The alarm wasn't supposed to go off yet, and yet there it was: an incessant, roiled-up bleat of distress begging for immediate relief from the turmoil within the house.

Mark and Diana stared blankly at each other in mute confusion for a few moments. It took Mark a full half-minute to grasp his senses and turn off the car's running engine. Diana shut her gaping jaw only after she faced the house, where the blaring was coming from. There didn't seem to be any words capable of evincing her shock until her husband found the only necessary explanation.

"Maybe it's broken?"

This seemed the only sensible conclusion, although it entailed the possible belief that the store clerk had either lied to them about the alarm's reliability or had simply been mistaken. Diana grimaced at the wasted money and closed the car door as she stepped out of it. Both figures emitted abstract confusion as they bumbled their way back up to the garage's side door.

Mark opened the side door halfway, hesitating as he did it; in a way, neither he nor his wife were entirely sure they wanted to know the cause of their alarm's premature eruption.  It had been a strange set of weeks for both of them, and neither of them was entirely ready or willing to get external forces involved. The whole fiasco had begun when Mark woke up 3 weeks ago to find his shoes nailed to the roof directly above his bed, without a trail of foreign footsteps to be seen anywhere in the house to denote any local responsible pranksters. Diana also began finding her clothes in the deep inner recesses of the garbage bin, seemingly buried there by possibly the same culprit. As tools, kitchen utensils, family jewels, and other items began showing up in odd and random places (the microwave was found buried in the backyard) or otherwise missing entirely, Mark and Diana began investigating their neighbors, scouring every eye in the vicinity for signs of rambunctious rascality.

 "Think, Diana. We've knocked on every door in this neighborhood ever since we first moved here 2 years ago and haven't found anyone younger than us. Who do you think has the energy to run in and out of our house in the short time it took to install the alarm just an hour ago?"

Diana stood confused for a moment and then finally grew frustrated. "Well, we're never going to know just standing here and thinking about who did it!!" With this exclamation, she turned the knob herself and kicked the door wide open. "We're here, whoever you are, and wherever you're hiding! The jig is up; the fun stops now!" she boldly announced as she stepped into the garage. Mark followed after, his eyes adjusting to the dark.

But there was no one to be seen. No shamefaced figures stood in their presence, no thieves cowered in wait in the corner, no specters floated above them in grinning deviltry. Further investigation of the rest of their house revealed the same disappointments, and there seemed to be no other answer than to return the alarm to the store.

Until they opened the kitchen cupboards. Diana called to her husband in fright (who was busily scouring the shower drains for anything caught in there) and brought added witness to the sight within. Oatmeal lay in identifiable patterns, although it wasn't clear initially what these patterns were. Then Mark gasped; they were letters.

“V-I-V-L-A-R-V-O-L-S-H-U…. huh?” Mark turned to his wife.

Diane reread the letters, but she wasn't any more successful. "They're definite letters, but I can't see what the words are, either."

"Do you think maybe it's not just one word, but two or even three?"

"That's possible, but I think more likely it's not English."

This was a thought, although neither of the two was bilingual. However, if their neighbors could be trusted to be honest, it would help whittle down the suspect list.

A knock resounded at the front door. For the second time that morning, both Mark and Diana went into paralysis, and they grabbed each other's hand in desperate unity against the unknown phantom.

"Hello, Diana. Is everything alright?" came the call from the front door. "I heard an alarm. Is everything okay with you two?"

Diana sighed in relief. "oh come, Mark, it's only Margie from the 7-11 close by!"

"Diana, wait!!!!" Mark grabbed his wife's wrists and held her back. "Don't you see??!! It could be her!"

Diana pulled herself away from Mark's grasp, but her face emitted a complete understanding of the situation. She clambered to the door and opened it. Margie stood there, her hair strewn with sweat and jeans bearing a slight tear on the right ankle. Diane eyed her with obvious suspicion.

"Are you folks alright? We heard the alarm clear across to the grocers, and the manager gave me leave to follow up with you. What's the matter? Are you hurt? Was there a break-in? Where's the fire?"

For a moment, Diana was tempted to let her guard down, but she could feel Mark approaching with growing intimidation behind her. "No, Margie, there's been something far worse."

"Well, dear, don't keep us in suspense, what is it? What's happened?"

"You know very well what's happened, you old bat!" Mark growled in retaliation from behind his wife. You and the whole neighborhood are all in cahoots!"

Margie stood flustered, her glances shot back and forth between the two figures. When she saw they were in earnest, she retorted shakily, "Well, I didn't know it would be YOU TWO who would be on fire this fine morning!"

"How many languages can you speak?" This was from Diana.

"Two, why?" Margie had become defensive; she was contemplating running away.

"We've got a message upstairs we want you to read," this from Mark.

The already fragile Margie looked faint, but she acquiesced to their request. Stepping inside, she stopped in mute shock and promptly ran as fast as her plump little limbs could carry her back out the door and across the lawn.

"Now, what do you suppose caused that?" Diana looked in consternation at Margie running away.

"I'm not sure; I think you were a little too rough on her."

"Just what on Earth are you talking about?" Diana was clearly not a little irritated. "I wasn't the one who called her an old bat! Margie's one of the friendliest people we know. Just look at the way you treated her!"

"You think she might have been our primary suspect?" Mark put his hands on his hips.

"Are you kidding, man??!?? Just look at the old bird!" Diana pointed out the door. It was true; the figure of Margie had still yet to clear its way across the short 30-meter lawn. When she tripped head-first into the grass, she whimpered into the dirt and picked herself up with a moaning effort that would have drawn sympathy from any casual bystander. "You think that old woman has it in her to make it in and out of our house in time to write cryptic messages in our kitchen cupboards?"

Mark stared silently for a time at the gradually receding fat form and then offered his back in response. Diana sighed and followed him as they plodded together to the scene of the recent crime. The cupboard's contents revealed another surprise, however…the oatmeal letters were gone.  

"What in blazes…?" Mark shook his head and angrily faced his wife. Who do you suppose has been sneaking in and out of our upstairs in that 5 minutes?"

Diana shrugged her shoulders. "It wasn't Margie, Mark."

"Yeah, well, I'd like to know just who it was. This is beginning to get creepy. What's the point of buying an alarm if it can't even tell you where your house-breakers are hiding?" Then he turned somber, although his voice had a touch of irony. "Do you believe in ghosts, Diana?"

Diana was briefly tempted to roll her eyes, but instead, she chuckled. "What, ghosts that glue your underwear to the shower tiles? Or bury the microwave in the backyard?"

Mark smiled for the first time the whole morning. "Or scribble in lipstick all over the pancake mix?"

"Or leave a stray cat in our oven?"

"Or saw half the legs off the bar stools in the living room?"

"Or make off entirely with your French grammar book!" Diana was enjoying herself now. "Just think, a ghost obsessed with reading! Or what about the time…"

"Stop, Diana!" Mark's eyes spun as widely as chrome plates, and his mind was clearly screaming ahead in its own dazzling world of epiphanies. He pondered silently for a few more moments. Finally, he analyzed his wife again. "What did those letters in the cupboard say again?"

"Well, they didn't look like they were saying anything," Diana offered. "Unless it wasn't English."

That's just it, Diana!!" Mark's eyes were tinged like a frightened animal, and he appeared liable to become violent. "I think I know which language it was. Remember 3 years ago when my company was considering moving to France? Remember when my manager made a big deal about all of us having to learn French??"

Diana didn't need any further remembering; by this point, she had put two and two together and, along with her husband, was mentally calculating the full implications of a French terrorist bent on pestering their tranquil existence. "But…but…but… why would someone want to learn French just to mess with us?"

"And how could they sneak in and out so quickly?"

"Something bothers me about all this, though, Mark." Diana put her fingers to her cheek and peered into the void of her husband's befuddlement. Neither of us understands much French, but that oatmeal sentence in the cupboard didn't look much like any French sentence I know. Did you get any sense out of it?"        

Mark shook his head slowly. "no."

This said, there seemed nothing further to be deduced from this recent clue. Mark contemplated returning to the bookstore and buying another French Grammar book. Still, for the moment, it seemed the most sensible option to dedicate the remaining hours of the day to scouring their premises for footprints, trinkets, specks of mud, and anything at all that might reveal some further sign of the mysterious perpetrator. But as the hours dwindled and the sky began to cast its somber curtain of dusky disappointments, the increasingly vexed couple resigned themselves to an early bedtime, hoping that morning would bring recuperation with it as well as deeper percipience. 

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