Disclaimer: I do not own Home Alone.
Driving down the streets of Winnetka, Harry Lime clenched tightly onto the steering wheel and his jaw tightened in thought. His mind continued to wander upon those two children that he had just seen and his suspicions about them wouldn't diminish. There had been something so off about that kid who looked at him strangely and he for sure didn't believe that girl's story of looking after that kid. If only he could put his finger on whom that young boy was but he had seen so many children in the houses that he was viewing that he couldn't even remember which kid was at which house. Now his thoughts fell upon that girl...or the 'babysitter.' Harry was aware that she was bluffing about her story that she had just told the both of them.
Look both ways when you're in the street were her words and he frowned at that. That usually happened when someone was heading straight, not looking behind them. He would have continued to question her but they were at a church and that girl looked petrified as he was speaking with her. Other than not knowing how to lie, the next thing she lacked in Harry's perspective was her way of acting like nothing was wrong. "That little..." he began to mumbled under his breath, catching the attention of his partner.
"What's the matter?" Marv asked when he noticed his partner's mumbles. The other thief may not have been a brightest candle but he could tell when his partner's anger was showing.
Harry shook his head in response at his partner's question. "Nothing. Just thinking about those two."
"About those kids?" Marv asked.
"No Marv the fishing lines that you forgot to take from the Murphy's," Harry's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Of course it's about those kids!"
Marv remained silent for a mere second, thinking that Harry was serious about the fishing lines. He was about to retaliate in telling him that he didn't even see any fishing lines in the home that they robbed but when Harry told him that it was about that girl and boy, he nodded his head. "This is why you should've brought me with you when you inspected those houses as an undercover cop," he then said to Harry.
Harry could have, but in an undercover job like that, he didn't trust Marv one bit. Not only did his partner not think before he spoke but he also had the tendency to unknowingly take items. What if one of the families had noticed that? They would both be busted in an instant and Harry didn't want to risk that. Even so, Marv was not one of the greatest cat burglars and that was evident back at the Murphy's home when he was loudly throwing every single item in his bag.
"I have a great memory," Marv stated, "I could've recognized them in an instant."
"Yeah?" Harry said, "then why couldn't you be recognize that girl to tell me about when she showed up in the Murphy's driveway?"
"I didn't have time to look at that girl over," Marv defended himself, "I had to get rid of her before she bought attention to us."
"By giving her chocolate," Harry then added. Even though he was not present in their interaction, he was close enough to see Marv doing that but he just couldn't make out the features of the young girl. "Bribery, real smart move Marv, real smart," he sarcastically complimented Marv. Harry sometimes wondered why he had been stuck all these years with Marv but the thief already knew the answer to that. The two of them had been accomplices for such a long time and through all of those years, a form of friendship had been established between the both of them. Even though Marv had his dim-witted moments, Harry wouldn't trade him for another accomplice in the world no matter how good of a cat burglar they were.
"Well it was the only way that I could think of to shut her up," Marv defended his actions. "What else was I supposed to do?" he suggested to Harry.
Harry had his own ideas what they could have done but it would have been a great risk. Even though the neighborhood was empty for the most part, if that girl was part of the neighborhood then her family was probably there. "Nothing," Harry suddenly answered Marv's question, "you were supposed to do absolutely nothing."
Marv remained silent after Harry spoke but it wasn't long before he turned around and looked at the black bags that were filled with the many items that they had stolen from those unfortunate houses. "Are we gonna pawn these off now?" he suddenly asked Harry.
"Yeah," Harry answered as he took a turn down a street, "but it ain't gonna be enough with just what we got off from the Murphy's."
It depended on how much the pawnshop owner valued those items, but for one thing that Marv was certain about was that the ring that they had obtained from a previous home before they invaded the Mruphy's was more valuable than any of the items that they had taken. "At least we have the ring," Marv smirked and reached inside the pocket of his coat. Feeling around for the ring but not finding it in his pocket, Marv turned his pocket inside out and was surprised to see that it wasn't there.
"Don't tell me you lost the ring," Harry suddenly spoke up but not looking at his partner.
"I have not," Marv spoke and continued to look for the ring.
Harry wasn't assured by Marv's answer and all the burglar could do was just shake his head and mutter 'idiot' under his breath.
After Kevin and Becky's encounter with the van, both McCallister siblings never thought they would be happy to be home. Closing the door behind them, Kevin locked the doors and slid down from the wall and sank onto the floor. All of that running had exhausted him and the thought that those thieves would come back once again made him feel all the more frightened.
No Kevin thought to himself. I can't be frightened about this. Those thieves should never think of coming into this house. A hand suddenly rested upon his shoulder as Kevin turned his head and looked to see Becky sitting next to him. He gave his sister a gentle smile and rested his head against her shoulder before feeling her arms envelop around him for a hug. "I'm glad to be home," he spoke up.
"So am I," Becky answered, "and those evil men didn't give us a chance to have our breakfast," she stated with a humorous tone in her voice as she tried to lighten the tension after that encounter. The revelation that those two men were actually thieves, and the ones who tried to rob their home last night, frightened the teen. "What should we do, Kevin?" she asked as she looked down to her brother.
Kevin took a deep breath as he tried to think what they would do. He had been there with his mother when she was speaking with the 'undercover cop' and now that the connection had been made between the thieves that he had just met and the 'undercover cop,' Kevin suspected that the thieves still believed that his family was still at home after he had opened the lights and scared them away. "We have to make them think that our family is here," Kevin said as he looked at Becky. "Those guys could strike at anytime and I don't them coming here and stealing from us."
Becky frowned as she thought about his words. How would they make two thieves believe that their family was here if it was just the two of them? "And how will we do that?" Becky asked him. "There's only two of us here. How will we make them think that there's a full house?"
Kevin was one step ahead of her on that. He was aware that the house contained a couple of mannequins in the basement that they could use to impersonate family members and Christmas music. "Easy," Kevin said as a smile came upon his lips, "all we need is some rope, mannequins, and Christmas music."
That's...a weird combination Becky thought whilst looking at Kevin. "Where are you going with this?"
Kevin sighed. His sister didn't share the same imagination as he did but explaining the plan to her would be better than just having him do it himself. The faster that they got through this plan, the better. "Okay," Kevin said as he stood up on his feet and looked at Becky, "the plan is we will make the mannequins move with the rope tied around them. It will give the thieves the image that there are people in the house having fun or even dancing to the Christmas music."
"Oh," Becky slowly said and nodded her head, finally understanding where Kevin was getting at with this plan. "Do you think that it will work though?"
"It worked when I turned on the light," Kevin reminded her, "they still think that our family is home. I think that if we give them to idea that our family is here, then they won't come back."
I hope so Becky thought to herself. "Let's get to work Kevin," she said with a determined smile finally coming to her lips and stood up on her feet. "Let's show those thieves who they're messing with."
Seeing that his sister was agreeing with this scheme Kevin smiled. "Let's do it," he stated with a firm nod of his head. He was determined to make sure that these burglars didn't come back at all. "You go and get three mannequins in the basement and I'll find some rope," Kevin instructed. He had a problem by going into the basement all by himself. The furnace that was down there always gave Kevin a fright as if it was going to eat him, but sending his sister down there, he knew that she could handle it.
And I get the handiwork Becky thought to herself before shaking her head. "Fine," she then answered her younger brother with a shrug of her shoulders before she headed down to the basement to go and get the dolls.
Kevin unlocked the door of the house and ran to the garage where he found a long white rope that he could use. "Perfect," he smiled as he began to unwind the rope to see its length. It was long enough to tie to the limbs of the mannequins and for him to hide somewhere in the house so he could move them. Securing the rope in his hands, Kevin then headed back inside the house and locked the door once again. The eight year old then headed into the living room and studied it's surroundings. It was perfect and big enough to create the illusion that there was actually a good group of people in the house. Kevin walked over to a table and adjusted the chairs where two mannequins would be placed to make it seem like they were having a conversation and right by the window, they could have another mannequin to make it look like it was dancing. But three mannequins didn't seem to be enough.
"Jeff's train," Kevin said. He could use that and one of Buzz's cardboard figures to make it seem like there was another person going about the house. With that idea in mind, Kevin took off into the third floor of the house where some of the old toys were kept and pulled out a box that contained a train set that Jeff used to play with before it was handed down to Kevin, even though Kevin never really played with it.
In the meantime, Becky managed to find three mannequins and one by one, she bought them up to the living room. Looking at those mannequins, they were enough to give Becky the creeps with those vacant eyes and immobile lips. "Yeesh," Becky shivered as she shut her eyes and looked away from them. "Kevin!" she suddenly yelled, "I got the mannequins."
Kevin then came down to the stairs with the train set and a cardboard figure of a basketball player that Kevin had taken from Buzz's room. "Good," he said to Becky, "I'll take it from here." He began to attach the tracks of the train in a circular pattern before placing the train into the tracks and taping the cardboard figure on top of the train before he went to adjust the other mannequins.
Becky stood where she was as she watched Kevin going from one section of the living room to the other. All she could see were mannequins and white rope that looked like a maze.
"There," Kevin said as he tied the last top around his leg and looked up at Becky, "and Buzz says that I can't tie my shoes." Looks like her little brother came in all sorts of surprises. "And this is how it's going to work," Kevin demonstrated and began to move his arms that caused the mannequins that were sitting on the table to move their limbs whilst the other mannequin that was placed on a moving pedestal started to slowly move in circles.
Becky's eyes looked from Kevin and over to the mannequins that moved due to Kevin. "This is very genius," she said with a chuckle. "And maybe to make it more realistic," she said as she walked over to the grand piano that was in the living room by the mannequins. "I can pretend to play the piano," she said and moved her fingers along the keys of the piano.
Kevin gave her a nod of his head. "Yep and now we wait for them to show up."
Becky looked out of the windows and noticed that it was still light outside and there was no car in sight. "Do we even know what time they will show up?" Becky asked and turned her head to Kevin.
"If they're smart enough, they might show up during the night. Maybe around the same time that they did last time," Kevin said to Becky.
Giving her brother a nod of her head, Becky moved away from the window. "I just hope that this works," she said before sinking into the chair that was by the piano.
Kevin walked over to his sister and sat down by her side. "It will," Kevin tried to assure her. He couldn't believe how much she was worrying about all of this when he had everything under control. "You just have to trust me on this."
"It's not that I don't," Becky said to Kevin, "it's just that they're thieves. They could be dangerous. What if they decide to come into the house anyway...or knock on the door or something?"
Kevin resisted the urge to roll his eyes when he heard his sister's theories about this situation. "They won't," Kevin said, "the last thing that they want to happen to them is to be seen by anyone. No thief in their right mind would even think of going up to the door and knocking on it. So," he paused for a mere second and looked at his sister, "Becky, stop worrying!"
Harry and Marv finally arrived at the pawnshop from the outskirts of Winnetka. Harry knew of this particular pawnshop many years ago before he set out his life as a criminal along with Marv. The thieves had visited this particular shop only a couple of times in the past but their luck in making some cash hadn't been so well, but he did hope that they would get a good amount of cash trading the items that they sold this time. "Get one of the bags," Harry said to Marv motioning to the back of the van with him thumb before he got out of the van.
Marv slid open the back door of the van and picked out one of the bags as instructed before Harry walked over to him and took the bag in his grip and it was heavy enough. Judging only by the weight of the bag, Harry imagined that's how much cash they would be making once they traded these items in. "Let's go," he motioned for his partner to follow him and both of the thieves made their way into the shop.
Inside the shop, the light were very dim and everywhere a person looked, there were many items from within. "Wow," Marv whispered as his eyes traveled about the room as opposed to Harry who was only concentrated in going to speak with the pawnshop owner who was standing behind the counter and looking through a piece of jewelry through an eyepiece.
Once Harry approached the counter, he cleared his throat and the man looked up from the jewelry and removed his eyepiece. "Mr. Lime," the pawnshop owner said and looked over to the thief, "good to see you again."
Harry didn't understand why this man had to always be so jolly and not just during the holidays but also year round. "Yeah, you too," he said indifferently and gently put the bag of items over to the counter. "I got some stuff for you."
"Perfect," the pawnshop owner replied as Harry took out the items from the bag and placed them onto the counter. "Someone has gone through some Christmas cleaning," the owner chuckled.
The best thing about this pawnshop owner, in Harry's perspective, was that he didn't dare ask either Harry nor Marv where they had gotten these items and it was better that way. "Just some old stuff to make way for the new stuff," Harry replied to the owner.
"Let's see them," the owner said as he took a gentle hold of one of the angle statuettes and observed them. "Seems this one has a little scratch," he said as his thumb gently grazed over the scratch that had happened on the surface of the statuette.
Harry knew that Marv was the one who was stealing those items and that unfortunate statuette had suffered a scratch from the crowbar. He briefly shot his partner a glare but it went unnoticed since Marv was preoccupied by looking at the other items around the shop. "Hopefully it doesn't bring down the price of it," he said.
"Not by much," the pawnshop owner replied and began to survey the other items. Some of the items looked unharmed while others seemed a little scratched and one of the other small angels had a broken wing. For the broken angel, the pawnshop owner couldn't accept it but those with the scratches, he could easily take care of them. "$300," the man suddenly said to Harry.
The burglar blinked when the price of the items was given. "That's it?" he asked him. It was quite the amount but not enough to satisfy Harry. If only they had that ring that Marv had last then the price would probably be in the thousands. "Damn it," he mumbled under his breath as hit the counter with the palm of his hand, "couldn't it have been any higher?" he then asked.
"I am sorry Mr. Lime but some of the damages on the items can lower the price of the items," the owner said to him, "now without the minor accidents, it would probably be $700 to $800 at least."
That's a lot better than $300 pal! Harry wanted to snap and reach over the counter and grab as much money from the cash register as he could. "Fine," the thief answered as he tried to muster all of his anger within him before lashing out on the owner. "I'll take it."
The owner walked over to the cash register and pulled out three hundred dollar bills and handed them to Harry, who snatched them away from him and buried it within the pocket of his coat. "C'mon Marv, let's get outta here," he said to his partner before the both of them walked out the door. "That was a bust."
"How much did we make?" Marv asked.
"Three hundred lousy bucks," Harry answered him, "and the price would've been higher if none of the items were damaged, no thanks to you!" he yelled, causing Marv to wince at Harry's booming voice. "And if we had that ring that you lost the price would have been higher."
Marv hated being the reason to their failure in not making the proper amount of cash that they were supposed to. It had been Harry's goal that they would at least make it to the thousands, if not more and due to Marv's carelessness, he had been the reason as to why they made less money than they expected. The temptation to apologize to Harry was large, but Marv knew that Harry wouldn't accept that. Then again, Harry didn't approve of anything that Marv did, including that 'calling card' of his. "We'll make more next time," Marv suddenly spoke up as he tried to keep his voice at a positive note, "remember we still have that house that we tried to rob last time."
The Silver Tuna. The one house that Harry always had his eyes on for the longest time. Tonight was going to the night where they would strike and succeed.
"...later we'll have some pumpkin pie and we'll do some caroling!" both Becky and Kevin sang to the Christmas music that had been continuously been playing throughout the house. The moment that the sun had begun to set, both siblings had begun to execute the plan. Kevin was hiding behind the mannequin that was spinning around the pedestal and moving his arms about that caused the other mannequins to move.
Becky had herself seated onto the piano and was playing a couple of random keys that didn't produce a good melody but it was enough to show her silhouette from the outside of the windows along with the mannequins.
Kevin kept an eye out for the any figure of a van that would come down to the driveway while trying to make himself visible at the same time. All of this movement that he was doing was gradually starting to tire him but he had to keep up his momentum because one wrong move would ruin everything. Come on, come on Kevin pressured himself to continue moving his arms about and from the corner of his eye, he noticed a van pulling up by the driveway.
"You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear voices singing 'let's be jolly; Deck the halls with boughs of holly..." the music began to play throughout the living room and that caused Kevin to move his arms even more from where he stood. As for Becky, she had no knowledge that the van was even up in their driveway with the two thieves staring at their home but seeing that the mannequins were continuing the move, she continued to play onto the piano.
Suddenly, Kevin noticed the van finally driving down the road and away from the house and that's when he ceased his activity. Going to the window, Kevin looked out a smiled. The plan had worked and the thieves were gone and hopefully for good. "Becky they're gone," he notified his sister and ran over to her.
Becky let out a sigh of relief and smiled as she gave her brother a high-five. "We did it, Kevin," she smiled to him, "I say we deserve a good rest for now."
Kevin couldn't agree more. He wanted to get away from these ropes tied around him. "Get me out of these," he said to Becky as she began to untie the ropes around his arms and leg. "And we'll clean up tomorrow. I'm really exhausted," he said to Becky.
"Then off to bed you go," Becky said as she motioned for her brother to head upstairs. She was willing to take care of the mannequins, the train, Buzz's cardboard cutout, and the rope.
"I'll wait for you there," Kevin smiled as he obeyed his sister's words and headed upstairs to clean himself and get ready for bed.
