Run: 2026-09-23-01M37Q6AWG7Y7JSFQCQF4CKQ91

Bill spread the floor plan across the kitchen table, pinning one corner with a mug and the other with a half-eaten sandwich. Molly leaned over it and squinted. "This is a drawing of a house. In crayon." "The kid next door did it for me," Bill said proudly. "Cost me two lollipops. Very reasonable rates." Molly sighed the long, weary sigh of a woman who had once robbed a jewellery shop and now found herself here. She tapped the page where a wobbly purple rectangle bore the word PRESANTS. "So this is the target?" "The mother of all hauls," Bill whispered. "Tommy Pemberton turns seven on Saturday. His family's loaded. Forty kids invited. That's forty presents, Molly. Minimum." "And your plan is what, exactly?" Bill reached under the table and produced a folded bundle of fabric with a flourish. It unrolled into an enormous yellow chicken costume, complete with rubber beak and one sad, drooping wing. "I go in as the entertainment. Chuckles the Chicken. Nobody questions a chicken." "Everyone questions a chicken, Bill. That's the entire point of a chicken." He ignored her, sliding a second, smaller costume across the table. It was a bumblebee, tailored for a much shorter person. "You're my assistant, Buzzy." "Absolutely not." "While I distract them with balloon animals, you slip into the present room and load up the sack." Molly held the bee costume up to her shoulders. It stopped just below her ribs. The stinger pointed accusingly at the floor. "Can you even make balloon animals?" "I can make a snake." "A snake is just a balloon." "A confident balloon." Outside, a car alarm wailed and then went quiet. Molly lowered herself into the chair opposite and rubbed her temples, which had begun to throb in a very specific, Bill-shaped way. "Walk me through the escape." Bill beamed. He flipped the crayon map over to reveal the back, where he had drawn a stick figure riding what might have been a horse, a dog, or a very ambitious potato. "The bouncy castle." "What about it?" "We deflate it, stuff the presents inside, roll it down the garden, and load it into the van. It's basically a giant duffel bag." Molly stared at him for a long time. The fridge hummed in the silence. Somewhere a pigeon cooed with what sounded like pity. "Bill, there will be forty seven-year-olds in that garden." "Exactly. Chaos. Perfect cover." "Seven-year-olds are not chaos. Seven-year-olds are a surveillance network with sugar in their veins. They notice everything. My nephew once spotted me stealing a single chip off his plate from across a football pitch." Bill's beak slipped sideways as he frowned. He had, at some point in the conversation, put the chicken head on, and neither of them had mentioned it. "So what do we do?" Molly picked up the crayon, turned the map back over, and drew a firm circle around a tiny scribble in the corner labelled CAKE. "We forget the presents," she said slowly. "Every kid there will be watching the presents. Nobody guards the cake." Bill gasped behind his rubber beak. "Molly, you're a genius." "I know. And you're still wearing the chicken."