Now he had always been a very studious chomp growing up. A straight-A, front-bencher chomp that always listened to his mother. Thinking of his mother and the connected thought of her passing brought a tear to his eye, but it reinforced his resolve as well.

One of the things he had learnt about in Cakeology 101 was that plum cakes were an especially flighty species. The merest hint or suspicion of a hungry chomp in the vicinity would send them flying like a herd of deer alerted to the approach of a tiger.

Fortunately, he had also read Tsan Poo's "The Art Of Chomp". A passage from the ancient tome came to mind as he surveyed the plum cakes - "Pretend to be your enemy, and your enemy shall jiggle onto your dessert plate." Wise words indeed.

He raised his binoculars again - the plum cakes had begun an intricate dance. There were ten of them, and they had had their fill of whipped cream. Each cake, which was roughly cylindrical, began to rotate about its axis - slowly at first, and then speeding up. When they sped up, they formed a circle, and revolved around its center point. They would revolve like this for a bit, and then slow down, at which point of time the circle would break. The chomp had read about this dance - it was the Dance Of The Sugar Plum Cake. He knew what to do now.

He dunked his head in some of the fluffy cream on the ground, so that his head was covered in a uniform sheen of the stuff. The plum cakes would think he was wearing cake icing and mistake him for a fellow cake.

Then he rose from his hiding place, and began to rotate in place.

The game was finally afoot.