Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPWBXGQV8ASM39Q50B1CR6

Molly spread the napkin across the diner table and smoothed it flat with the side of her hand. "Here's the house," she said, drawing a lopsided square. "Here's the bouncy castle. Here's the presents." Bill leaned in. "Why's the bouncy castle bigger than the house?" "It's not to scale." "Nothing you draw is to scale. Last time you drew a bank and I thought it was a boat." "It was a boat, Bill. The money was on a boat." "Then why'd you draw a chimney on it?" Molly stabbed the napkin with her pen. "Focus. The party starts at two. Twenty-eight children, one clown, two hired parents—" "Hired parents?" "They're not the real parents, they're the ones who bring the extra folding chairs and pretend to like everybody. They leave by three." Bill sat back and folded his arms. "I want it on record that I have concerns." "You always have concerns." "I have concerns because we're robbing an eight-year-old." "We're robbing a seven-year-old. Her name's Priya. And she doesn't need forty presents, Bill. Forty. Her mother posted the list online. There's a telescope on it." "What's wrong with a telescope?" "Nothing's wrong with a telescope. That's the point. That telescope's worth four hundred quid and it's going to sit in a garage until 2041." Molly tapped the napkin twice. "We're not thieves. We're a correction." "We are thieves." "We're both." Bill picked up his coffee, then put it down without drinking it, which was how he signalled he was being serious. "How do we get in?" "That's the beautiful bit. Nobody checks. It's a children's party. You show up with a wrapped box and a tired expression and you're basically staff." She reached under the table and hauled up a shopping bag. "I got us two." "Two what?" "Two boxes. Wrapped. Empty." "They rattle." "They rattle because I put a Yorkie in each one so they'd feel legitimate. Don't eat them." "I've already eaten one." Molly closed her eyes. "When?" "In the car. It rattled and I got curious." Bill shrugged. "You'd have done the same." "I absolutely would have, that's not the issue." She flattened the napkin again. "Presents go on a trestle table by the patio doors. Two forty-five, the clown does the balloon animals. That's our window. Every eyeball in that garden will be pointed at a man making a giraffe." "And if he's rubbish at giraffes?" "Then we improvise." "You always say that." "Because it always happens." Molly slid a bin bag across the table, folded neat as a handkerchief. "You take the far end. Big stuff first, the telescope's in a box the size of a hedge. I'll take the envelopes." "There's envelopes?" "Bill. It's a birthday. There's always envelopes." Bill unfolded the bin bag, looked at it a long moment, and sighed. "One condition." "Go on." "We leave her one. The good one. The one she actually asked for." Molly considered this, then wrote *leave one* on the napkin in careful capitals, like a promise. "Fine," she said. "But not the telescope."