Ding dong!
          Toby Myers jumped up from his seat by the window and ran to the door, hoping that his new video game had finally arrived. With a dramatic flourish, he threw open the door.
          “Thank you so mu —”
          There was no one there.
          Toby stuck his head out the door, scanning the street for unfamiliar cars or maybe a delivery truck.
          Nothing.
          He looked a little harder, frowning in confusion. But then . . . there. Perched solemnly on the old porch swing, barely ten feet away, sat a cardboard man. Toby stared at it, surprised. He shook his head firmly and looked again. It was still there. Just as he began to shake his head again, the cardboard man moved. Toby froze, frightened by the impossibility of it all. The cardboard man took a wobbly step toward Toby.
          “Who’s at the door?” called Toby’s mom suddenly.
          “No one’s there,” Toby said quickly, glancing back at the door.
          He turned back to the moving cardboard man, expecting it to be standing before him. But . . .
          Toby blinked. He blinked again. It was gone. The cardboard man had vanished, as if into thin air. Toby walked over to the porch swing and looked at it. And then under it. And then above it. And then everywhere around it. He even searched in places that were clearly much too small for any self-respecting cardboard man to squash himself into. After hunting for a good five minutes, Toby poked a stick between the floorboards, then straightened up. It was probably just my imagination, he decided. Or maybe the light playing tricks on me. Shaking off the lingering sensation that someone — or something — was watching him, he went back inside to await his video game.
          And from behind a tree, the cardboard man watched Toby and smiled.