MISS LARK LIVED Next Door.
But before we go any further I must tell you what Next Door looked like. It was a very grand house, by far the grandest in Cherry Tree Lane. Even Admiral Boom had been known to envy Miss Lark her wonderful house, though his own had ship’s funnels instead of chimneys and a flagstaff in the front garden. Over and over again the inhabitants of the Lane heard him say as he rolled past Miss Lark’s mansion: “Blast my gizzard! What does she want with a house like that?”
And the reason of Admiral Boom’s jealousy was that Miss Lark had two gates. One was for Miss Lark’s friends and relations, and the other for the Butcher and the Baker and the Milkman.
Once the Baker made a mistake and came in through the gate reserved for the friends and relations, and Miss Lark was so angry that she said she wouldn’t have any more bread ever.
But in the end she had to forgive the Baker because he was the only one in the neighbourhood who made those little flat rolls with the curly twists of crust on the top. She never really liked him very much after that, however, and when he came he pulled his hat far down over his eyes so that Miss Lark might think he was somebody else. But she never did.
Jane and Michael always knew when Miss Lark was in the garden or coming along the Lane, because she wore so many brooches and necklaces and earrings that she jingled and jangled just like a brass band. And whenever she met them, she always said the same thing:
“Good morning!” (or “Good afternoon!” if it happened to be after luncheon), “and how are we today?”
And Jane and Michael were never quite sure whether Miss Lark was asking how they were, or how she and Andrew were.
So they just replied: “Good afternoon!” (or, of course, “Good morning!” if it was before luncheon).
All day long, no matter where the children were, they could hear Miss Lark calling, in a very loud voice, things like:
“Andrew, where are you?” or
“Andrew, you mustn’t go out without your overcoat!” or
“Andrew, come to Mother!”
And, if you didn’t know, you would think that Andrew must be a little boy. Indeed, Jane thought that Miss Lark thought that Andrew was a little boy. But Andrew wasn’t. He was a dog – one of those small, silky, fluffy dogs that look like a fur necklet, until they begin to bark. But, of course, when they do that you know that they’re dogs. No fur necklet ever made a noise like that.
Now, Andrew led such a luxurious life that you might have thought he was the Shah of Persia in disguise. He slept on a silk pillow in Miss Lark’s room; he went by car to the Hairdresser’s twice a week to be shampooed; he had cream for every meal and sometimes oysters, and he possessed four overcoats with checks and stripes in different colours. Andrew’s ordinary days were filled with the kind of things most people have only on birthdays. And when Andrew himself had a birthday he had two candles on his cake for every year, instead of only one.
The effect of all this was to make Andrew very much disliked in the neighbourhood. People used to laugh heartily when they saw Andrew sitting up in the back seat of Miss Lark’s car on the way to the Hairdresser’s, with the fur rug over his knees and his best coat on. And on the day when Miss Lark bought him two pairs of small leather boots so that he could go out in the Park wet or fine, everybody in the Lane came down to their front gates to watch him go by and to smile secretly behind their hands.
“Pooh!” said Michael, as they were watching Andrew one day through the fence that separated Number Seventeen from Next Door. “Pooh, he’s a ninkypoop!”
“How do you know?” asked Jane, very interested.
“I know because I heard Daddy call him one this morning!” said Michael, and he laughed at Andrew very rudely.
“He is not a nincompoop,” said Mary Poppins. “And that is that.”
And Mary Poppins was right. Andrew wasn’t a nincompoop, as you will very soon see.
You must not think he did not respect Miss Lark. He did. He was even fond of her in a mild sort of way. He couldn’t help having a kindly feeling for somebody who had been so good to him ever since he was a puppy, even if she did kiss him rather too often. But there was no doubt about it that the life Andrew led bored him to distraction. He would have given half his fortune, if he had one, for a nice piece of raw, red meat, instead of the usual breast of chicken or scrambled eggs with asparagus.
For in his secret, innermost heart, Andrew longed to be a common dog. He never passed his pedigree (which hung on the wall in Miss Lark’s drawing room) without a shudder of shame. And many a time he wished he’d never had a father, nor a grandfather, nor a great-grandfather, if Miss Lark was going to make such a fuss of it.
It was this desire of his to be a common dog that made Andrew choose common dogs for his friends. And whenever he got the chance, he would run down to the front gate and sit there watching for them, so that he could exchange a few common remarks. But Miss Lark, when she discovered him, would be sure to call out:
“Andrew, Andrew, come in, my darling! Come away from those dreadful street arabs!”
And of course Andrew would have to come in, or Miss Lark would shame him by coming out and bringing him in. And Andrew would blush and hurry up the steps so that his friends should not hear her calling him her Precious, her Joy, her Little Lump of Sugar.
Andrew’s most special friend was more than common, he was a Byword. He was half an Airedale and half a Retriever and the worst half of both. Whenever there was a fight in the road he would be sure to be in the thick of it; he was always getting into trouble with the Postman or the Policeman, and there was nothing he loved better than sniffing about in drains or garbage tins. He was, in fact, the talk of the whole street, and more than one person had been heard to say thankfully that they were glad he was not their dog.
But Andrew loved him and was continually on the watch for him. Sometimes they had only time to exchange a sniff in the Park, but on luckier occasions – though these were very rare – they would have long talks at the gate. From his friend, Andrew heard all the town gossip, and you could see by the rude way in which the other dog laughed as he told it, that it wasn’t very complimentary.
Then suddenly, Miss Lark’s voice would be heard calling from a window, and the other dog would get up, loll out his tongue at Miss Lark, wink at Andrew and wander off, waving his hindquarters as he went just to show that he didn’t care.
Andrew, of course, was never allowed outside the gate unless he went with Miss Lark for a walk in the Park, or with one of the maids to have his toes manicured.
Imagine, then, the surprise of Jane and Michael when they saw Andrew, all alone, careering past them through the Park, with his ears back and his tail up as though he were on the track of a tiger.
Mary Poppins pulled the perambulator up with a jerk, in case Andrew, in his wild flight, should upset it and the Twins. And Jane and Michael screamed at him as he passed.
“Hi, Andrew! Where’s your overcoat?” cried Michael, trying to make a high, windy voice like Miss Lark’s.
“Andrew, you naughty little boy!’ said Jane, and her voice, because she was a girl, was much more like Miss Lark’s.
But Andrew just looked at them both very haughtily and barked sharply in the direction of Mary Poppins.
“Yay-yap!” said Andrew several times very quickly.
“Let me see. I think it’s the first on your right and second house on the left-hand side,” said Mary Poppins.
“Yap?”