When I Was Your Age
Giles picked up the plate of gingersnaps and offered it to his guest. "Biscuit?"
Jenny Calendar reached across the desk for one of the spicy rounds and eyed it critically. "It's a cookie, Rupert. You've been in California long enough to know the local lingo."
"Indeed. And you've been teaching high school long enough to know the--'local lingo', as you put it. Still, I don't hear you talking like a Valley girl."
She considered this briefly and shrugged. "Fer shure," she said, and bit into the biscuit with the enthusiasm of the young and slender.
As he considered possible responses to that, he heard the outer library door creep open. Odd. No one should be here at this time of day. He automatically checked that his favorite sword was within reach, then sipped his coffee and waited. It would not do to draw attention to himself by brandishing a weapon at, say, the principal.
It amused him to let the students think he had some preternatural librarian's sixth sense that warned him when someone approached the checkout counter, but in truth it was due to the precise angle at which he habitually kept his office door. At present, the reflection in its glass showed him Buffy and Willow sneaking along the near end of the counter and dropping to their knees behind it.
He suppressed a twinge of annoyance. They were good children--well, no, they weren't, really, but they were good-hearted--but no matter how curious they were, or how protective of him, he deserved something of a private life. And eavesdroppers deserved whatever they heard.
There was only one thing to do.
He picked up the coffee pot and refilled Jenny's cup, at the same time motioning quietly towards the door. She followed the line of sight, saw the girls, and nodded. "Now then," he said, "where was I? Oh, yes, the Krevloch demon. Nasty thing. Of course, it wasn't the demon that was the problem."
"What was the problem, then?" Jenny asked obligingly.
"Learning the hard way that when one conducts a banishment ritual, sky-clad atop the girls' dormitory in mid-December, one should first ascertain that no-one in the immediate vicinity is carrying a camera. I had to date a certain scrawny, pimply-faced freshman for two months to be sure I'd found and destroyed all the copies."
Jenny laughed, softly enough that Giles could hear the tiny yelp from behind the counter; that would be Willow. He refilled his own coffee and reached for the cream, listening for the whispering; that would be Buffy, asking Willow what 'sky-clad' meant. And next, there would be--
"Ew! Giles, naked? Pictures of naked Giles? Ew! Ew!"
He winked at Jenny, then rose quietly and took the two steps to the door. He poked his head around the door frame to see that Buffy had jumped up from her hiding place. Willow was trying to shush her and drag her back down. "Hello, girls," he said in his pleasantest librarian's voice. "Was I supposed to be helping you with something this afternoon?"
Buffy blanched. "No. N-no! We wanted to ask you about . . . that thing, but I have to go home now and wash my brain--my hair! My hair is yuck, and ew, and . . . hair." She grabbed Willow by the arm and fled the library, dragging the other girl behind her.
He rejoined Jenny at his desk, and they grinned at each other over their coffee. "It's good not to be that age any more, isn't it?" she remarked.
"Yes, it is," he replied. "Have another biscuit?"