This is a story about a girl named Mary Poppins and a boy named Robert Dawes.
Although it was in the dwindling hours of afternoon, the morning clouds still hung over St. Paul’s Cathedral like looming puffs of coal powder. Robert Dawes, or Bert as you may already know him, was wandering the grey streets of London, wishing the walk from his home to the bank were twice as long. It seemed rain was imminent and his grandmother made sure he carried his father’s old umbrella. He swung it around by the neck of the parrot handle as he strolled. Coming to the Cathedral, he began to carefully place one foot in front of another, like a man on a tightrope. And that was how he came across Mary Poppins. Though it seemed that there wasn’t enough sun left in the sky to make a shadow, as Burt placed his shiny black shoe down, a silhouette he would never forget appeared along side. He looked up into the face of a little girl with brown curls framing her rosy cheeks.
“Feed the birds, sir?” Her question was more like a request as her blue eyes remained on his face.
Bert stuck out his hand in the fashion he had seen his late father do when meeting people and put on a huge smile.
“How do you do? My name’s Bert—well, Robert—and my grandfather owns the bank, you see, and that’s where I’m supposed to be right now. But I’d much rather feed the birds instead, only, I haven’t got any money. I know you’re probably thinking that I’m fibbing, but I don’t tell lies. My grandfather won’t let me have any because he says I’ll just spend it and that’s not the point of having it, so I have to learn not to waste first before he will let me have some of my own.” He paused for a breath, replastered the jolly grin to his jaw and started again. “Say, what’s your name? You’re supposed to shake my hand, you know.”
The girl’s eyebrows arched upward in betrayal of her thoughts.
“I know. But I wasn’t going to shake your hand just to have your pull me down when you fainted from lack of oxygen, like you almost did just there,”
Bert blinked in surprise as she took his hand and bobbed it curtly.
“My name is Mary Poppins,” she said very genteelly, lightly letting his hand free, “and you must understand that while I’d very much like to give you some crumbs for the birds, as they are rather hungry,” she looked down at the pigeons that had creeped up around them, cooing in anticipation, “I can’t. My mother is sick today and if she found out, she’d be very cross with me.”
It was Bert’s turn to raise his eyebrows as a giant drop of rain slopped against his forehead.
“Your mum sells the crumbs here for a living?” He asked wide-eyed.
As you’ll find out quickly upon your acquaintance with her, Mary was not one to be pitied or laughed at and she straightened her posture as she spoke,
“Oh, don’t act so surprised. It is a very good business you know. Ordinarily, she’d be doing real well for herself but she’s been sick and I’ve been filling in for her.”
At this response, Bert realized his mistake and out of kindheartedness and an oversized mouth, he wanted to clear things up.
“Don’t misunderstand me, Miss,” he started and then wiped his face of the increasing droplets that were falling. “I just never realized it was the same woman here every time. Don’t you think I ought to have noticed that? Oh hey,” he looked up as the rain started to fall in noisy sheets, scattering the pigeons and making passersby run. Bert popped open his umbrella, covering the both of them before saying, “Well, I really should be going. My grandfather is going to be rather mad at me seeing as I’m going to be late and wet.”
“You’ve got an umbrella, you’re not going to get wet,” Mary observed bluntly.
“No,” Bert said, his clowning face returning, “I’m going to get wet. Take this,” he handed her the black umbrella, ducking from underneath. As her hand clasped the parrot’s neck, the world blinked in a lightning flash and jumped as thunderstruck.
“Whoa,” Bert said, looking at Mary for a minute. “Well, maybe you can sell some more after this passes. It was good to meet you. I’ll see you around!” And he started to run, holding on to his grey cap and splashing in the down pour, leaving Mary alone in the great cement courtyard.
---
“Robert Dawes!” The shrill sound that seemed to eminate from his uncle’s nose rather than his vocal cords always sent a shiver down Bert’s spine. He had just made his way inside the marble entrance of the bank and already his uncle, Arthur Dawes, was on him like a dog.
“Stay right there,” Arthur commanded and Bert froze. “I’ll go speak to your grandfather about what to do with you. We most certainly cannot have our patrons seeing you in such a state. Such a state!” He clicked his tongue as he peered down at Bert through narrow spectacles and pinched features. Turning sharply, he walked to the great mahogany door that served as the entrance to his father’s office. Knuckles tight, he rapped smartly against the wood of the door, opened it heavily and walked in.
Bert loosened his lungs and relaxed his tense muscles as he looked into the shiny floor. He knew he was in for it, but he didn’t really mind. His grandmother always told him he was lucky the law required them to keep him because otherwise his grandfather would have dropped him years ago as a bad investment. Bert knew his grandmother was only saying was was true as a way to justify her lavish care of him. And in this knowledge, he was secure, for his grandmother was kind, his grandfather was proud and both were very proper. The worse he could face was angry words and a well-deserved lashing here or there.
“Robert”, the high pitch of the final syllable echoed against the bank walls and Bert looked up to see his uncle holding the door open. “Your grandfather wants to see you.”
Bert squished to the door, nodded at this uncle to be polite but was perhaps a little too enthusiastic about it, as he could hear the slight grinding of teeth over his grandfather’s rumbling voice commanding him to “sit down.”
The wet legs of his pants swished as he walked to the chair and water bubbled from his clothes as he sat down. His grandfather looked over him with angry eyes but said nothing. Arthur shut the door and walked around to the side of the desk, his beady eyes on Bert. Standing up, his grandfather finally began to speak.
“You are eleven years old, yet you insist on behaving like a child. I can see that you do not have the talent and ability your father had. You are careless and easily swayed, without a sense of proper behavior and respect. You lack effort, skill, and will power and most of all, you lack responsibility!” With the last word he slammed his hand down on the table.
Arthur’s greedy eyes flashed at the sound of Bert’s faults. Bert knew his uncle longed to be named as the bank’s successor but since his congenial and gifted father had passed a year ago, his grandfather had yet to name one. And his failure continued to haunt Arthur in the form of Mr. Dawes’s very public disappointment in his younger son.
“But, you are my duty. And it’s not to say it is impossible to groom you into the man your father was, a man, I’m sad to say, your uncle will never be.”
The strings holding Arthur’s features so high in his forehead dropped a little at this cut. Bert bit his lip to keep from smiling before looking his grandfather squarely in the eyes.
“I apologize grandfather,” Bert said in the meek tone he always used at times like these. “I promise I will work harder to please you and to acquire all those traits you would like me to.”
Mr. Dawes paced once or twice before sitting in his chair again.
“You were enrolled in the local school here for the fall.” Bert wasn’t sure why his grandfather was bringing school up. In fact, he had expected to just be dismissed upon his verbal recognition of humility.
“I see now that I must place you under the care of Mr. Hardingworth’s Academy for Boys instead. Although you will be surrounded by those common country folk, they are strict and I believe they will repair your shortcomings.”
Bert stared at his grandfather while Arthur cut in.
“But Papa, boarding school? Why waste all that money on him?” He paused, licking his lips nervously before squeaking, “You never even sent me to boarding school!”
Interrupting his surprise for a moment to take in the look on his grandfather’s face, Bert then returned to his thoughts on school. He felt like he should be sad about something in this situation but the more he racked his brain, the less he found. His grandfather never allowed him to play with the other kids outside of school and after a year without his father to sneak him to the park and friends’ houses, Bert had pretty much lost touch with his companions. As the son and grandson of the bank owners, his teachers were often overly gracious either out of a small hope that his father would take interest in them, or because they felt it was the proper thing to do. Bert was sick of being coddled and unchallenged. And he could hardly believe he’d be out from under his grandfather’s thumb.
As his grandfather rambled on about the great cost and how appreciative he should be for a punishment of this sort, Bert couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t punishment at all. This was going to be fun.
---
Surrounded by the glimmering raindrops hitting the cement, Mary was a crisp little silhouette from afar. And an odd sight she was, as she walked with her head down under the great black umbrella. If one were to look out of their window that afternoon from one of the many tall surrounding buildings, one would have watched her take several jaunty strides forward before stopping abruptly, bending down, raising back into place quickly and continuing on. But if you were that parrot on the handle of her new umbrella, you would know exactly what she was doing and wish her luck in her task. For every time she stopped, her keen blue eyes had spotted a coin that a passerby had mistakenly dropped in their rush to get out of the rain.
As she crouched down to reach for a particularly shiny coin, she began to think about that peculiar boy she had met that afternoon. Even though she enjoyed acting as an authority to the street boys she watched as a service to her neighbors, she had never fully understood what it was like to be treated as an equal by someone, especially not someone she had just met. Adults and children alike passed her on the street, refusing to pay her any attention. She knew her mother meant well and loved her, but she always seemed preoccupied with trying to find a way to more money and consequently Mary was not always on the top of her list. And in the last few months, her illness had gotten so bad that Mary spent many a night caring for her mother instead.
As Mary wound around the streets of London tot eh little back alley that served as her neighborhood, she wondered what she was going to do with the umbrella. Her mother would want her to keep it and use it, yet it made Mary cringe a little out of pride in thinking that she had received a piece of charity, without even saying thank you for it. That was really unacceptable.
Reaching the door, she closed the umbrella, shaking off the remaining raindrops and walked inside. Her “house” as she thought of it, was really the back rooms of a bakery. The owner was a kind hearted old man who knew Mary’s uncle and allowed her mother and her to use the storage room to sleep in and the kitchen to cook in. He even let them have the day old bread that didn’t sell to eat or to sell as crumbs. Mary had a suspicion that he owed her uncle something and while her mother seemed to write off his charity as kindness, Mary could never quite shake the feeling.
She was a little surprised to find the room empty when she walked in but set the umbrella against the wall by her mattress and sat down to read. Although she wasn’t only nine, her mother had been teaching her to read for many years and sometimes would take her into bookstores and pretend to be looking for a very hard to find volume so Mary could look through the books. She would often come home with a discarded newspaper or magazine for Mary to read. As she sat on her bed, reading one of these newspapers, Mary waited for her mother to come home. She paused as her eyes drifted across the economic portion of the newspaper and came across a story about a bank teller. Again, Bert came into her mind and the little annoyance of the umbrella situation came to mind too. Would she ever be able to find that boy to return it? She lowered the newspaper and her eyes drifted to the parrot on top. She scowled a bit at the thought of keeping this gift.
“What am I going to do with you?” she demanded of the umbrella quite sharply. And then the most surprising thing happened. The parrot blinked, opened its mouth and charged back, “What kind of a question is that?”
Mary’s heart missed a beat as her jaw dropped and eyes widened. She started at the bird and, closing her mouth, decided she had just imagined it and buried her face back into the newspaper.
“What? Aren’t you going to answer me?” Again, the squawk came from the other side of the newspaper. “Or are you just going to be rude?” At that, Mary pushed the paper down and glared at the parrot.
“I am not rude! You’re the one with no manners! Not even introducing yourself!” Mary thought on that point for a moment before changing her tone and asking curiously, “How long have you been there? Or rather,” she tried to think of a better way of stating her question as the bird blinked at her, “how long have you been like this—able to talk and all?”
The parrot sighed, and Mary walked to the corner, dropping to her knees to examine the umbrella closely. The bird blinked at her and she took in its every detail with her large bright eyes. Clicking its tongue, it began to speak again.
“Well, I’ve only been awake since you so rudely woke me up out on the street. It’s usually quite a shock to start talking to someone after they wake you, and although I admit, I wanted to scare you, I thought better of it and decided to make certain that you’re really the one I want to be spending my time with.”
Mary let this settle in her brain before asking another question.
“Am I the one then?”
“That,” the bird clicked again, “is to be determined.”
“Oh,” she tried not to sound too put out by this delayed verdict. Thinking it over, she realized how foolish it was to mind what an umbrella thought of her and decided she wouldn’t let its opinion of her bother her.
“Who had you before me?” Mary moved on, “Did you speak with that Bert boy?”
The bird let out a loud squawk that Mary realized was supposed to be a laugh.
“Do you think he would have given me to you if he knew he had a talking umbrella in his hands?” The parrot demanded.
Mary was thinking that it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to get rid of the bird, and scrunched her face at the umbrella in response. It clicked back at her saying, “Rude!” and she almost stuck her tongue out, before thinking better of it.
“I was with the boy’s father, before you,” the parrot seemed to want to tell the story despite Mary’s sass. “He was quite the gentleman. A real fine human if you ask me. He worked very hard and was compassionate too. But then an awful thing happened and that’s why I’m stuck with you.”
Mary rolled her eyes as the bird continued, lowering its voice in all the sadness and darkness a wooden parrot could muster. “It was a normal spring day and he was so looking forward to Bert’s birthday. He was walking into work, whistling and cheerful. It was sunny and he didn’t really need me, but he knew I wanted to go out so he took me anyway. But as he neared the bank building, I could tell something was wrong. He stopped swinging me back and forth and then he stopped whistling. He started to climb the stairs to the building and then—“
Just then, Mary jumped as the door handled to the hall was pulled down and Mary’s mother began to make her way in. Mary leaned in closer, staring at the bird.
“What happened to him?” she whispered.
In a hush, the bird squawked, “later” and was silent. Mary rushed to sit back on her mattress and lifted her newspaper to her face. But her eyes never left the bird as her mother’s footsteps grew nearer. The parrot blinked from its corner just as Mary’s mother walked in.
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