Molly squinted through the binoculars at the bouncy castle in the backyard. "Target confirmed. Approximately twenty-seven presents on the gift table. Three more just arrived." "This is insane," Bill muttered, adjusting his tactical vest—the one he'd bought for paintball that he insisted made him look professional. "We're really doing this? Stealing from eight-year-olds?" "Seven-year-olds. It's Madison's seventh birthday, keep up." Molly lowered the binoculars and pulled out a crumpled diagram of the Peterson house. She'd drawn it on a napkin from Denny's, complete with ketchup stains. "Look, we've been over this. My nephew Tyler is in that class, and his mom spent two hundred dollars on some limited-edition robot dinosaur thing. You know what I got for my seventh birthday? A used bicycle with one pedal." Bill scratched his head, dislodging the black ski mask he'd rolled up to look like a beanie. "Still feels wrong. What if we get caught? I don't want 'Birthday Bandit' on my rap sheet." "You don't have a rap sheet. You got a warning for jaywalking once." "It goes on your permanent record!" Molly checked her watch—a cheap digital thing that beeped every hour no matter how many buttons she pressed. "Party ends at four. Parents start picking up kids at three-forty-five. That gives us a fifteen-minute window while Mrs. Peterson runs around returning children and Mr. Peterson hides in his garage pretending to clean it." "How do you know he'll be in the garage?" "Tyler's mom's Facebook. She complains about it constantly." Molly pointed to the side gate. "We go through there, around the bounce house—" "What if kids are still bouncing?" "Then we wait, obviously. I'm not a monster. Once they're distracted by cake, we make our move. In and out, three minutes tops." Bill pulled out his phone and started typing. "Should I disable their security system? I've been watching YouTube tutorials." "They don't have one. Just that fake ADT sign out front." Molly grabbed his phone. "And stop Googling 'how to do crimes' on your regular phone!" From across the street came the unmistakable chaos of twenty sugar-fueled children screaming Happy Birthday off-key. Molly grinned. "That's our cue. Cake time." They crept toward the gate, Bill's tactical vest jingling with every step from the carabiners he'd attached "for utility." As they reached the fence, a small voice piped up behind them. "Whatcha doing?" They spun around to find a gap-toothed kid holding a juice box, purple mustache prominent on his face. "We're... clowns!" Molly blurted. "Surprise clowns. For the party." The kid's eyes narrowed. "You don't look like clowns." "That's what makes it a surprise," Bill added weakly. The kid took a long, contemplative sip of juice. "I don't like clowns." "Nobody does," Molly agreed. "That's why we're stealing— I mean, surprising everyone with our presence very briefly and then leaving immediately." The kid shrugged and wandered back toward the party, already bored. Bill exhaled shakily. "Maybe we should just buy Tyler a present like normal people." "Where's the fun in that?" Molly was already climbing the fence.