Clang! Bump! Clang!

Stanford "Ford" Pines looked up from his journal and toward the front door. He had a sneaking suspicion what was making the noises on the front porch, but he waited for the front door to open to be sure.

A second later the door flew open, and Ford's identical twin brother came through, pulling a small red wagon behind him with three bags of groceries in it. Ford wondered how many of the items had spilled out of the bags and onto the porch after all of the clanging and banging he had heard.

"Stan," Ford said, looking down at the wagon. "Be careful with that. I don't want Fiddleford to have to fix it again. "

"What?" his brother Stanley said, going out the door and coming back in with a loaf of bread that had, indeed, bounced out onto the porch. "It's solid. The kid did a good job—and don't make it sound like I've broken it a zillion times, it was broken when he had me bring it home."

Ford just rolled his eyes.

Stan picked up one of the bags, brought it to the counter by the stove, and looked around. "Where is the kid, anyhow? "

Stan's twin brother put his pen down. "Fiddleford is in the darkroom," he said, speaking of "the kid" (aka the twins' only-a-year-younger-but-smaller house-mate. "He collected the cameras from the forest earlier and is developing the pictures. "

Stan's Crayola-crayon brown eyes looked toward the hallway. "Oh, yeah—forgot you had a dark room in this house—anything else in this house you want to tell me about? "

Ford returned his gaze to the journal on the table. "Well, there is that cage with the huge monster that I captured last night—I thought you might want to practice your boxing moves with it or something. "

Stan's head whipped around in his brother's direction, but as soon as he saw the corners of Ford's mouth twitch, trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile, he bopped his brother on the head with his fist.

"Not funny." He grumbled when Ford looked up at him with a full grin. "I don't ever want to hear about you or the kid going out into that forest hunting for monsters without me – got that? "

"Yes, Dad." His brother answered, though Ford was glad for Stan's protective streak.

Stan rolled his eyes. "Seriously, Ford, if either you or Fidds got hurt—"

"Got hurt? " came a voice with a thick southern accent.

Both of the twins looked to see their tiny housemate at the front of the hall. At twenty-one, Fiddleford McGucket was a very slightly built, maybe-ninety-five-pounds-soaking-wet five foot seven.

"Who got hurt?" the young man asked, his cyan-blue eyes looking over his thick spectacles from one twin to the other. "Stan, are you all right? Did y' run into somethin' out there? "

Stan smirked and nodded, going over and tousling his small friend's thick mop of hair. "Yeah, I'm okay, kid. I was just tellin' Ford that I don't want to catch you or him goin' out monster huntin' without me. Both of you need protecting. "

Fiddleford shivered and shook his head. "Personally I'd just as soon not meet any monsters on accident, much less go huntin' for 'em. "

Ford smiled and shook his head. "Fiddleford, was there anything on the cameras this time? "

The young man bit his lower lip. "Well—the camera caught somethin'—though, just parts. The photos are dryin' now. "

Stan and Ford glanced at each other, then back at Fiddleford. "What do the parts look like?"

Their friend pursed his lips and looked at the celling. "Well—whatever kind of critter it was, it was—green, an' looked as though it had—fungus growin' on it. There were—hairs growin' here and there, too. "

"Green?" Stan repeated.

"Hair and fungus? "Ford chimed in, looking intrigued.

"Th-there were great big eyes, too—with no pupils—in another of the pictures. " Fiddleford said, visibly shivering.

"Hm. Please show us the photos when they're dry, won't you, Fiddleford?" Ford asked.

"Yeah, and whatever that thing is—don't you nerds go out there lookin' for it on your own."

"Don't you worry about that, Stan," Fiddleford said with another shiver. "-and Ford, I'll certainly bring those photos out just as soon as they dry. "

Stan looked at his small friend a bit sympathetically. "Hey, Fidds, don't worry. You did just fine with those tree guys. "

Fiddleford looked at the floor and sighed. "Stan, I was scared out of my mind until I found out they were friendly."

Ford looked down at the picture he had been drawing in his journal with help from Fiddleford's description and what he'd seen himself. Not long before that day, Fiddleford and the twins had "met" a giant tree-like creature, which, at least they thought at first, had captured Fiddleford. As it turned out, the creature, part of a race called the Gohlen, took him to a council of the creatures. There, the young man was told he'd been chosen to plant and care for two orbs that turned out to be seeds from which more of their kind would grow.

Fiddleford looked back up at the twins. "Besides," he said, "I'm pretty sure that not everything out in those woods will turn out to be friendly. "

Stan shook his head. "It's okay, kid." He said, slapping a hand down on Fiddleford's shoulder and making the younger man wince, "Whatever we might run into out there, if it's not friendly, you an' Ford've got me to protect ya. "