Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YHZDW89HFA29FPR3W8WZ4C

At noon, Molly spread a floor plan of the Wigglesworth Community Hall across the bonnet of their stolen van. Bill, squeezed into a purple waistcoat, held down one corner with a rubber chicken and the other with a meat pie. Beyond the windscreen, bunting sagged above the entrance, where a banner welcomed guests to TILLIE’S SEVENTH BIRTHDAY BONANZA. “Tell me again why I’m wearing a waistcoat with buttons that blink,” Bill asked. A button on his navel flashed red, giving him the expression of a startled nightclub. “Because respectable magicians wear waistcoats, and respectable magicians do not rob children,” Molly said. She tapped the hall’s rear door, then the rectangle marked PRESENTS. Her pencil had drawn a heart around it, though she insisted it was a tactical oval. “And my moustache?” Bill asked, twirling an end. It came off in his fingers. “Is a disguise,” Molly said. “It smells of soup.” Molly leaned closer to the plan. Their cover was Professor Puddle’s Marvellous Magic Show, a booking she had invented that morning. Bill would distract the adults with tricks. Molly would locate the gifts. They would leave before anyone noticed that Professor Puddle had vanished, along with several bicycles and a console still in its box. Bill studied the drawing of the party room, where Molly had sketched twenty children as small angry storm clouds. “Why do the children have lightning bolts?” Bill asked. “Because they’re between us and the presents.” She said it with the patience of a woman defusing a bomb assembled by idiots. “Couldn’t we wait until they’re older? Preferably at work?” Bill said. “By then the presents will be socks. We’re doing this at two.” Molly folded her arms. Inside the hall, a clown honked a horn. Bill flinched so hard his moustache slid over one eyebrow. He pointed to the final obstacle: a bouncy castle, drawn as a large rectangle with teeth. “You go through the bouncy castle. I have principles,” Bill said. “You once stole a dentist’s ceiling,” Molly replied. “It was a lovely ceiling.” A girl in a yellow paper crown emerged from the hall carrying an armful of paper plates. Molly snatched the plan off the van. Bill hid the rubber chicken behind his back, which would have helped if it had not chosen that moment to squeak. The girl squinted at Bill’s glowing buttons and asked whether they were the magicians. Molly’s smile became bright enough to power a small lighthouse. “Absolutely. I am Professor Puddle, and this is my assistant, Mister...” “Biscuit,” Bill supplied, before Molly could invent something sensible. “Mister Biscuit. We require a private rehearsal beside the present table,” Molly said, without moving her smile. “And possibly cake, for professional reasons,” Bill added. “No cake. No improvising. No adopting any children, however good their little alibis,” Molly murmured as the girl skipped inside. “You never let me finish a single sentence.” “That is because your sentences usually end in handcuffs and paperwork,” she said, gently straightening his moustache.