"Where are they? Persephone, have you seen the Twins?" The Merovingian shouted to Perse as she walked down the hall in front of him. She shook her head and watched as the Mero stormed by her, nearly shoving her into the wall.
"Well, excuse me for breathing!" She huffed before going the same way as her husband.
In the bedroom, the Merovingian violently pulled open the closet door, nearly succeeding in ripping it totally off its hinges. Getting down on hands and knees, he picked up every pair of his shoes and looked them over for whatever possible mishap the Twins could have done to them. One by one he searched them over inside and out, but found nothing. He tossed them over his shoulder then moved on to the next pair. Grabbing a pair of Persephone's shoes by mistake, he tossed them over his shoulder too without bothering to examine them.
"What are you doing!"
The Merovingian's head jerked up to see Persephone standing in the middle of the room.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." He said, turning back around to his shoes and pushing a coat out of the way of dangling on his head.
"Try me."
"You don't want to know, dear, trust me."
"I come into the bedroom to find my husband frantically rummaging through the closet and tossing shoes everywhere like he's gone mad and you tell me I don't want to know. Please, tell me what in the world you're up to!"
"It's those Twins again. We were playing a game of Clue," The Mero stopped and searched a shoe over before tossing it past Perse. "And I found out that they have done something to a pair of my shoes!"
"They told you they did something to your shoes during a game of Clue?" A look of worry and concern swept across Persephone's face as she continued to watch the Merovingian toss shoes around. "What did they do? Stab them with the dagger in the billiard room?"
The Merovingian didn't answer but continued to search every shoe over, sometimes twice.
"I worry about you sometimes, I really do." Perse mumbled before turning to lay some clothes on the bed.
The Mero didn't hear what his wife had said to him
"All of these shoes look fine to me." Perse continued, rolling a shoe over on its side with the tip of her shoe. "Are you sure they weren't playing with you?"
"They sounded serious!" The Mero looked up at his wife. "Although it is hard to know what to believe from those two sometimes."
"Where are they now?"
"That's what I asked you a few minutes ago." The Mero stood up and gazed at Perse. "They ran out of the room the second after they mentioned my shoes and I haven't seen them since then."
"We'd better go find them!" Perse ran toward the bedroom door with the Mero close behind her.
Unknown to the Merovingian and Persephone, the Twins had run off into a small neighborhood just outside of the city, where they entertained themselves by running down the sidewalk and irritating people's dogs.
Both of them soon came to a stop and breathed.
"Now what?" Two gasped for air.
"You want to really have some fun?" One smiled.
"Like what?"
"Like ringing doorbells!"
Two searched his brother's face over for a good few minutes before smiling.
"You see, we run up to a house, ring the doorbell then phase before they come to the door."
"That would be fun!" Two grinned and laughed. "But how do we reach the doorbell? We're too short."
"We can use a stick or we can lift each other up." One took off running. "C'mon! Let's go!"
Together, One and Two raced down the sidewalk until they came to the first house. They grabbed up a long tree limb then used it to ring the doorbell with. Before whoever it was that lived there came to the door, the Twins phased into their ghost forms and sunk down into the ground and came up in another area where they could watch the face of the individual but not be seen. They laughed and giggled at the reaction the 'human' made when he found no one at the door. The Twins continued doing this to each house along the way, each time getting a kick and enjoyment out of the expressions and reactions each person made when they opened their front doors to find no one there.
Back at the chateau, it was several hours before the Merovingian finally gave up searching for whatever the Twins had said about his shoes. He was at his desk, mumbling something in French to himself when one of the butlers knocked and entered the room.
"What is it?" The Mero gruffly greeted the butler.
"There seems to be some commotion in a neighborhood not far from here."
"So?"
"It involves the Twins, sir."
The Merovingian's eyes widened.
"What have they done now?"
"It appears that they are running loose, ringing people's doorbells and disappearing."
Before the butler had a chance to say anything else, the Merovingian had already run past him and out into the hall. He ran all the way to the parking garage and jumped into the first car that was nearest him and sped off toward the city. It wasn't too long before he caught sight of the Twins running through one of the yards of the nearby neighborhood, their silver dreadlocked hair glistening in the sun's light. Before the car even came to a stop, the Merovingian jumped out and took off running behind the Twins.
"Hey! Stop right there!" he shouted. It was no use though, the Twins caught sight of who was chasing them and disappeared into the ground to who knows where. The Mero quickly searched the yards around him for any signs of the Twins appearing again. Suddenly he heard a woman's scream come from the backyard of one of the houses.
"Ghost! Ghost!" he heard the frantic woman's voice shout. After finding where it was coming from, the Merovingian ran in the direction of the screaming and swung open a gate leading into a quaint backyard that was surrounded by a white fence. As he made his way around the edge of the house he could now hear familiar crying along with the woman's screams of terror. What met the Mero's eyes next was the Twins sitting on the patio, crying and bawling while a terror-stricken elderly woman held a broom over her head, about to pound the Twins again if they so much as moved toward her. It was obvious that the woman, out of fear, had given the poor Twins a good whack with her broom the moment they phased into solid form.
"Stop!" the Mero rushed between the Twins and the woman. "Don't hit them. I can explain."
"Who are you?" the woman nervously asked, slowly easing her broom down and adjusting her spectacles to focus the man in front of her.
"I'm the," The Mero glanced behind him at the small children. "I'm the boys' father. These kids didn't mean you any harm."
"But I saw them! They're ghosts! They were hideous monsters before they became kids."
"Nonsense! Everyone knows there's no such thing as a ghost. You were probably just seeing things because they ran into your yard so fast and nearly knocked you down. Probably a sign you've been out in the sun for too long."
"I guess you're right." The woman glanced at the Twins.
"Besides, why would I be the father of a couple of ghosts? That's silly." The Mero forced himself to laugh.
"It is, isn't it?" The woman started to laugh too. "Sorry about hitting the little darlings with my broom. They just took me by surprise and nearly scared the wits out of me. Hope they aren't hurt."
"Nah, I don't think they're hurt." The Mero turned back around. His eyes widened at seeing the Twins gone. Both he and the woman looked around for them but the Twins were nowhere to be seen.
"Gotta go!" the Mero shouted as he ran off to find the Twins again.
"Be careful!" the woman shouted after him.
The Merovingian spotted the Twins, again, ringing someone's doorbell. Before he could catch them they phased and disappeared. The Mero sighed and turned toward the house that was a few feet away from where he had stopped. He braced himself and pressed the doorbell. He would have to apologize to whoever it was even though he didn't feel up to it. A woman came to the front door only a few minutes after he rung. She was sweaty, tired looking, and wore some old jeans and a loose fitting top. Apparently she had been spending the day cleaning the house.
"Are you the one going around ringing doorbells?" The woman burst out in anger at the Merovingian. He opened his mouth to say something, but the woman continued on. "You should be ashamed of yourself! A grown man going around playing annoying childish pranks like that! It's a disgrace, that's what it is! I spend my whole day cleaning the house, watching that the children don't cram something down the toilet or in the oven, I've put up with dogs barking, and here you have the nerve to come and ring my doorbell for nothing!"
Before turning to leave, the woman reached out and slapped the Mero across the face then slammed the door.
The Merovingian could hear familiar giggling from behind him. He didn't have to turn around to see who it was. He already knew.
"I suppose you think zis is funny?" he said, slowly turning to eye the Twins.
Both Twins smiled together then continued giggling.
The Merovingian took off running and jumped off the porch in hopes of catching the Twins before they could escape his grasp again. The man landed stomach down on the ground and succeeded in catching the Twins by the coattails just as they started to run off, knocking them to the ground with him.
"Gotcha!" he said in victory. "Now, you are coming home with me and I don't want any arguments about it!"
The Twins burst out crying as if the Merovingian had done some horrible thing to them.
"You can cry and scream all you want, but I'm not falling for it."
The Twins sniveled and looked up into the Mero's face as he dragged them along by their silver coats and opened the car's door. With some difficulty, the Mero managed to get the troublesome twins into the backseat.
"Now you two had better not phase and get out if you know what's good for you! I am about sick of all zees shenanigans!"
"What's that?" both twins said together.
"What's what?"
"Shinagins."
"Shenanigans. It means reckless behavior. What you two have been doing now for about two weeks!"
The Merovingian slammed the car door shut and proceeded to walk around to the driver's side.
