# The Present Problem Molly stood in the parking lot of Chuck's Fun Palace, binoculars pressed to her eyes. Bill crouched behind a deflated bounce house, eating nachos. "So what's the intel?" Bill asked, cheese dripping down his chin. "It's a birthday party. Thirty kids. One hundred and twelve gifts according to the registry I found online." "That's ambitious even for us. Last time we stole from a children's event, you got stuck in a ball pit for forty-five minutes." Molly lowered the binoculars. "That was because you tied my ankles together. This time will be different. We go in, grab the presents, go out. Clean. Professional." "You know they're gonna have parents everywhere, right? Like actual supervising adults?" "Which is why we don't look suspicious," Molly said, pulling two oversized birthday invitation cards from her jacket. "We're Aunt Molly and Uncle Bill." Bill examined his invitation card. "My name's on here as 'Uncle Bill the Cool Guy.'" "The mother filled that out. I had to work with what she gave me." Bill stood up, brushing nacho dust off his cargo pants. "Okay, but where do we put a hundred and twelve gifts? My van only holds about sixty before the suspension starts complaining." "Multiple trips. We do recon, start stacking presents by the exit door, then load and leave." "What about the kids? Won't they notice their presents vanishing?" Molly grinned. "By the time the cake comes out, everyone will be distracted. That's our window. Also, I may have put extra sugar in the frosting when I volunteered to bake it." "You baked the cake? When did you do that?" "Last night. I also added food coloring to make it neon orange so it's extra stimulating and attention-grabbing. The children won't be able to look away." Bill nodded slowly. "That's evil. I like it. But what about security cameras?" "I disabled them this morning when I came to 'set up decorations.' The manager didn't even ask questions once I said it was for the parents to take photos without reflections." "You're like an evil genius, Molly." "Says the man eating nachos in a parking lot during an operation." Bill looked at his nachos, then at Molly. "These are really good nachos though." "Finish up. We go in through the back entrance at two o'clock. The party starts at two-fifteen. We have exactly twenty minutes before parents start arriving. I'll start loading gifts into the kitchen while you create a distraction." "What kind of distraction?" "I don't know, Bill. Do something Uncle Bill the Cool Guy would do." Bill stuffed the last nacho in his mouth and stood up. "I'm going to teach them to do the floss." Molly stared at him. "That's perfect and horrifying." They started walking toward the entrance, two amateur criminals about to rob a five-year-old's birthday party. It was their most ridiculous heist yet, which somehow meant it would probably work.