Before him lay the finest sort of goblin feast: a pocketful of chanterelles in a bed of sweetfern. He drooled with delight, but he hesitated. It could be a trap. After all, who left feasts just sitting around, waiting for random goblins?

His stomach rumbled its displeasure. “Quiet, you.” He peeked under every leaf, checked beneath every stone, and even looked behind the farthest tree. Nothing and no one. He slurped up his drool. Well, maybe just one tiny nibble on the smallest of the chanterelles…

On the other side of a state-of-the-art, suspended blind, a grad student put his face in his hands. “No one’s ever going to believe this.”

A second one groaned. “Our careers are over.”

“Mom was right, I should’ve been a writer,” said a third. “Maybe there’s still time.”