Run: 2026-03-06-01KK1GEPCW4A1KYM2G557QJ157

Molly unfolded the hand-drawn map across the greasy café table and pinned the corners with salt shakers, a sugar jar, and Bill’s untouched sausage roll. Outside, rain glazed the pavement in a shine fit for dignified criminals and very slippery clowns. Inside, the radio muttered about traffic, which Molly considered a personal insult. She tapped the paper where she had sketched a bouncy castle, a magician, and a rectangle labeled PRESENT MOUNTAIN in furious capitals. “It’s not a burglary,” Bill said, peering over his tea as if trying to steam up his conscience. “It’s a children’s party.” “It’s a target-rich environment,” Molly replied. “Balloons, masks, noise, weak perimeter discipline. Frankly, they’re begging to be robbed.” Bill looked uncertainly at the map. Molly had drawn arrows for ingress and egress, a stick figure clown with Xs for eyes, and a dotted line marked emergency cake route. Her planning was always equal parts military operation and personal vendetta against whimsy. “There’ll be parents,” he said. “There are always civilians. The trick is to make them feel responsible for ignoring you.” “I’m not wearing a balloon animal.” “You’re not wearing one,” said Molly. “You’re carrying twelve. Camouflage.” Bill groaned and tore off a piece of sausage roll with the air of a man eating his last lawful meal. Molly leaned back and surveyed the café. Pensioners, a delivery driver, one teenager asleep in a booth. Nobody looked remotely capable of stealing a pile of wrapped toys from under the nose of a professional face painter. It filled her with confidence. The job, as she saw it, was elegant. The party was being held in the church hall on Celandine Street for a six-year-old named Arthur, whose parents had made the fatal error of posting every detail online. Start time, entertainer schedule, theme—pirates, depressingly—and a photograph of the gift table by the windows, groaning under enough brightly wrapped loot to finance Molly and Bill for a month, assuming they sold quickly and didn’t ask questions about why every item involved dinosaurs. “What’s phase one?” Bill asked. “Entry,” said Molly. “You go in as Balloon Bill.” “My real name is Bill.” “Exactly. Destiny. I enter three minutes later as the aunt nobody remembers.” “They’ll remember not inviting you.” Molly smiled thinly. “No family on earth can identify all aunts under pressure.” Bill drank his tea and flinched, having forgotten it was hot. “And phase two?” “Diversion. At 15:20, the magician begins. Every eye turns toward a man pulling scarves from his sleeves like a nervous laundry basket. While the children scream at a rabbit, I move to the present table.” “And me?” “You drift. You’re excellent at looking as though you belong somewhere temporarily.” “That is the saddest compliment I’ve ever had.” “It’s still a compliment.” A waitress arrived and slid over the bill. Bill reached for it automatically, and Molly slapped his hand away. “Operational funds,” she said, paying in coins and a foreign button. “Now, extraction. We use the side door by the kitchen. I’ve checked the bins; one wheelie bin, two recycling crates, no dog.” “No dog is good.” “No dog is amateur hour. Rich people rent ponies and neglect the dog. Stay alert.” Bill stared again at the map, then lowered his voice. “What if the birthday child sees us taking them?” Molly paused. Even she had standards, though they were tucked so far back they needed dusting. “Then we improvise. Cry, probably. Adults never challenge a crying woman in a cardigan.” “You own a cardigan?” “I own disguises, Bill. I’m not a savage.” Rain rattled the window harder. Molly folded the map with ceremonial precision and slipped it into her handbag between a torch, lock picks, and an emergency party hat. Bill put on his cap, which made him look less like a thief and more like a man sent to mend a radiator. “One last concern,” he said as they stood. “What if the presents are rubbish?” Molly considered this with professional gravity. “Then,” she said, “we leave them with the children. We’re thieves, not monsters.”