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Mary Poppins/The Hobbit, Mary Poppins & Gollum, "What is a Poppinses, precious?"
Fandoms: Mary Poppins (movie) and The Hobbit (book)
Characters: Mary Poppins, Gollums, assorted Tolkiens
Gen, c. 1800 words
The great disadvantage with stepping into drawings, mused Mary Poppins, was that one could never be quite sure what lay around the corner. The initial impression might very well be one of pleasant pastoral elegance, with green meadows and gently rolling hills; but on the other side of those hills might be marshes, or brambles. Or, as in this particular instance, caves. In the normal course of events, Mary Poppins didn't mind caves. A large, roomy, picturesque cavern was a grand place to be, and filled with opportunities to improve young minds. This cave, however, was dark and gloomy, and dripped constantly. In the normal course of events she would never have dreamt of stepping inside; but then, in the normal course of events, she wouldn't have been chased into it by an army of slavering orcs, either.
"Orcs." She managed to keep the lion's share of her displeasure from her voice. It wouldn't do to appear too ruffled, after all. "Orcs, Ronald?"
"I'm sorry." He didn't look as though he was, entirely; there was more than a glimmering of fascination as he stared towards the cave entrance. "I don't remember drawing them. I suppose they were in the back of my mind somewhere, when I drew the rest of the picture."
"Hmm." Mary Poppins inspected her shoes, and decided that the dampness of the cave had not spoiled them beyond repair. "Yes, well. Perhaps we shall say no more about it. Hilary, what are you doing?"
"Exploring." Ronald's younger brother, a deceptively quiet boy of ten, had vanished into the gloom at the back of the cave. "There's a tunnel here. Do you suppose it leads into the centre of the Earth?"
"I shouldn't be at all surprised." Mary Poppins sighed at the indignities of life, before striding into the darkness to extract the younger boy. A faint phosphorescence gleamed yellow on the walls as she neared them; and also across the bridge of Hilary's nose. No doubt he had been investigating the phenomenon. To make matters worse, his collar was smudged with black and grey, and there was cave mould on his knuckles, and speckled across his socks. He had also, she discovered, when she peered a little closer, acquired an extra pair of eyes. Whilst not altogether unheard of, in her long experience, that was not the sort of thing that one usually encountered, even in caves.
"If there is somebody lurking here, I suggest that you show yourself," she said, and brandished her umbrella, in a fashion guaranteed to terrify anybody who had brains enough to see that she meant business. A pale, sinuous shadow peeled itself out of the murk, and resolved itself into something that might have been human. Or that might once have been human, before the caves and the gloom had turned it into something else.
"It's childrenses, precious." Whispering, apparently to itself, with a sibilance reminiscent of floodwater rushing into the depths of the Earth, it edged closer and closer. "Childrenses and a..." It peered up at Mary Poppins, through eyes grown large from lack of light. "A what? A lady is it, precious? A pretty, pretty lady, come looking for jewels perhaps she has. Ladies likes jewelses, precious, oh yes they does." The big, round eyes narrowed with sudden harshness. "But she won't have any jewelses from usss. She'll not have you, my precious, not the pretty lady."
"My name, sir, is Mary Poppins, and these are my charges, Ronald and Hilary Tolkien. I assure you that we have very little interest in jewellery. In point of fact--" She broke off. As the possibly-nearly-a-man came closer still, resolving into a properly discernable shape at last, something beyond his basic form became clear. He was wearing only the merest scrap of a loincloth, and she turned her back immediately.
"Ronald, really."
"I'm sorry, Mary Poppins." This time he did manage to sound at least a little contrite, and slipping off his blazer, he held it out to the creature. It sniffed the material, tasted it uncertainly, and then finally slipped it on. Ronald was twelve, but not unduly small for his age. The blazer just about saved the creature's dignity, and Mary Poppins's blushes.
"Thank you." She coughed discreetly, and avoided looking at the twisted little man directly. A blazer, after all, only went so far. "Now we really ought to be leaving. I did promise that I would have you home in time for tea, and it must be nearly that now. I have a particularly good sense of time, even if I do say so myself."
"Teas?" The creature heaved a wistful sigh. "Used to like teas, precious. Gollum gollum. Hot teases, yesss."
"Quite." Mary Poppins inclined her head politely. "Perhaps my favourite time of the day. I don't suppose, my dear sir, that you know of another way out of this place? There were some rather large and angry gentlemen outside the main door when we last looked." Here she cast a meaningful glance in Ronald's direction, and the boy had the grace to look abashed. The little man sniffed, then nodded.
"Down and down, and through the tunnelses," he offered. "I can gives you teas, Mary Poppinses, oh yesss. Precious and I, we can gives you sandwicheses." His nose twitched, and he eyed Hilary with a gleam of sudden interest. "Meat sandwicheses."
"Um," said Hilary, and edged ever so slightly in the direction of his brother. Mary Poppins glared.
"It is hardly proper hospitality to suggest eating one's guests, Mr...?"
"Gollum gollum," hiccupped the creature, recoiling slightly at the sudden sharpness of her tone. She frowned.
"Mr Gollumgollum. I don't believe that I know the name. Are you from London?"
"The Poppinses is crossss with us, precious." Looking rather longingly towards Hilary, Gollum sighed with a great show of sorrow. "And over such a little tiddlings. Barely half a biteses on him, he has."
"That's quite enough." Her limits reached, Mary Poppins drew herself up to her full height, and Ronald and Hilary gasped in unison. They had seen her in such a frame of mind only once before, and it was not a thing to be forgotten. Gollum quailed too, the more so as she took a step towards him.
"You. Back into your tunnels. And if I see so much as a glimpse of you again, I shall box your ears!" He reacted instantly, recoiling into the shadows with such a muttering and a whispering that there might have been a hundred of him, all hissing their sorrows at once. Mary Poppins, however, was not yet finished. "And you!" She had turned to the boys now; to ten year old Hilary, in his mud-and-phosphorescence-smeared socks, and twelve-year-old Ronald, with his head full of orcs and twisted cave dwellers. "We are leaving."
"But the orcs," protested Ronald. She raised her eyebrows.
"And who put the orcs here?" she asked. He turned a very deep shade of red.
"Can I make them go away again, do you think?" he asked. She raised her eyebrows.
"I suggest that you find out. It really wouldn't do at all to be murdered by one's own imagination. Especially if it means missing tea."
"Yes, Mary Poppins. I mean no. I mean..." He frowned, and dug his hands into his pockets. Alongside several stubs of pencil, a pair of rather interesting pebbles, and a long length of string, he produced a large, somewhat grubby, eraser. "Do you suppose this will help?"
"That would be quite the thing, yes. Thank you." She took it from him, and then, marching to the nearest wall, rubbed a hole in it big enough for them to climb through. "There. I suggest that we all hurry. And be quiet now, so that the orcs don't hear." Both boys scrambled through, and a moment later, with as much dignity as it was possible to muster whilst climbing through holes in walls, Mary Poppins followed. There was still quite a long trek back, but she was fairly sure that they would arrive home in time; provided there were no other lurking surprises.
"There isn't anything else that I need to know about, is there Ronald?" she asked, as they began the long walk back to those green meadows that had led them all astray. Ronald, walking along just to her left, hesitated briefly, and exchanged a quick look with Hilary.
"I... don't think so, Mary Poppins." He didn't look back, but it did seem to her as though he sped up slightly, and when Hilary followed suit, so too did their redoubtable nanny. Dignity was, after all, no substitute for common sense. Their haste was perhaps just as well. As they strode rapidly off back in the direction of Birmingham, waiting for them so patiently on the other side of the drawing, a large, black, eight-legged shape scuttled into the cave behind them. It left in its wake a trail of dead orcs, draped with the fine silkiness of cobweb, and it moved with the speed of a hunter that has sensed fresh prey. Gollum saw it, and sank into the bowels of the Earth with his pointed teeth all a chatter. He was muttering about pretty Poppinses as he went, but the great, eight-legged blackness didn't hear him. She was examining the new hole in the side of the cave, and wondering about the strange rhythms that she could feel in the earth beneath her feet. Strangers, but too far away now; and besides, she had an army of orcs to feed upon. The strangers could wait.
And far, far away, in a quiet and leafy suburb of Birmingham, Mary Poppins, Ronald and Hilary clambered back into their own world, and eyed the guilty drawing on its ink-smudged stand. Mary Poppins sighed.
"Honestly, Ronald. Most boys your age would have drawn a train."
"Yes, Mary Poppins."
"I should have a word with your guardian." She frowned at him, in a manner guaranteed to chasten. "But I think I can let it pass, since no harm was done. But Ronald?"
"Yes, Mary Poppins?"
"Perhaps we could do without the orcs in future, if you would be so kind?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Thank you." And with that - and with young Hilary at her heels - she strode off in search of tea. Left behind, Ronald took one last look at the picture, then folded it carefully up, and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. He was not finished with it yet. He also had a suspicion, half hope and half fear, that it was by no means finished with him.
-------------------------
Note: In 1904, when JRR "Ronald" Tolkien was twelve, and his brother Hilary ten, their mother died, and they were sent to live with a guardian. It seemed a good time for Mary Poppins to arrive. My apologies to PL Travers for favouring the Disney version of her character, something that she would be very unlikely to forgive. I never could get along with the book though. I blame the lack of Dick van Dyke and dancing penguins. I must apologise to the Obscure & British event for the same reason!
Mary Poppins/The Hobbit, Mary Poppins & Gollum, "What is a Poppinses, precious?"
Fandoms: Mary Poppins (movie) and The Hobbit (book)
Characters: Mary Poppins, Gollums, assorted Tolkiens
Gen, c. 1800 words
The great disadvantage with stepping into drawings, mused Mary Poppins, was that one could never be quite sure what lay around the corner. The initial impression might very well be one of pleasant pastoral elegance, with green meadows and gently rolling hills; but on the other side of those hills might be marshes, or brambles. Or, as in this particular instance, caves. In the normal course of events, Mary Poppins didn't mind caves. A large, roomy, picturesque cavern was a grand place to be, and filled with opportunities to improve young minds. This cave, however, was dark and gloomy, and dripped constantly. In the normal course of events she would never have dreamt of stepping inside; but then, in the normal course of events, she wouldn't have been chased into it by an army of slavering orcs, either.
"Orcs." She managed to keep the lion's share of her displeasure from her voice. It wouldn't do to appear too ruffled, after all. "Orcs, Ronald?"
"I'm sorry." He didn't look as though he was, entirely; there was more than a glimmering of fascination as he stared towards the cave entrance. "I don't remember drawing them. I suppose they were in the back of my mind somewhere, when I drew the rest of the picture."
"Hmm." Mary Poppins inspected her shoes, and decided that the dampness of the cave had not spoiled them beyond repair. "Yes, well. Perhaps we shall say no more about it. Hilary, what are you doing?"
"Exploring." Ronald's younger brother, a deceptively quiet boy of ten, had vanished into the gloom at the back of the cave. "There's a tunnel here. Do you suppose it leads into the centre of the Earth?"
"I shouldn't be at all surprised." Mary Poppins sighed at the indignities of life, before striding into the darkness to extract the younger boy. A faint phosphorescence gleamed yellow on the walls as she neared them; and also across the bridge of Hilary's nose. No doubt he had been investigating the phenomenon. To make matters worse, his collar was smudged with black and grey, and there was cave mould on his knuckles, and speckled across his socks. He had also, she discovered, when she peered a little closer, acquired an extra pair of eyes. Whilst not altogether unheard of, in her long experience, that was not the sort of thing that one usually encountered, even in caves.
"If there is somebody lurking here, I suggest that you show yourself," she said, and brandished her umbrella, in a fashion guaranteed to terrify anybody who had brains enough to see that she meant business. A pale, sinuous shadow peeled itself out of the murk, and resolved itself into something that might have been human. Or that might once have been human, before the caves and the gloom had turned it into something else.
"It's childrenses, precious." Whispering, apparently to itself, with a sibilance reminiscent of floodwater rushing into the depths of the Earth, it edged closer and closer. "Childrenses and a..." It peered up at Mary Poppins, through eyes grown large from lack of light. "A what? A lady is it, precious? A pretty, pretty lady, come looking for jewels perhaps she has. Ladies likes jewelses, precious, oh yes they does." The big, round eyes narrowed with sudden harshness. "But she won't have any jewelses from usss. She'll not have you, my precious, not the pretty lady."
"My name, sir, is Mary Poppins, and these are my charges, Ronald and Hilary Tolkien. I assure you that we have very little interest in jewellery. In point of fact--" She broke off. As the possibly-nearly-a-man came closer still, resolving into a properly discernable shape at last, something beyond his basic form became clear. He was wearing only the merest scrap of a loincloth, and she turned her back immediately.
"Ronald, really."
"I'm sorry, Mary Poppins." This time he did manage to sound at least a little contrite, and slipping off his blazer, he held it out to the creature. It sniffed the material, tasted it uncertainly, and then finally slipped it on. Ronald was twelve, but not unduly small for his age. The blazer just about saved the creature's dignity, and Mary Poppins's blushes.
"Thank you." She coughed discreetly, and avoided looking at the twisted little man directly. A blazer, after all, only went so far. "Now we really ought to be leaving. I did promise that I would have you home in time for tea, and it must be nearly that now. I have a particularly good sense of time, even if I do say so myself."
"Teas?" The creature heaved a wistful sigh. "Used to like teas, precious. Gollum gollum. Hot teases, yesss."
"Quite." Mary Poppins inclined her head politely. "Perhaps my favourite time of the day. I don't suppose, my dear sir, that you know of another way out of this place? There were some rather large and angry gentlemen outside the main door when we last looked." Here she cast a meaningful glance in Ronald's direction, and the boy had the grace to look abashed. The little man sniffed, then nodded.
"Down and down, and through the tunnelses," he offered. "I can gives you teas, Mary Poppinses, oh yesss. Precious and I, we can gives you sandwicheses." His nose twitched, and he eyed Hilary with a gleam of sudden interest. "Meat sandwicheses."
"Um," said Hilary, and edged ever so slightly in the direction of his brother. Mary Poppins glared.
"It is hardly proper hospitality to suggest eating one's guests, Mr...?"
"Gollum gollum," hiccupped the creature, recoiling slightly at the sudden sharpness of her tone. She frowned.
"Mr Gollumgollum. I don't believe that I know the name. Are you from London?"
"The Poppinses is crossss with us, precious." Looking rather longingly towards Hilary, Gollum sighed with a great show of sorrow. "And over such a little tiddlings. Barely half a biteses on him, he has."
"That's quite enough." Her limits reached, Mary Poppins drew herself up to her full height, and Ronald and Hilary gasped in unison. They had seen her in such a frame of mind only once before, and it was not a thing to be forgotten. Gollum quailed too, the more so as she took a step towards him.
"You. Back into your tunnels. And if I see so much as a glimpse of you again, I shall box your ears!" He reacted instantly, recoiling into the shadows with such a muttering and a whispering that there might have been a hundred of him, all hissing their sorrows at once. Mary Poppins, however, was not yet finished. "And you!" She had turned to the boys now; to ten year old Hilary, in his mud-and-phosphorescence-smeared socks, and twelve-year-old Ronald, with his head full of orcs and twisted cave dwellers. "We are leaving."
"But the orcs," protested Ronald. She raised her eyebrows.
"And who put the orcs here?" she asked. He turned a very deep shade of red.
"Can I make them go away again, do you think?" he asked. She raised her eyebrows.
"I suggest that you find out. It really wouldn't do at all to be murdered by one's own imagination. Especially if it means missing tea."
"Yes, Mary Poppins. I mean no. I mean..." He frowned, and dug his hands into his pockets. Alongside several stubs of pencil, a pair of rather interesting pebbles, and a long length of string, he produced a large, somewhat grubby, eraser. "Do you suppose this will help?"
"That would be quite the thing, yes. Thank you." She took it from him, and then, marching to the nearest wall, rubbed a hole in it big enough for them to climb through. "There. I suggest that we all hurry. And be quiet now, so that the orcs don't hear." Both boys scrambled through, and a moment later, with as much dignity as it was possible to muster whilst climbing through holes in walls, Mary Poppins followed. There was still quite a long trek back, but she was fairly sure that they would arrive home in time; provided there were no other lurking surprises.
"There isn't anything else that I need to know about, is there Ronald?" she asked, as they began the long walk back to those green meadows that had led them all astray. Ronald, walking along just to her left, hesitated briefly, and exchanged a quick look with Hilary.
"I... don't think so, Mary Poppins." He didn't look back, but it did seem to her as though he sped up slightly, and when Hilary followed suit, so too did their redoubtable nanny. Dignity was, after all, no substitute for common sense. Their haste was perhaps just as well. As they strode rapidly off back in the direction of Birmingham, waiting for them so patiently on the other side of the drawing, a large, black, eight-legged shape scuttled into the cave behind them. It left in its wake a trail of dead orcs, draped with the fine silkiness of cobweb, and it moved with the speed of a hunter that has sensed fresh prey. Gollum saw it, and sank into the bowels of the Earth with his pointed teeth all a chatter. He was muttering about pretty Poppinses as he went, but the great, eight-legged blackness didn't hear him. She was examining the new hole in the side of the cave, and wondering about the strange rhythms that she could feel in the earth beneath her feet. Strangers, but too far away now; and besides, she had an army of orcs to feed upon. The strangers could wait.
And far, far away, in a quiet and leafy suburb of Birmingham, Mary Poppins, Ronald and Hilary clambered back into their own world, and eyed the guilty drawing on its ink-smudged stand. Mary Poppins sighed.
"Honestly, Ronald. Most boys your age would have drawn a train."
"Yes, Mary Poppins."
"I should have a word with your guardian." She frowned at him, in a manner guaranteed to chasten. "But I think I can let it pass, since no harm was done. But Ronald?"
"Yes, Mary Poppins?"
"Perhaps we could do without the orcs in future, if you would be so kind?"
"Yes. Of course."
"Thank you." And with that - and with young Hilary at her heels - she strode off in search of tea. Left behind, Ronald took one last look at the picture, then folded it carefully up, and slipped it into the pocket of his shorts. He was not finished with it yet. He also had a suspicion, half hope and half fear, that it was by no means finished with him.
-------------------------
Note: In 1904, when JRR "Ronald" Tolkien was twelve, and his brother Hilary ten, their mother died, and they were sent to live with a guardian. It seemed a good time for Mary Poppins to arrive. My apologies to PL Travers for favouring the Disney version of her character, something that she would be very unlikely to forgive. I never could get along with the book though. I blame the lack of Dick van Dyke and dancing penguins. I must apologise to the Obscure & British event for the same reason!
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