Run: 2026-07-25-01KYD5W5KP7ENS58VE4Y7AJAWZ

Molly crouched behind a hedge shaped like a giraffe, binoculars pressed to her eyes, while Bill tried to fit his considerable frame behind a topiary that was, at best, half his width. "Will you stop rustling?" Molly hissed. "You sound like a bag of chips in a wind tunnel." "I'm blending in," Bill whispered back, a sprig of privet sticking out of his ear. "I'm one with the shrubbery." Across the lawn, the Hendersons' backyard pulsed with chaos. A bouncy castle wheezed in the corner. A clown was making balloon animals that all, regardless of intent, looked like snakes. And on the picnic table, guarded only by a napping golden retriever, sat the prize: a mountain of wrapped birthday presents. "Right," Molly said, pulling out a crumpled napkin covered in diagrams. "Phase one. We go in as the entertainment." "You mean the balloon guy?" "The balloon guy called in sick. I may have told him the party was moved to Tuesday." "That was my Tuesday plans you ruined," Bill said. "I had a dental appointment." "Bill. Focus. We walk in with the cart, we say we're there to move the presents inside for safekeeping, and then we keep walking right out the side gate." Bill scratched his chin. "What's phase two?" "That is phase two. There is no other phase. It's one phase. Grab and go." "Seems light on phases." "It's efficient, Bill. Ocean's Eleven had eleven people. We've got you, me, and a shopping cart I borrowed from the supermarket." "Borrowed." "Relocated." A pause. Bill squinted at the yard. "What about the dog?" Molly produced a string of sausages from her coat pocket with a flourish. "The dog has been accounted for." "You carry sausages in your coat?" "Always. You never know when a dog situation will arise. I learned that the hard way in Brighton." "Is that why you can't go back to Brighton?" "One of the reasons." Bill studied the napkin, turning it upside down, then sideways. "Molly, this diagram just says 'presents' with an arrow pointing at a rectangle." "It's a schematic." "It's a rectangle." "The table is a rectangle, Bill. I drew it to scale." "You can't draw a rectangle to scale. A rectangle is just a rectangle." "Then I've nailed it, haven't I?" Bill sighed the sigh of a man who had followed Molly into seventeen jobs and exactly three successes. Still, he straightened the fake clown wig she'd given him, adjusted his polka-dot tie, and grabbed the cart handle. "One question," he said. "If we're stealing a six-year-old's birthday presents, are we the bad guys?" Molly considered this. "The kid's getting forty presents, Bill. Forty. Nobody needs forty presents. We're simply redistributing the wealth." "To ourselves." "The most deserving recipients I know." "Fair enough." They rolled the cart through the gate, bells on their shoes jingling. The dog lifted its head. Molly tossed a sausage. The dog, a professional, caught it mid-air and immediately forgot they existed. "See?" Molly whispered, loading the first present. "Flawless." "There's a child staring at us," Bill whispered back. "Wave at the child, Bill." Bill waved. The child waved back. Somewhere behind them, the clown's snake-shaped balloon popped, and phase one was officially underway.