The Great Gingerbread Caper
It was a cold winter night and I had just settled infor a good night’s sleep. At one in the morning the phone rang.
“Hello,” I answered groggily. “Yes, this is the alarm company. We have an alarm in the kitchen at the Callaway house.” “Okay, security will respond right away.” However, upon arriving at the scene, nothing was out of place and everything was secure. “It must have been a false alarm,” thought the guard. “You know that happens sometimes; I see nothing unusual. I’ll let the director know all is safe.”
Then at three in the morning the phone rang again. “Hello?” My mood was not improving. “This is the alarm company. We have another alarm in the kitchen, butler’s pantry and back hall at the Callaway house.” “Okay, we’ll be right there. It sounds like something is up.”
I arrived at the house with two security guards and two policemen in tow and proceeded to investigate. Nothing again. “Must be a technical issue,” offered one of the police. But ‘lo and behold,’ upon looking around the kitchen I noticed gingerbread men on the counter and some crumbs on the floor. Admittedly, my first thought was that these were accidentally left from post-Christmas clean-up. That is, until I noticed a gingerbread leg on the floor with no body. Things were getting stranger. Then sticking out from under the stove we noticed a half-eaten gingerbread man.
We had found the evidence! Our intruder must have been a small mouse that had taken refuge from the cold, discovered the leftover gingerbread men and had a snack. We had a gingerbread caper indeed, that had set off our alarm system and put all security on alert!
