On the street, Marv was still writhing on the ground, amazed he was even still alive. Unlike Harry who'd left in a terrible temper their burglary plans had gone up in smoke, Marv was just too discombobulated to focus properly. His vision was swimming, and now he had a splitting headache, and the bricks he'd received to the knee and stomach had just…just spread the pain to other parts of his body. He was positive he needed a C.T scan to check out if there was any lasting damage to his head.

But he was too out of it to think of leaving his friend, partner, and mentor behind to deal with the kids by himself and get himself checked out at the nearest hospital.

Besides, the little voice in the part of the brain that governed his common sense was shouting at its loudest to try to make him leave. It was just too far away and fogged like it was coming from a mile away.

That same voice was also lashing out at Harry, trying so hard, begging, pleading, screaming for Marv to see if they had left the kids and gone off on their own and found a place to hide they could have found some way of escaping New York; they could have found a car and stole it and travelled somewhere else, or something like that and maybe grab those phoney passports and jet to somewhere different.

Instead, they were here, outside another house, dealing with the same kid from last year who had already proven he wasn't going just to give them the photos he'd taken. And now they were about to walk in and get themselves beaten up like before.

Marv didn't hear any of it.

Because he was furious.

Gradually he recovered from being hit repeatedly by bricks, and Marv felt angry. Angry that his hopes of making it big were going up in flames. He hadn't known until he and Harry had grabbed the cash from within Duncan's Toy Chest there was so much they could do; granted, as he looked in hindsight, he truly didn't have a clue how they could have walked out of the store in the morning without being seen, but Harry seemed to have it all worked out, and besides even if Marv hadn't experienced it himself, he was more than happy to learn. Just by spending all night in Duncan's Toy Chest and hiding out in those little houses (how they were shipped out, he guessed there was a warehouse or something, and when they received the address they just mailed it), waiting for closing time and not having to play games with the security systems had taught Marv a great deal.

He wanted to experience those kinds of burglaries again, but he wouldn't until he got inside the house.

"Harry?" Marv whimpered pathetically as he looked around, desperately trying to focus. "Harry?" He said again in a pathetic, low-pitched yowl. "Harry?"

But he realised he was on his own. Marv wasn't entirely sure and never would be sure how long it took him to climb to his feet - the pain in his knee was just as unbearable as the pain in his head - and he staggered up the steps leading to the front door. He completely ignored the chute the builders had used to dump the rubble and any other bit of rubbish, too out of it to properly notice it and besides it was unlikely he even had the physical strength to drag himself through it anyway, but by the time he reached the front door, he had managed to regain some of his focus until he felt normal.

Marv looked at the door carefully, knowing the kid would have boobytrapped it, but there weren't any signs of the classical traps. The doorknob looked normal, it wasn't glowing red-hot. Gripping the knob, Marv tried to turn it…but it came away in his hand, connected by a very long piece of cord.

"Wha-?" Marv whispered in surprise, pulling more and more of the cord out of the hole where the door knob was meant to go, becoming increasingly concerned and surprised by just how long the whole thing was. As he pulled more and more of the cord out of the socket, Marv's confusion warred with his instincts to just drop it.

Marv had always been a curious individual, it had gotten him into so much trouble over the years, but his curiosity had peaked now and he was pulling more and more of the cord out without any warning bells sounding in his still foggy mind.

What was the kid playing at now?

-8-

On the other side of the front door, if Marv had known there was a builder's staple gun strapped to the door, he would have likely dropped what he was doing and tried some other way of getting inside. Piled just on the floor underneath the gun was the length of cord, and with each tug, more of the cord was pulled outside.

Until finally the other end began tightening around the trigger of the gun. Kevin had rigged the gun especially. He knew the bandits would try to come in through the front and back doors, and while he wanted them to come in otherwise there wouldn't be any point in Operation Ho-Ho-Ho kicking off, that did not mean in the least he wanted to make it simpler for them.

When Marv finally got the last of the cord, he began tugging on it; it might have been his natural curiosity, his stupidity, or the damage from being hit by so many bricks, either way, Marv kept tugging and tugging.

On the other side, the cord tightened around the trigger of the staple gun….

Marv had gathered all of the cord he'd pulled out in a bundle in his arms, taking a strong grip, he tugged, turning his back on the door.

There was a phut sound, and Marv suddenly stopped as pain shot through his body.

His eyes popped in their sockets, and when he opened his mouth, he had trouble getting it out. The pain was unreal. He had never felt anything like it before, especially in such a sensitive part of his body like his butt.

It took about 3 goes before Marv finally got it out, a strange gurgling whistle escaping from his mouth.

"Yeeeeeeeow! Ummmmmm!" He screwed his face up as he tried to work through the pain. He was gonna kill the kid for whatever it was he'd done.

He only hoped Harry was having better luck. But he wasn't sure if he would be happy with Harry being inside and him outside.

-8-

Fortunately for Marv, Harry hadn't yet gotten into the Brownstone; it had taken him a long time to just come around the back. First, he had to go further down the street to the back alley and then walk down, trying to remember the house number so he didn't accidentally walk in and break into the wrong house, although, in his current mood, he was too wired to care about the consequences but the only thing that kept him focused was what he planned to do to those kids.

The other residents along this street downwards had made it virtually harder than it needed to be to get through, it was full of trash and bins and other assorted bits of rubbish, which hadn't improved Harry's temper, not one little bit.

As he reached the backyard of the Brownstone the McCallister kids were in, Harry found the place was a total dump with a back stairway leading to the backdoor covered with a heap of old planks of wood and other junk left behind by builders that would take forever to shift and in his current bad mood, that was the last thing Harry wanted, but what attracted Harry's attention was the lower rungs of a ladder that would give him the clearest route to the backdoor.

For a moment, Harry considered jumping onto the ladder and trying to use the lower rungs to swing himself on the stairwell, he realised it wasn't a good idea and besides he wasn't a monkey. How would he make sure he could actually swing himself onto the stairwell? Harry decided to just shift the crap away from the door, too angry to play like a monkey, and so, grumbling loudly to himself, Harry got straight to work.

It took him ages to grab the planks and throw them aside and even longer to shift the heavier stuff - he decided he was going to find a way to work out more, as he panted and huffed breathlessly as he shifted away the junk.

-8-

On the other side of the backdoor, Megan stiffened. "There's someone out there!" She hissed while her brother was sorting out the next trap. They had left this one to the last minute even if they'd both sorted through it earlier, but time had been pressing down on them so they'd left it half done.

Kevin nodded distractedly as he was working with some more cord. "I know," he'd heard the sounds from outside.

"He didn't use the ladder."

Kevin shrugged. "It doesn't matter, Meg. I'm almost finished," he added.

They heard a tapping from outside; Megan jumped a little before she realised it was coming from the door knob. She heard the muffled sound of someone - it sounded like Harry - chucking.

Finally, Kevin dragged her. "Wha-?" And they rushed off, hearing Harry holler through the door. "You gotta do better than this, kids!"

Megan caught sight of the door being ripped off, the short, squat form of Harry grinning triumphantly in the doorway….only for the tool bag which had been fixed above the doorway to split in half. Megan cringed at the sound of metal striking against metal as the tools, some of them really large, clattered down on top of Harry's head and dropped the armed burglar to the ground.

She heard the sound of a pathetic moan, but her eyes caught sight of a massive wrench. It was, like, really big.

She flinched as it dropped to the ground, moaning transformed into an agonised cry of pain as it thudded down into Harry's head. Megan was about to go after her little brother…but then she stopped when she remembered something important. Quickly hurrying over, and watching the burglar carefully to make sure he didn't grab her, Megan went through the pockets of his coat, and she flinched as her hand closed up on the cold, metallic gun. She pulled it out slowly, examining it, her mind torn.

Guns weren't something she was used to, and Megan found herself terrified she was going to do something truly stupid and fire it off by accident. But then Megan had a difficult choice. She couldn't let him keep the thing, but would he notice it if it went missing? Stupid question. Of course, he would. But would it make a difference one way or another?

Yes, it would.

Megan, her second choice in mind, checked the gun over, but she didn't know how to empty it of its bullets. So that left only one option. As she was leaving, remembering the threats against her and her brother, she picked up the wrench, holding it up like a hockey stick and slammed the head right in between Harry's legs.

"Megan, where are you?" Kevin had come back looking for her, and he flinched when he heard the hitch-pitched squeal that sounded like Harry's voice. As he came over, eyes wide while Megan used the wrench like a baseball bat against Harry's groin a few times, she saw him out of the corner of her eye, and dropped the wrench and flipped her hair back with swagger and strutted over towards him.

"What?" She smirked. "You're not the only one who's capable of hitting someone!"

Kevin followed, "I've completely derailed her moral compass!" he whispered, amazed and even proud.

But not quite quiet enough.

"I heard that, buster."