Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ09QP1SCS6HPSJWWKFKJ5MH

Molly spread the napkin-sized blueprint across the table, weighting the corners with salt shakers and a half-eaten scone. The venue: Rainbow Fun Zone, Saturday at 2pm. Target: forty-seven wrapped gifts, estimated value of roughly twelve dollars each, mostly consisting of slime kits and toy dinosaurs. Bill studied the layout with the intensity of a man defusing a bomb. "We need disguises," he said. Molly rolled her eyes. Already handled. She produced two oversized birthday hats and a bag of balloon animals she'd been practicing on for weeks. They looked less like animals and more like abstract suffering. The plan was elegant in its simplicity. They would arrive dressed as party entertainers, set up near the gift table, and slowly shuttle presents to their van during the magic show. No one ever watched the gift table during a magic show. Everyone's eyes were on the guy pulling scarves from his sleeves and pretending to saw a child in half. Bill frowned at a balloon poodle. "This looks like a swan having a stroke." "Trust the process," Molly said. The beauty of it was that nobody suspects the clown. They would walk in with smiles painted on their faces, perform for an hour, and leave with forty-seven presents crammed into a van with a bumper sticker that read "Honk if you love birthdays." It was the perfect crime. Mostly.