Jack!" Angus demanded.
"Gertie," Jack decided, smiling down at the bike. He tried out its headlight—a relatively new invention for the age. It flickered on and off in the evening shadows, shining out strong. It had never had an owner before; it seemed eager to please.
"A right suitable name for a bicycle o' that fashion, that's the truth," Bert observed. "Three cheers for ol' Gertie, mates! Hip hip?"
"HOORAY!"
As his friends cheered around him, Jack laughed and mounted his bike.
"Off to the grind already?" Bert cut off the cheering, surprised.
"Gotta break 'er in," Jack explained. He loved his job—and he couldn't wait to light the lamps downtown with the speed Gertie might give him. Normally leeries left the biking until the early morning hours, when the lamps needed turning off and they had to strap their ladders to the backs of the vehicles. The taller you got, the easier it was to light them with the long wicks yourself. But tonight, he couldn't resist.
The air was very warm for London, even at the start of summer, and Jack thought hard about whether or not he'd shed his overcoat as he rode through the streets. Gertie handled beautifully, and his long wick sat comfortably behind him, hardly rattling at all when they went over the cobblestones.
He wondered if the Banks family had had their supper yet. He thought of them more and more lately. Probably because, as the four years had gone by, he'd seen them less and less. It seemed that as they all got older, the gap between them widened, and Jack missed the days when the three children were just children. When they had that house, that window, and Mary Poppins in common, and that was all they needed to call each other friend. Admiral Boom would have set off his cannon by now, and Mr. Banks would be home from the bank.
Jack's last stop in the city was the line of lamps along the River Thames. He liked the way the lamps' lights flickered on the water below, creating small pools of gold among the cold black.
The moment he set his ladder up against the first pole, a brisk click-click-click of heels, getting louder, sounded. Jack, surprised someone would be walking along the riverfront at dusk—prime pickpocket hour, when your eyes were adjusting as daylight grew dim—turned with ease on the top rung.
His heart nearly stopped in his chest. The silhouette was all too familiar. He thought he must be seeing things, wishful thinking and lack of sleep getting to him at last. But as she came nearer, he knew it was her. There was no mistaking it. And if this was a hallucination, Jack didn't mind it.
She stopped just beneath his lamp, checking her reflection in the glass, though it should have been hard to see.
Jack slid down the ladder, feet planted on both sides. Angus was best at that; he'd taught him how. "If it isn't Mary Poppins!" he breathed.
"Silly Jack," was her stiff reply, eyes still fixed on her reflection. Her hand flew up to adjust one of the flowers on her hat, and he noticed she had added a blue jay's feather to the décor. "Staring is terribly rude, you know."
"Sorry," he babbled, marveling at how tall he had become. His head nearly reached her shoulder now. He removed his cap, sort of fondling it as he watched her. After a moment, breathing in and out and convincing himself she was real, he added kindly, "You do look lovely. Just the same as you was last time!"
Mary Poppins finally met his gaze. The smile was in her eyes, even if it wasn't on her lips. "Do you mean it? The same can't be said of you, I'm afraid. You've done a nasty amount of growing in my absence, I must say."
He looked himself up and down, then back up at her in a taken-aback sort of silent apology. But she hadn't stopped talking.
"Still, you're a bit more turned-out than you were when I last saw you, and I daresay that'll have to do."
Recognizing it all as her version of a compliment, Jack showed his teeth in a grin. "It's good to see you again, y'know. I was startin' to think—"
"Think what?" she asked mildly, taking off her gloves and stowing them away in her purse. Now she was looking at him with an odd expression—like she was waiting for something.
Jack glanced at his feet once or twice. "Well, I—y'see I was startin' to think I wasn't. Gonna see you again, that is. Thought maybe you'd forgot—"
"Really!" Mary Poppins' eyes went wide and cold and scary. He remembered it so well, and he shouldn't have laughed when he saw it again, but it felt so good! They only got scarier when he smiled again, holding back the laugh. "Forget? A practical person like me, forget? How dare you suggest such a thing. I'm never the one who forgets, and I'll thank you to remember that from now on."
"Yes, Mary Poppins." Jack bit his lower lip helplessly. He wasn't sure exactly what she meant, but he didn't press for details. Mary Poppins never explains anything.
She nodded, once, and pulled out a new pair of gloves. These matched her red dress, with dark blue polka-dots all over them. Jack watched her for a few minutes and they stood in silence as a summer thunderstorm, dry as dirt, began to pretend it had rain overhead. It rolled and growled awake, but you could feel there would be no real downpour.
"What's brought you in this time, may I ask?"
"I'm afraid that's my business."
"Oh. 'Course." Jack kicked his shoe against the base of the lamppost, very quietly and gently. He let it sit for a moment, then spoke a little louder. "Only I thought you might pop in on Bert this time. Like seeing you again, he would." He pointed in the direction of St. Paul's. "'E's just down at—"
But Mary Poppins interrupted him with one light sniff, and her tone carried as though he hadn't spoken. "I've come to retrieve an item I misplaced here, if you must know. It was quite a long time ago; but I should like to think it was left in safe hands."
"You lost somethin'?" Jack was surprised, and followed her curiously as she set off toward the low wall, looking hurried and distracted. Gertie and his ladder lay neglected for the moment as he joined the lady with the gloves at the wall.
Mary Poppins turned and gave him such a withering look, she didn't have to say she never lost anything.
"Right, my mistake." Jack lay both palms flat on the low wall. He chortled when he looked straight down at the water, the way the gold of the lamppost framed his shadow and made it dance. "Like a bit o' sunshine caught in the water, innit, Mary Poppins? That's what I like about bein' a leerie. See, most people don't like the edge o' night, but for us, everythin' looks better when it's dark." He stood up straight, glancing at her proudly. "It's not many wot can say that!"
Mary Poppins had been looking down at the water too, probably preening at her reflection again. When he straightened, so did she, and as he finished speaking, she gave him a tiny smile of approval. "You are lightheaded, of that I'm certain! Very well, I suppose you're right. It is that time at last."
Jack frowned in confusion. "What time?"
Mary Poppins put one boot on the wall, then hiked up the other. Then she was standing on top of it, right at its edge. Jack watched her with growing concern.
"Something I said?" he asked, eyes like saucers. In seconds, he was up there beside her. If Mary Poppins was thinking of jumping—for any reason, even a reasonable reason—well, he could only imagine the consequences, not the least of which would involve spoiling the outfit she seemed fond of. More than one scenario added a very cross Bert. Cross with Jack, to be precise.
Mary Poppins reached into her petticoat and pulled out a stopwatch whose handles refused to quit spinning. But she squinted at it as though it made perfect sense. "Yes, just as I thought. The Edge of Night exactly." She tossed Jack a raised-eyebrow look. "I am always punctual." She leaned over, too far for Jack's liking, and squinted again, this time at the dark water of the Thames below. A small sigh. "Well, if it's time, I suppose I had better get on with it. I could use an extra pair of eyes this time round…far more practical…"
She seemed to be thinking, and finally she smiled at Jack. It was a good smile, but a very determined one.
Jack swallowed, feeling something thick in the air. It wasn't the thunderstorm. It wasn't the west wind. It was magic—it was familiar to him, familiar when Mary Poppins was about. He could hardly stand the excitement building on the bottoms of his heels and up to the rest of him.
"Jack," said Mary Poppins brightly, "would you like to come?"
He was nodding before she had finished. He didn't know where she wanted him to go. He didn't know why he was saying yes. He only knew that, of his own free will, no magic involved, he badly wanted to race feet-first into another adventure. Wherever this marvelous woman might take him. It had been too long since he'd seen her to spoil it with questions.
Mary Poppins nodded back. "Then you'll need to remove your coat; it drags one down. And it isn't a very nice color on you, I must say—black, perhaps, or a suitable gray—not that dreadful beige. You look like the underbelly of a tortoise."
Jack was all too happy to shed his warm overcoat. It had been feeling a little tight anyway; he was due for a new one.
Mary Poppins herself didn't remove a thing. "Are we ready?"
"Think so." Jack crouched at the edge. It was a long way down—but being a handyman, he was very good with heights. It was hitting the water that might prove dangerous. But danger did make life fun, and he'd always wondered what it was like to swim in the Thames.
"Right. In we go."
And she took Jack's hand and jumped.
It was a wake-you-up kind of fall, the sort that snapped you out of a nightmare. But holding onto Mary Poppins, he felt perfectly safe, and more than a little eager to discover what she had in store. Perhaps they wouldn't reach the water at all. A boat might materialize beneath them, or they might fly over the surface to Big Ben. Jack didn't want to shut his eyes for fear of missing whatever it was.
They did reach the water—but there was no splash. Jack wasn't cold, and he could clearly see the liquid rushing up to meet them. They landed right in the light reflecting from the lamp.
One second, he and the nanny were diving toward the Thames, and the next, they were standing (solidly) on a path. It was gold, the exact shade of the lamplight on the waves, and it wobbles as though it were still attached to them.
Jack looked around. The horizon was the same dark color the river had been, but along the ground—which was almost too black to be sure it was there—there were ghosts of cobblestones. Jack turned around and saw the wall they had been standing on, but it wasn't high above him. It was level with him, almost, and he wondered if getting up and jumping over the other side had happened at all.
Mary Poppins let go of his hand to fix her hair. "Here we are."
"'Ang on," Jack started, "What happened to the river?"
"Nonsense, one doesn't go leaping into strange bodies of water before bed," Mary Poppins tutted.
"But…" Jack tried to focus. Everything had stopped swimming and he could see it clearly. They seemed to be in London still. He could see the clock tower in the distance, and the bridge behind them. But everything looked…backwards.
Checking something, Jack looked down at his waistcoat. All the buttons were on the wrong side!
"We're in the reflection," he realized aloud.
"Where else would we be?" Mary Poppins began marching down the path. "Well, best foot forward, we mustn't waste time."
Jack hurried to match her stride, but he kept looking backward. If they were in the world's reflection on the water, then the Thames itself would be on the other side of that wall. But he hadn't had the chance to look—and he was itching to know whether you could see the water itself when you were in a mirror created by that water. Mary Poppins, however, was going strictly in the opposite direction, and if he had to choose between personal curiosity and keeping her company, there really was no contest. There was something wonderful she carried with her, however strict and critical she could be.
She turned and walked into the streets of London itself, where everything was on the wrong side. The butcher's, the ice cream parlor—the gentleman's club—it should all have been to Jack's left, but it was on the right. And that wasn't the only thing.
The marketplace was brand new. It wasn't the same market that opened every morning and afternoon downtown. It was a completely different line of booths, with completely different vendors. In fact, these people looked rather like a drawing, only they were moving and talking just the same as living people might do. Their colors were muted and smudged, as if they were constantly getting wet, and there was no breeze to ruffle mustaches or skirts. One gentleman's nose was so animated, so exaggerated, Jack could only pull his gaze away after remembering how much Mary Poppins disliked staring.
She wasn't watching him, though. She was waving or nodding primly to the vendors as they called out to her—and there were many admirers. Everyone seemed to know who she was.
"Mary Poppins, can that be you, come to see us at last?"
"Half price for you, Miss Poppins!"
"A free round on me, mates, it's Mary Poppins!"
"Bless my soul! Isn't she a sight!"
"Hallo!"
"Over here!"
"Good to see you, Mary Poppins!"
"You're very kind," Mary Poppins called to the general adoring public, and moved right along without sampling anything. One couple—both looking very like the giraffes in the zoo—tried desperately to hand her a pair of polished yellow shoes, but she breezed past them, easily deterring them with the simplest glance. "Must be going, things to do."
Jack jogged to catch up with her. He had been walking backward, turning around and around, trying to see everything at once. The colors of his own clothes had grown more and more vibrant, and Mary Poppins' dress had changed from red to a spring's teal. "Where we headed, Mary Poppins?"
"Just as I said," she reminded him, as though it should have been obvious. "I've come to retrieve an item."
"Need me for me eyes, you said," he reminded her. "What's this item look like?"
"Oh, it isn't the item we need." Mary Poppins flapped a hand dismissively. "Not yet. It's a blue chap I'm after. Goodness gracious, glory me," she sighed, "it has rather expanded since my last visit, hasn't it? But then it is the Edge of Night, and that's the busiest hour. I should have come at Dawn."
"Dawn?"
"Yes, heaven knows the crowds will have thinned," she fretted.
"No time like the present, though," he offered cheerfully, taking it in stride.
Mary Poppins looked at him with a wry twitch of the lips. "Quite right, Jack."
All the signs on the street were upside-down and backwards. Jack tried to look for some hint of an object Mary Poppins might be interested in, but it wasn't easy. Everything looked like her sort of thing. One vendor was selling so many different kinds of brolly—all of them with an animal at its end—that after a few seconds looking at them all, you got dizzy, and not just because they were each moving and talking to one another. Another was covered in silk blankets, with some colors Jack had never seen before. There was a hat shop, a tea shop, a shop selling baby elephants and saddles to go with them. It all smelled good. It all sounded pretty. It all made his head spin with fascination.
He stopped at one vendor who was selling top hats, recognizing the sort of straw cap Bert would admire when they were on the town, and tried it on with glee.
"Spit-spot," Mary Poppins called. "I daresay we can have a good look later."
"Sorry, guv'nor," he told the hopeful salesman—who turned out to be a spotted pony in a trenchcoat—and returned the hat. "Best o' luck."
"Ah!" Mary Poppins finally slowed. "At last."
She had come to stand in front of the smallest booth. Hanging from its tented roof were several glass jars, all shapes and sizes. Along the back shelf, rows and rows of soap bars sat. There was a tangerine block bigger than Jack himself, and he wondered how the shelf kept from tilting dangerously on that side.
Then, from behind the counter, a bright blue head popped up. It was a bird, with a small black beak, and enormous, ever-staring eyes. It, too, seemed more like a cartoon than flesh and blood. It wore a splendid green tie and white shirt.
"Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins!" gasped the bird, hopping closer. "I knew it would be tonight! I said to Inga today, I said to her, Wind's in the east, and you know what that means! And right enough, here you are, here you are!"
Mary Poppins beamed at the bird. "It's nice to see you again, Robert. How is the flock?"
"Oh, just lovely, Mary Poppins!" cried Robert, flapping a wing excitedly. "There'll be a migration any day now."
"Wonderful." Mary Poppins took out her purse busily. "Now, I assume you've kept it just as I asked?"
"Cold and smooth, not a drop of it out of place, I assure you." Robert ducked out of sight again. Then, suddenly, he reappeared. He was giving Jack a rather suspicious side-eye. "Eh, begging your pardon—is he one of yours, by chance?"
Mary Poppins, starting, looked around and remembered Jack beside her. "Oh, yes, do forgive me. This is my friend, Jack. I couldn't possibly have come in without him." She tapped the side of her nose.
The bird seemed confused by the knowing gesture, but he bowed deeply. "Any friend of Mary Poppins is a friend of mine, sir!"
Jack tipped his hat to Robert. He was fizzing inside, warm all over at being introduced as Mary Poppins' friend. Not her charge, not her acquaintance, not her Thames Plus One. Friend. Someone could have called him the new King of England and he wouldn't have been more pleased. But he only showed it by smiling, controlled, at Mary Poppins. To make a big show of his new title would spoil it. And she smiled back, very briefly.
Robert was rummaging somewhere below again. After a full minute, he came back up, with a silver box hanging from a purple ribbon in his beak. It looked like the prettiest Christmas present Jack had ever seen, but the tag was backwards, like all the other words in this Reflection, so he couldn't make out to whom it was addressed.
Robert gently lowered the gift onto the counter.
"I simply can't thank you enough, Robert—" Mary Poppins began, reaching for the box.
But Robert pulled it back with a wing. "My deepest apologies, Mary Poppins," he said in a silkier voice, "but you know how it works 'round here. Something for nothing and all."
Mary Poppins' mouth drew into a dangerously straight line. Whatever was in that box was hers already; she'd only asked him to hold it! "I beg your pardon—"
"Now, now," Robert added quickly, almost crouching. The nanny seemed to get taller, bigger, more like a cat to him than a lady in the strength of her indignancy. "The penalty, Mary Poppins, the penalty! We must honor the Code!" His neck feathers were beginning to ruffle with nerves.
Mary Poppins rolled her eyes heavenward. If there was a heaven up there to look at; Jack followed her gaze and saw inky blackness above them. It was so deep and thick, he wondered if it was a reflection of the London sky, or if he were looking straight up—or rather, down—into the Thames itself. Or perhaps it was just a void. He began to feel a little creepy at the thought, but the creepiness only lasted so long before he reminded himself how lucky he was. Regardless of the risks, being somewhere like this was an experience very few people he'd ever meet in his life would have. He couldn't help enjoying even the mysterious, difficult bits.
While he pondered this, Mary Poppins was pulling out her purse. "Oh yes, the Code. I'd quite forgotten. Very well, let me see…"
She started taking things out of the purse. A bird-feeder on a long pole was set before Robert with delicate hands. But the bluebird shook his head hard, eyes twitching.
"That won't do, I'm afraid, won't do at all," he fretted. "You know, of course, Mary Poppins—you know the Code."
Mary Poppins was giving him a stare that said she knew better than this Code, but the bird, to his credit, did not retract what he'd said. "It's a perfectly agreeable trade," she sniffed.
"To be sure, to be sure," Robert's head bobbed and bobbed. His wings were tucked tight and submissive against his sides, creasing his waistcoat. "I should take it in two shakes on any other day, fine piece, mind, but—miss—the Edge of Night—and Code clearly states—"
"All right," Mary Poppins snapped. Her hand plunged back into her purse.
Jack had had enough of standing idly by and leaned sideways toward her, looking down into the bag. "Problem?" he asked.
"I simply must have one in here somewhere." Mary Poppins set the purse on the ground and stooped down, reaching so far inside that her shoulder jostled its mouth. "Oh, of all the ridiculous—"
"What's this Code 'e keeps on about?" Jack pressed.
"Honestly! If I find I've left it Above…"
Jack dropped into a crouch himself, elbows slung over his knees, so that he was eye-level with her. "Mary Poppins, what d'you need?" he demanded slowly.
Mary Poppins finally paused in her rummaging and met his gaze. Calmly, she replied, "The Reflective Code states that if one wishes to obtain an item of value from a vendor—particularly during the Edge of Night—one must trade for that item with something quite the opposite of the object in question." She straightened and tucked her hair back up into her hat. "It's a rather old-fashioned regulation by my way of thinking, but there it is."
"Opposite." Jack straightened too, dusting off his trousers. He was fascinated to see that his trousers waved and rippled at his touch, the way sunlight will do if you swat at while it sits on the water. "Shouldn't it be the same, though, seein' as we're in a reflection an' all?"
Mary Poppins paused, not considering the question, but apparently considering him as he asked it. "What," she said loftily, "do you get up to with your own reflection, I wonder?
"Sorry?"
"You'll find that when you wave, Jack," she reminded him quietly, deliberately, "he lifts the wrong arm."
Jack felt a slow grin curling up. He began to understand. He jerked his head toward the gift, then turned to Robert. "Mind if I…?" he pointed with both hands.
With a glanced between the boy and the governess, Robert reluctantly gave the ribbon on the box a pull. "I suppose—no touch, if you please—"
The box's walls fell flat at the removal of the ribbon. Sitting on the counter was a pretty glass jar, with a round top, filled to the brim with peach-colored liquid. The white label plastered to the center, big and perfectly straight, read Soap Bubbles in flat red letters that did not at all compliment the look of the thing.
"Soap!" Jack observed in surprise, glancing back at Mary Poppins.
Everything about her seemed to shrug, but she didn't actually move her shoulders. "I feel I may find some use for it later," she said simply.
Jack nodded. Then he looked up, down, everywhere nearby. Soap bubbles. Soap bubbles were fun, and he was sure neither he nor Mary Poppins were in the possession of anything dull at the moment. Soap bubbles were pretty, and scrappy as he was in his street clothing, he admitted with no lack of modesty that even on his most self-deprecating days he could not call himself the exact opposite of pretty. He found it nigh impossible to look anywhere but on the lightest side. And perhaps, if he didn't believe it himself, it wouldn't count. (Mary Poppins, and anything attached to her person, could never qualify. The very thought was preposterous.)
Opposite, opposite…
He nearly hit himself as his eyes drifted down. Of course! Soap bubbles were clean. Chiefly. Irrefutably. Always!
Jack whirled around, beaming at Robert. "Step right up, then, sir, I've got jus' the thing for you!"
Robert, apparently surprised at his boldness, fluttered his wings a bit in caution. He used his beak to tighten his tie. "Do you now?" he muttered. He kept one beady eye on Mary Poppins, and the other on the boy.
"Right 'ere." Jack lifted a leg in the air, crooking his knee, keeping excellent balance on one leg. He gestured with a spread palm to his footwear. "Got with me tonight one o' the oldest, smelliest, rotten-est socks you ever saw."
Mary Poppins wore an expression that could only be described as tolerant. Yet there was a sparkle of amusement somewhere—he could feel it from her.
Robert hopped closer. "It is rather worn, rather worn, isn't it?" He came out from around the counter cocking his head from side to side. "Oh—well, but is it enough?"
"You're in luck, you are," Jack revealed, dazzling smile flashing up at the bird. He dropped his foot and did a small dance, clicking his heels together once or twice. "They come in pairs."
"That's two," Mary Poppins added with a haughty tilt of her nose, "of the oldest, smelliest, rotten-est socks you ever saw, Robert, and I daresay the offer is unique."
"One night only." Jack held up a finger tantalizingly in front of the beak.
If birds' eyes could cross, this one's nearly did. "The very opposite?" he chirped. "Are you certain, Mary Poppins?"
"Not at all. And anyway," Mary Poppins hummed, and suddenly she looked fully uninterested in what was going on in front of her, "they aren't my socks."
Robert stared at Jack's plain, gray stockings poking high out of his shoes. The lamplighter hadn't been lying in the slightest when he'd claimed they were ratty; in truth, he was growing out of them, too. There was a hole in the second toe of the left one even now. He could feel it.
But the time for haggling was growing stale. Jack turned on a heel to Mary Poppins, mirroring her carelessness. "Ah well," he grunted, thumbing his nose. "Maybe there's other soap round here somewheres. 'Spect we'll get better offers as we go, eh?"
"Indubitably. Come along—"
"Just a moment, just a moment!" cried Robert, flapping after them. He landed in their way, distressed, and bent to peck a little at Jack's socks while the boy tried not to stumble back or laugh. The bluebird wore an expression of utmost seriousness. "Yes—yes, I think they might do nicely. Might be just the ticket, in fact, just the ticket!"
"Do you really think so, Robert?" Mary Poppins asked sweetly.
"The very thing!" Robert led them happily back to his booth. "You were right to keep him, Miss, always good at spotting talent. Off with them, lad, and it's all yours!"
So Jack removed his socks, eyes darting to Mary Poppins with a pursed-lip smile. He was still trying not to laugh. She returned it, but hers was carefully strung up, not wide and joyful the way his always was. It was there though, and it counted. Pleased with himself, Jack laced up his shoes good and tight as Robert tucked the socks away in a box beneath the counter.
The leerie tipped his cap to the bird and took the jar of soap in both hands. "'Ere you are, Mary Poppins," he said triumphantly, stretching it out to her in a grand bow. "Saw it and thought o' you!"
Mary Poppins took it, now grinning. "Silly Jack."
"Do come again any time!" Robert called after them as they started away.
"Well!" Mary Poppins rubbed a hand over the jar's tag fondly, as though she were petting a dog she had just come home to after a long journey. "At this rate we may get back in time for supper."
As Jack watched, the plain red letters on the tag twisted and whirled off. In their place came black, curling ones spelling out Mary Poppins. And there was nothing backwards about them.
"Quite an inspired performance, Jack, I must say," she added kindly. "I knew your eyes would come in handy."
Jack's eyes scrunched with the weight of his smile. "Any time, Mary Poppins."
"While we're here," she said thoughtfully, "I have so been needing a new scarf. Best have that look around before it gets lighter and the surface changes, yes? Spit-spot."
Jack hurried to catch up as she strode among the vendors. She never seemed to get distracted, the way he'd seen other ladies do in the market Above. No trinket, however it complimented her, could deter her from finding just what she was looking for. So intent was the nanny on finding the perfect scarf, her companion started to drift. At first he wanted to help her, find the scarf, but it became apparent that no one's opinion on this particular matter was more trustworthy than her own. Rather than being offended, Jack found this funny and left her to it. He got preoccupied at that same hat stand, though the vendor quickly realized he hadn't brought anything with which to pay. Then he received a whinnying sort of cough that said his welcome had been worn out.
When he found Mary Poppins, she was purchasing a blue scarf that looked like it had been made with harp strings; it glittered so much.
"This will do," she announced. But the way she kept preening and adjusting the scarf told him she knew precisely how well it suited her, and liked it very much.
The lady behind the counter seemed equally pleased, counting the coins Mary Poppins had used to pay. "It's lovely on you, Mary Poppins," she said in a motherly sort of fashion, looking the nanny up and down with a professional eye. "Best sale of the day, that is."
Mary Poppins touched at her hair, almost smiling. "And now we'd better get on. The West Wind is on the way."
"So?" Jack kicked a little at the pavement, loving the way an echo of a splash jumped into the air and disappeared.
"Ah, the West Wind," the vendor lady nodded wisely. "Mary Poppins always comes and goes with it, son, even here."
Jack glanced at Mary Poppins, just remembering the way she always seemed to fly in and out, wherever she went. The breeze was clearly a friend of hers.
They started walking back toward the low wall in the distance, a comfortable silence stretching between them.
Then Mary Poppins began humming, a tiny little tune, and Jack liked the sound so much he stopped looking where he was going and watched her as she hummed. He nearly ran into a pair of hares hopping down the path.
Mary Poppins noticed him watching. He could only tell because her eyes cut toward him, just once, in the corners. Instead of stopping cold, the way most people did when others started listening to their music, she opened her mouth and began to quietly sing words to the tune.
"West Wind, stay away
Please come back another day.
I've so much to do,
Till I am through."
Jack couldn't help it. There was something deliciously happy and comforting about Mary Poppins' voice; he'd never heard another like it. He started, cautiously, to sing a little of it with her. Bert sang often, even when he wasn't a One-Man-Band, and had taught Jack many lullabies to sing to the other street kids when he was younger. He'd said Jack had just the sort of voice for show tunes—a kind of pleasant, peanutty rasp to it, so Jack wasn't shy when he tried harmonizing with Mary Poppins. He might have been if this were his first time singing in public, but it wasn't, and anyway it was too much fun to mind.
"Till I am through,
I beg of you,
Stay away, West Wind."
After a few steps the song ended and Mary Poppins quit humming, and they both strolled along as though it hadn't happened. But Jack had not been this contented in a long time—he felt as if he'd just finished a massive, hearty meal and was ready for an early bedtime.
As they went, the people behind the booths, still pastels and animation, called and cheered at the governess again and again. But she ignored them all, only nodding her goodbyes. When it was time for Mary Poppins to leave, nothing and no one could change her mind.
And that reminded Jack—he had stored up plenty of questions for her in the last four years.
Afterwards, he wished he had thought about it a bit more beforehand, but the first one simply jumped out of him. "D'you miss 'em?"
Mary Poppins did not slow down. "I beg your pardon?"
"The Bankses." Jack's hands slid into his trouser pockets, not put off in the least by the sharpness in her tone.
"And what would happen to me, may I ask, if I missed all the children I said goodbye to?"
Jack watched the low wall getting closer to them, the way it rippled. The fascinating thing was how the bricks seemed to have been flipped backward—a brick wall shouldn't have looked odd no matter how you turned it, but this one did.
"I think they must miss you," he said simply. "Isn't the same since you left. They carry on, though." He swiped at his nose with a thumb. "Been keepin' an eye on 'em."
"Have you indeed?" Mary Poppins' voice was even. But the way she tilted her head made him think he, for the first time, had her full attention.
"Y'must visit?" was Jack's next question. "From time to time, I mean. Only it seems like a nice idea, catchin' up on the good ol' days with all them kids you meet. You ask me—"
"Old." Mary Poppins stopped. "Now, that is precisely the word. And what about you, Jack?" She turned to him, and she seemed so much taller now that he wondered how he'd ever thought of coming to her shoulder as a victory. Critical midnight eyes checked him from shoelaces to cap. "You seem to have grown a great deal, haven't you? And yet here we are."
Jack's considerable eyebrows came down, narrowed at her in confusion. There was something calculating, something fragile about the way she was watching him. In fact it almost seemed like she was confused by him.
But before he could ask what she meant, the walk was back on.
He wasn't sure where to go from there. Surely she missed Jane and Michael? And surely they missed her! He had been watching out for them, that was true, whenever the years had given him time. It wasn't much time when it came to it, but even from what little he'd seen, the lack of Mary Poppins in their lives was just as evident and obvious as the change in height and the sharpening of the faces. There was a kind of gray around them, the gray of people who were starting to look at the world as if it were a strict map, already-charted territory. Not as if they'd been taught long ago that anything is possible. Even the impossible.
"They've forgotten me."
Mary Poppins' voice broke through his muddling. But she said it exactly as though she were passing the time to him. Matter-of-fact, sniffing, as though this information should have been obvious and was of little importance to her.
"Forgotten!" Jack gawked at her. "'Scuse my sayin' so, Mary Poppins, but that don't seem likely."
A funny noise answered this, like a muffled squawk of laughter. It seemed to come from the bird head on the magic woman's brolly handle.
"It's true." She tightened her grip on her umbrella, almost imperceptibly folding finger and thumb over the handle's beak. "Oh, I'm quite sure they remember who I am. As if anyone couldn't! But remembering me is all they'll do, I assure you."
"What's that mean?"
"You ask a tremendous amount of personal questions, you know. It isn't polite." When he didn't react or apologize, just walked sedately beside her, she added, "The older they get, the less they'll recall of our time together. I've done what I came to do by the Banks family, I'll have you know, and if they don't wish to keep their memories, I should think that suits me just as well!"
They had come to the wall now, and Mary Poppins sat down on it, placing her brolly and new scarf beside her. She took out a little pocket mirror and checked her reflection. Her face was as regal as ever, but Jack saw in the careful set of her lips and the stillness of her fingers that she was unhappy. He was making her unhappy.
The leerie must have been watching her rather sorrowfully out of the tops of his eyes, chewing his lip, because Mary Poppins looked past her mirror at him indignantly.
A click of her tongue: "Well, it isn't my fault." Just as if he'd started pointing fingers! "Grown-ups always forget. Jane and Michael Banks are hardly still the chicks of their nest nowadays. Everyone only ever remembers what they want to remember."
"But what 'bout me?" Jack bounded forward, spreading his palms. "I'm around, aren't I, and I haven't forgot!"
Then she put the mirror away completely. She looked him right in the eyes. "Yes," said Mary Poppins slowly. "I do wonder how you've managed that."
"I remember everythin'," Jack went on, eager to cheer her up.
"Everything?" Her tone was dry.
Gesturing with his hands, nodding furiously, Jack was sure he almost looked as exaggerated as the marketplace had. "Everythin', Mary Poppins. You chatting wi' my JackRat—an' the nursery rhymes. Pink lamps. Bert told me 'bout your chalk pavement holiday—an' you made Angus' bike fly right above us! Up the lovely London sky. I'm good at remembering."
He was grinning at her again now, his bright grin, and Mary Poppins was watching him the way a little girl watches a puppy yawn. There was something fond in her face, and it made him feel younger and cozier to see it. No lady, not even the ones in soup kitchens, had ever looked at him like that. Not when he'd been eight and orphaned, and certainly not these days. It might have been maternal—a piece deep inside him hoped it was—but he had no way to recognize it. It was enough that she was looking happier. No doubt even the numbers on Big Ben cried when Mary Poppins was down!
"I really don't know what you're talking about." Then her warmth seemed to fade a little, and she pursed her lips. "And you want to be careful, Jack," she said coolly. She had shut up like a telescope, the brief moment of sentiment gone. "Nothing good ever comes of pride; I'm told we experience a nasty fall straight after. You're not all grown up yet."
Jack felt his own grin slipping, but he shrugged. "Nothing good ever came o' borrowin' trouble, neither," he countered jauntily, hopping up to sit on her other side. "And…who says I can't just keep on? I won't forget. Never ever." He mimed an X across his chest, fast and large. "Cross m'heart. How's that?"
This time he did get a full eye-roll. But she folded her hands in her lap and blew out her cheeks and he could see she was secretly pleased. "Oh, for goodness' sake." Then, glancing at him out of the sides of her eyes, she added, "You know best, I'm sure. But one day you might find you've no more room to remember."
"S'pose we'll have to wait an' see." Jack lifted his chin at her teasingly.
She lifted hers too, though not quite as showy. "I suppose we will." Then, after a few seconds more of silence, she cleared her throat, a ladylike cough. "We ought to be getting back."
And Jack felt himself tipping backward, off the wall, into what must be the mirror Thames below. Again, there was no splash, and when he sat up he was sitting on the wall still—only this time he was facing the proper London. Gone was the moving, dark, watercolored marketplace. All the buttons on his waistcoat were on the correct side…except…
"Crikey!" Jack turned around in a circle, pulling an arm to his chest to examine it. "What's this?" he gasped, shooting Mary Poppins a twinkling look.
He was suddenly wearing a brand-new jacket—gray, tweed, and smelling delightfully clean. Glancing down at his feet, he realized he was now wearing pristine red socks to match his waistcoat.
Mary Poppins blinked. "I did say you would be needing a different one, didn't I? And you really mustn't go around without socks. It isn't healthy; you'll catch your death of cold."
Jack beamed. "Bless ya, Mary Poppins!"
She looked as though she were about to return the smile, but stopped herself in time. Waiting a full ten seconds, she observed him. Watched him like he might disappear, the way she did so often to other people. Then she waved a hand disparagingly.
"Oh, pish-posh."
And she tipped her hat to him, opening her brolly and turning with a swish of her skirts.
She walked away after he returned the gesture. She didn't fly, though the West Wind did gather around her. Probably wouldn't do it until she was out of sight, perhaps past the bridge. But Jack would watch out for her, the way he watched out for the Banks family. And he wouldn't forget.