The blueprints of the suburban manor were spread across a wobbly card table in the back of a dusty storage unit. Bill traced a jagged fingernail along the path from the hedge to the conservatory, his brow furrowed in concentration. Molly, meanwhile, was trying to balance a pen on her nose, a feat she deemed more critical to the operation’s success. “Focus, Molly! This is a precision job,” Bill hissed, smacking the table. The pen clattered to the floor. “We have a ninety-second window between the magician’s second act and the serving of the jelly and ice cream. The parents will be distracted, their will to live sapped by the sheer volume of high-pitched screaming.” Molly sighed, retrieving her pen. “You’re overthinking it, Bill. It’s a five-year-old’s birthday party, not Fort Knox. The security guard is a teenager in an inflatable dinosaur costume who keeps getting stuck in the doorway. We could probably just walk in carrying a large cake and walk out with everything.” “A large cake? And where, pray tell, would we procure a cake large enough to conceal a dozen wrapped presents at a moment’s notice?” “I’d bake one,” Molly said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m a phenomenal baker. My lemon drizzle is legendary. It would be the perfect Trojan horse. They’d be so busy stuffing their faces with my delicious, free cake they wouldn’t notice us clearing out the entire ‘gift mountain’.” Bill stared at her, aghast. “Baking? You want to introduce a perishable, crumbly variable into a high-stakes infiltration? What if one of them has a nut allergy? The whole thing could come crashing down in a fog of epinephrine and parental panic! It’s an unacceptable risk.” “It’s better than your idea,” Molly shot back, pointing at the blueprint. “Crawling through the hedge? I just had this jacket dry-cleaned. It’s silk, Bill. Silk and thorns are ancient enemies.” “It’s a tactical crawl,” Bill insisted, his voice rising. “Minimal profile, maximum concealment. We crawl, we secure the presents, we crawl back. It’s elegant, it’s simple.” “It’s undignified,” Molly declared, picking up the blueprint and folding it into a crude paper aeroplane. She launched it. It nosedived immediately. “We go in loud. We go in proud. We go in with cake.” Bill watched the paper plane flutter to the ground. He pinched the bridge of his nose, a vein in his temple beginning to throb. “Fine,” he grumbled, defeated. “We can consider the cake. But it’s a Victoria sponge. No nuts, no citrus, no potential allergens. And we are not sharing a slice. That’s where I draw the line.”