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----Old King Cole and Mistress Mary


“There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise;
He jumped into a brier bush,
And scratched out both his eyes;
And when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main
He jumped into another bush,
And scratched 'em in again.”

Cody and William sat, swinging their five-year-old feet back and forth in subconscious unison upon the stone sarcophagus.

“Another!” They said simultaneously.

Spike sat in his easy chair sharpening a grungy-looking battle-axe. He sighed and did his best to remember his childhood. Considering that it was over a hundred years ago, he didn’t think he was doing too badly.

“Lemme see...ah:

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye;
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie;

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Was not that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting-house
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour
Eating bread and honey;

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes,
When along came blackbird
And pecked off her nose.”

The boys laughed. Cody pulled his legs up and sat cross-legged.

Suddenly some violent-sounding noises floated through the door from the graveyard outside. Something yelled and then the unmistakeable sound of a vampire dusting drifted to the the patrons inside.

Spike grinned at the boys, who were looking at the door with identical looks of curiosity and slight worry on their faces.

“Mommy’s back,” Spike announced.

There was a bang as a flushed Buffy kicked open the door, her hair a little flyaway from patrol. She kicked it closed again before going and flopping into Spike’s other chair. Eyeing the knife in Spike’s hands, she said:

“You know...children really shouldn’t play with dead things. What have you three been doing?”

“The usual Slayer, teaching them the Big Bad’s ways of chaos and destruction...you know the drill.”

“Spike was--” Cody started.

“Telling us--” William continued.

“Muver goose,” they ended together.

“Ruining my image, boys,” Spike said balefully.

“Nursery rhymes, Spike?”

“That’s right Mistress Mary. Some of us had educated childhoods.”

“Mistress Mary?”

Suddenly the twins started up a gleeful chorus of:

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With cockle-shells and silver bells,
And pretty maids all in a row.”

Buffy rolled her eyes.





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