Mary Poppins Comes Back

by P. L. Travers

At first, all that Jane and Michael could see was a large room that appeared to be quite empty except for a carpenter’s bench at one end. Piled upon this was a curious collection of articles – china dogs with no noses, wooden horses that had lost their tails, chipped plates, broken dolls, knives without handles, stools with only two legs – everything in the world, it seemed, that could possibly want mending.

  Round the walls of the room were shelves reaching from floor to ceiling and these, too, were crowded with cracked china, broken glass and shattered toys.

  But there was no sign anywhere of a human being.

  “Oh,” said Jane in a disappointed voice. “He is out, after all!”

  But Mary Poppins had darted across the room to the window.

  “Come in at once, Arthur! Out in the rain like that, and you with your Bronchitis the winter before last!”

  And, to their amazement, Jane and Michael saw her grasp a long leg that hung across the window-sill and pull in from the outer air a tall, thin, sad-looking man with a long, drooping moustache.

  “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Mary Poppins crossly keeping a firm hold of Mr Turvy with one hand while she shut the window with the other. “We’ve brought you some important work to do and here you are behaving like this!”

  “Well, I can’t help it,” said Mr Turvy apologetically, mopping his sad eyes with a large handkerchief. “I told you it was the Second Monday.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Michael, staring at Mr Turvy with interest.

  “Ah,” said Mr Turvy, turning to him and shaking him limply by the hand. “It’s kind of you to inquire, very kind. I do appreciate it, really.” He paused to wipe his eyes again. “You see,” he went on, “it’s this way. On the Second Monday of the month everything goes wrong with me.”

  “What kind of things?” asked Jane, feeling very sorry for Mr Turvy, but also very curious.

  “Well, take today!” said Mr Turvy. “This happens to be the Second Monday of the month. And because I want to be in – having so much work to do – I’m automatically out. And if I wanted to be out, sure enough, I’d be in.”

  “I see,” said Jane, though she really found it very difficult to understand. “So that’s why—?”

  “Yes.” Mr Turvy nodded. “I heard you coming up the stairs and I did so long to be in. So, of course, as soon as that happened – there I was – out! And I’d be out still if Mary Poppins weren’t holding on to me.” He sighed heavily.

  “Of course, it’s not like this all the time. Only between the hours of three and six – but even then it can be very awkward.”

  “I’m sure it can,” said Jane sympathetically.

  “And it’s not as if it was only In and Out,” Mr Turvy went on miserably. “It’s other things too. If I try to go upstairs, I find myself running down. I have only to turn to the right and I find myself going to the left. And I never set off for the West without immediately finding myself in the East.”

  Mr Turvy blew his nose.

  “And worst of all,” he continued, his eyes filling again with tears, “my whole nature alters. To look at me now, you’d hardly believe I was really a happy and satisfied sort of person – would you?”

  And, indeed, Mr Turvy looked so melancholy and distressed that it seemed quite impossible he could ever have been cheerful and contented.

  “But, why? Why?” demanded Michael, staring up at him.

  Mr Turvy shook his head sadly.

  “Ah!” he said solemnly. “I should have been a Girl.”

  Jane and Michael stared at him and then at each other. What could he mean?

  “You see,” Mr Turvy explained, “my mother wanted a girl, and it turned out, when I arrived, that I was a boy. So I went wrong right from the beginning – from the day I was born, you might say. And that was the Second Monday of the month.”

  Mr Turvy began to weep again, sobbing gently into his handkerchief.

  Jane patted his hand kindly.

  He seemed pleased, though he did not smile.

  “And, of course,” he went on, “it’s very bad for my work. Look up there!”

  He pointed to one of the larger shelves, on which were standing a row of hearts in different colours and sizes, each one cracked or chipped or entirely broken.

  “Now, those,” said Mr Turvy, “are wanted in a great hurry. You don’t know how cross people get if I don’t send their hearts back quickly. They make more fuss about them than anything else. And I simply daren’t touch them till after six o’clock. They’d be ruined – like those things!”

  He nodded to another shelf. Jane and Michael looked and saw that it was piled high with things that had been wrongly mended. A china Shepherdess had been separated from her china Shepherd and her arms were glued about the neck of a brass Lion; a Toy Sailor, whom somebody had wrenched from his boat, was firmly stuck to a Willow-pattern plate; and in the boat, with his trunk curled round the mast and fixed there with sticking-plaster, was a grey-flannel Elephant. Broken saucers were riveted together the wrong way of the pattern, and the leg of a wooden Horse was firmly attached to a silver Christening Mug.

  “You see?” said Mr Turvy hopelessly, with a wave of his hand.

  Jane and Michael nodded. They felt very, very sorry for Mr Turvy.

  “Well, never mind that now,” Mary Poppins broke in impatiently. “What is important is this Bowl. We’ve brought it to be mended.”

  She took the Bowl from Jane and, still holding Mr Turvy with one hand, she untied the string with the other.

  “H’m!” said Mr Turvy. “Royal Doulton. A bad crack. Looks as though somebody had thrown something at it.”

  Jane felt herself blushing as he said that.

  “Still,” he went on, “if it were any other day, I could mend it. But today—” he hesitated.

  “Nonsense, it’s quite simple. You’ve only to put a rivet here – and here – and here!”

  Mary Poppins pointed to the crack, and, as she did so, she dropped Mr Turvy’s hand.

  Immediately, he went spinning through the air, turning over and over like a Catherine wheel.

  “Oh!” cried Mr Turvy. “Why did you let go? Poor me, I’m off again!”

  “Quick – shut the door!” cried Mary Poppins. And Jane and Michael rushed across the room and closed the door just before Mr Turvy reached it. He banged against it and bounced away again, turning gracefully, with a very sad look on his face, through the air.

  Suddenly he stopped, but in a very curious position. Instead of being right-side-up he was upside down and standing on his head.

  “Dear, dear!” said Mr Turvy, giving a fierce kick with his feet. “Dear, dear!”

  But his feet would not go down to the floor. They remained waving gently in the air.

  “Well,” Mr Turvy remarked in his melancholy voice,” I suppose I should be glad it’s no worse. This is certainly better – though not much better – than hanging outside in the rain with nothing to sit on and no overcoat. You see,” he looked at Jane and Michael, “I want so much to be right-side-up and so – just my luck! – I’m upside down. Well, well, never mind. I ought to be used to it by now. I’ve had forty-five years of it. Give me the Bowl.”

  Michael ran and took the Bowl from Mary Poppins and put it on the floor by Mr Turvy’s head. And, as he did so, he felt a curious thing happening to him. The floor seemed to be pushing his feet away from it and tilting them into the air.

  “Oh!” he cried. “I feel so funny. Something most extraordinary is happening to me!”

  For by now, he, too, was turning Catherine wheels through the air, and flying up and down the room, until he landed head-first on the floor beside Mr Turvy.

  “Strike me pink!” said Mr Turvy in a surprised voice, looking at Michael out of the corner of his eye. “I never knew it was catching. You too? Well, of all the – Hi, Hi, I say! Steady there! You’ll knock the goods off the shelves, if you’re not careful, and I shall be charged for breakages. What are you doing?”


  He was now addressing Jane, whose feet had suddenly swept off the carpet and were turning above her head in the giddiest manner. Over and over she went – first her head and then her feet in the air – until at last she came down on the other side of Mr Turvy and found herself standing on her head.

  “You know,” said Mr Turvy, staring at her solemnly,” this is very odd. I never knew it happen to anyone else before. Upon my word, I never did. I do hope you don’t mind.”

  Jane laughed, turning her head towards him and waving her legs in the air.

  “Not a bit, thank you. I’ve always wanted to stand on my head and I’ve never been able to do it before. It’s very comfortable.”

  “H’m,” said Mr Turvy dolefully. “I’m glad somebody likes it. I can’t say I feel like that.”

  “I do,” said Michael. “I wish I could stay like this all my life. Everything looks so nice and different.”

  And, indeed, everything was different. From their strange position on the floor, Jane and Michael could see that the articles on the carpenter’s bench were all upside down – china dogs, broken dolls, wooden stools – all standing on their heads.

  “Look!” whispered Jane to Michael. He turned his head as much as he could. And there, creeping out of a hole in the wainscoting, came a small mouse. It skipped, head over heels, into the middle of the room, and, turning upside down, balanced daintily on its nose in front of them.

  They watched it for a moment, very surprised. Then Michael suddenly said:

  “Jane, look out of the window!”

  She turned her head carefully, for it was rather difficult, and saw to her astonishment that everything outside the room, as well as everything in it, was different. Out in the street the houses were standing on their heads, their chimneys on the pavement and their door-steps in the air, and out of the door-steps came little curls of smoke. In the distance a church had turned turtle and was balancing rather top-heavily on the point of its steeple. And the rain, which had always seemed to them to come down from the sky, was pouring up from the earth in a steady, soaking shower.

  “Oh,” said Jane,” how beautifully strange it all is! It’s like being in another world. I’m so glad we came today.”

  “Well,” said Mr Turvy mournfully, “you’re very kind, I must say. You do know how to make allowances. Now, what about this Bowl?”

  He stretched out his hand to take it, but at that moment the Bowl gave a little skip and turned upside down. And it did it so quickly and so funnily that Jane and Michael could not help laughing.

  “This,” said Mr Turvy miserably, “is no laughing matter for me, I assure you. I shall have to put the rivets in wrong way up – and if they show, they show. I can’t help it.”

  And, taking his tools out of his pocket, he mended the Bowl, weeping quietly as he worked.

  “Humph!” said Mary Poppins, stooping to pick it up. “Well, that’s done. And now we’ll be going.”

  At that Mr Turvy began to sob pitifully.

  “That’s right, leave me!” he said bitterly. “Don’t stay and help me keep my mind off my misery. Don’t hold out a friendly hand. I’m not worth it. I’d hoped you might all favour me by accepting some refreshment. There’s a Plum Cake in a tin on the top shelf. But, there – I’d no right to expect it. You’ve your own lives to live and I shouldn’t ask you to stay and brighten mine. This isn’t my lucky day.”

  He fumbled for his pocket-handkerchief.

  “Well—” began Mary Poppins, pausing in the middle of buttoning her gloves.

  “Oh, do stay, Mary Poppins, do!” cried Jane and Michael together, dancing eagerly on their heads.

  “You could reach the cake if you stood on a chair!” said Jane helpfully.

  Mr Turvy laughed for the first time. It was rather a melancholy sound, but still, it was a laugh.

  “She’ll need no chair!” he said gloomily chuckling in his throat. “She’ll get what she wants and in the way she wants it – she will.”

  And at that moment, before the children’s astonished eyes, Mary Poppins did a curious thing. She raised herself stiffly on her toes and balanced there for a moment. Then, very slowly, and in a most dignified manner, she turned seven Catherine wheels through the air. Over and over, her skirts clinging neatly about her ankles, her hat set tidily on her head, she wheeled up to the top shelf, took the cake, and wheeled down again, landing neatly on her head in front of Mr Turvy and the children.

  “Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” shouted Michael delightedly. But from the floor Mary Poppins gave him such a look that he rather wished he had remained silent.

  “Thank you, Mary,” said Mr Turvy sadly, not seeming at all surprised.

  “There!” snapped Mary Poppins. “That’s the last thing I do for you today.”

  She put the cake-tin down in front of Mr Turvy.

  Immediately, with a little wobbly roll, it turned upside down. And each time Mr Turvy turned it right-side-up, it turned over again.

  “Ah,” he said despairingly, “I might have known it. Nothing is right today – not even the cake-tin. We shall have to cut it open from the bottom. I’ll just ask—”

  And he stumbled on his head to the door and shouted through the crack between it and the floor.

  “Miss Tartlet! Miss Tartlet! I’m so sorry to trouble you, but could you – would you – do you mind bringing a tin-opener?”

  Far away downstairs Miss Tartlet’s voice could be heard, grimly protesting.

  “Tush!” said a loud croaky voice inside the room. “Tush and nonsense! Don’t bother the woman! Let Polly do it! Pretty Polly! Clever Polly!”

  Turning their heads, Jane and Michael were surprised to see that the voice came from Mary Poppins’ parrot-headed umbrella which was at that moment Catherine-wheeling towards the cake. It landed head downwards on the tin and in two seconds had cut a large hole in it with its beak.

  “There!” squawked the parrot-head conceitedly “Polly did it! Handsome Polly!” And a happy self-satisfied smile spread over its beak as it settled head-downwards on the floor beside Mary Poppins.

  “Well, that’s very kind, very kind!” said Mr Turvy in his gloomy voice, as the dark crust of the cake became visible.

  He took a knife out of his pocket and cut a slice. He started violently, and peered at the cake more closely. Then he looked reproachfully at Mary Poppins.

  “This is your doing, Mary! Don’t deny it. That cake, when the tin was last open, was a Plum Cake, and now—”

  “Sponge is more digestible,” said Mary Poppins primly. “Eat slowly, please. You’re not Starving Savages!” she snapped, passing a small slice each to Jane and Michael.

  “That’s all very well,” grumbled Mr Turvy bitterly, eating his slice in two bites. “But I do like a plum or two, I must admit. Ah, well, this is not my lucky day!” He broke off as somebody rapped loudly on the door.

  “Come in!” called Mr Turvy.

  Miss Tartlet, looking, if anything, rounder than ever, and panting from her climb up the stairs, burst into the room.

  “The tin-opener, Mr Turvy—” she began grimly. Then she paused and stared.

  “My!” she said, opening her mouth very wide and letting the tin-opener slip from her hand. “Of all the sights I ever did see, this is the one I wouldn’t have expected!”

  She took a step forward, gazing at the four pairs of waving feet with an expression of deep disgust.

  “Upside down – the lot of you – like flies on a ceiling! And you supposed to be respectable human creatures. This is no place for a lady of my standing. I shall leave the house this instant, Mr Turvy. Please note that!”

  She flounced angrily towards the door.

  But even as she went her great billowing skirts blew against her round legs and lifted her from the floor.

  A look of agonised astonishment spread over her face. She flung out her hands wildly.

  “Mr Turvy! Mr Turvy, Sir! Catch me! Hold me down! Help! Help!” cried Miss Tartlet, as s
he, too, began a sweeping Catherine wheel.

  “Oh, oh, the world’s turning turtle! What shall I do? Help! Help!” she shrieked, as she went over again.

  But as she turned a curious change came over her. Her round face lost its peevish expression and began to shine with smiles. And Jane and Michael, with a start of surprise, saw her straight hair crinkle into a mass of little curls as she whirled and twirled through the room. When she spoke again her gruff voice was as sweet as honeysuckle.

  “What can be happening to me?” cried Miss Tartlet’s new voice. “I feel like a ball! A bouncing ball! Or perhaps a balloon! Or a cherry tart!” She broke into a peal of happy laughter.

  “Dear me, how cheerful I am!” she trilled, turning and circling through the air. “I never enjoyed my life before, but now I feel I shall never stop. It’s the loveliest sensation. I shall write home to my Sister about it, to my Cousins and Uncles and Aunts. I shall tell them that the only proper way to live is upside down, upside down, upside down—”

  And, chanting happily, Miss Tartlet went whirling round and round. Jane and Michael watched her with delight and Mr Turvy watched her with surprise, for he had never known Miss Tartlet to be anything but peevish and unfriendly.

  “Very odd! Very odd!” said Mr Turvy to himself, shaking his head as he stood on it.

  Another knock sounded at the door.

  “Anyone here name of Turvy?” enquired a voice, and the Post Man appeared in the doorway holding a letter. He stood staring at the sight that met his eyes.

  “Holy smoke!” he remarked, pushing his cap to the back of his head. “I must-a come to the wrong place. I’m looking for a decent, quiet gentleman called Turvy. I’ve got a letter for him. Besides, I promised my wife I’d be home early and I’ve broken my word, and I thought—”

  “Ha!” said Mr Turvy from the floor. “A broken promise is one of the things I can’t mend. Not in my line. Sorry!”

  The Post Man stared down at him.

  “Am I dreaming or am I not?” he muttered. “It seems to me I’ve got into a whirling, twirling, skirling company of lunatics!”

  “Give me the letter, dear Post Man! Mr Turvy, you see, is engaged! Give the letter to Topsy Tartlet and turn upside down with me.”