The van smelled of stale crisps and desperation. Molly tapped a manicured fingernail on the blueprint spread across the dashboard, a crudely drawn map of a suburban backyard. “Alright, Bill. From the top.” Bill lowered his binoculars, a greasy smudge on the eyepiece. “We wait for the magician to pull the rabbit out of the hat.” “No. We wait for the *lull* after the magician. The post-magic sugar-crash. Syncs up perfectly with the arrival of the sheet cake. That’s our window.” Molly’s voice was a low, urgent whisper. “Right. The cake lull.” A dreamy look crossed Bill’s face. “Do you think it’s funfetti? I’m feeling a real funfetti vibe from this operation.” “Focus,” she snapped. “I go in through the unlocked laundry room door. You create the diversion. What’s the diversion?” Bill fumbled with a bag at his feet, producing a single, sad-looking water balloon. “The… aquatic disturbance?” “The aquatic disturbance,” Molly confirmed, though a vein throbbed in her temple. “You target the patio umbrella. Not the children, not the clown making balloon animals, and definitely not the dad at the grill. Just the umbrella. It creates a sudden splash, a moment of confusion.” “Got it. Splash the big mushroom. Then I sneak over to the present table and…” “No! Then you get back to the van! I handle the extraction. The presents are the objective, not a buffet.” She pointed a trembling finger at a large, inflatable monstrosity dominating the lawn. “See that? That’s Asset Denial Zone Alpha.” “You’ve… you’ve codenamed the bouncy castle?” “It’s a high-risk variable, Bill. It’s teeming with tiny, shrieking sentinels. One wrong move and we’re bogged down in a sea of primary-colored vinyl and existential despair.” “They’re just kids, Mol.” “They’re witnesses. Sticky, cake-fueled witnesses who can give a perfect description of the man who smells faintly of ham who popped their bouncy castle with a stray water balloon.” A tiny siren wailed in the distance. Bill flinched. Molly didn’t even blink. “We go in, we get the loot, we go out. Clean. No one even knows we’re here until little Brayden-Jaxxon has his present-opening meltdown.” “Brayden-Jaxxon. It just sounds… expensive.” “It is. Now, synchronize watches.” Bill proudly held up his wrist, revealing a watch with a smiling cartoon shark on its face. “The battery died last Tuesday. But the shark is still smiling.” Molly squeezed the bridge of her nose, inhaling sharply. “Of course it is, Bill. Of course it is.”