Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRB5FS8S5WDYKSMTXRYWZH

Molly spread the napkin across the table and smoothed it flat with the side of her hand. "Right," she said. "Bouncy castle here. Piñata here. Presents here, on the trestle table, under the banner that says Kai Is Six." "Kai," Bill said. "What kind of a name is Kai?" "The kind of name that comes with two sets of grandparents and a father in cryptocurrency. Focus." "I'm focused. I'm just saying, it feels a bit much, robbing a six-year-old." "He's not six. He's six *tomorrow*. Today he's five, and five-year-olds have no legal standing whatsoever." "That's not how the law works, Molly." "It's how *my* law works." She tapped the napkin. "Fourteen presents minimum. Probably twenty. There's a drone in there, Bill. A drone, a scooter, and something in a box the size of a fridge that the mother has been posting about for a fortnight." Bill leaned back and folded his arms. "And how do we get in? It's a garden party. Fences. Adults. Adults who have *phones*." "We go in as entertainment." "Absolutely not." "You'd make a lovely clown." "I've told you before, I don't do clowning. My uncle did clowning and it took the family thirty years to recover." "Then be a magician. Magicians get a table. Magicians get near the presents. Magicians carry a *big black case* nobody's allowed to look inside." Bill went quiet. It was the quiet of a man discovering that a terrible plan had a good bone in it. "How big a case?" "Big enough for a drone and a scooter, if you take the wheels off." "And the fridge-sized box?" "That's why I'm coming as your assistant. Assistants carry things. Nobody questions an assistant carrying something out to the van. It's practically the job description." "And what if a parent asks to see a trick?" "Do a trick." "I don't know any tricks, Molly." "You know the one with the coin." "That's not a trick, that's a coin going down my sleeve and staying there. I've lost eleven pounds fifty to that trick." "Then you'll do the one where the children close their eyes and count to a hundred while the magic happens." Bill stared at her. "That's not a trick either. That's just an instruction." "It's the greatest trick ever performed and it's never once failed. Children love counting. They'll be at forty-one before anyone realises the fridge box has gone." Molly folded the napkin into quarters. "Van's parked on Lyndhurst Road, engine running, boot open. Ninety seconds from the gate." "And the cake?" "What about the cake?" "Are we taking the cake?" "Bill." "It's a big cake. She posted about the cake as well." Molly looked at him for a long moment, then picked up her pen and added a small rectangle to the napkin, just beside the trestle table. "Fine," she said. "But you're carrying it, and if you drop it, I'm telling everyone you were the clown."