Run: 2026-04-24-01KPZTY6ZS9FPBSDS2THKE3M65

Molly spread the blueprints across the sticky diner table, elbowing aside a plate of congealing hash browns. The paper was covered in crayon. Red crayon. Some of it was shaped like a unicorn. "This is the best I could do," she said, defensive already. "Tommy's mom wouldn't let me into the actual house, so I had Tommy draw it from memory during recess." Bill stared at the document. There was a smiley sun in the corner. The front door was labeled DOOR. The backyard was labeled GRASS PLACE. "Tommy is six." "Tommy is seven, and he's very spatially gifted for his age." Bill pinched the bridge of his nose the way he did when Molly suggested things like *let's just pretend to be caterers* or *what if we dressed the getaway car as a bush*. He took a long, suffering sip of his coffee. "Walk me through it," he said. Molly brightened and produced a laser pointer from her jacket. Bill did not ask why she owned a laser pointer. He had learned. "Okay. So. The party starts at two. Twenty kids, one bouncy castle, a piñata shaped like Elsa—" "Who's Elsa." "Bill. *Bill.* We've had this conversation." "I don't keep up with the princesses." "She's the ice one. She's been the ice one for a decade." Molly clicked the laser at the crayon floor plan. "Presents go on this table, here, next to the GRASS PLACE. At three-fifteen, Tommy's mom does the cake. That's our window. Everybody sings, nobody's watching the loot, and we—" "We what." "We walk in dressed as clowns." Bill set his coffee down very carefully, the way a man sets down something he would otherwise throw. "No." "Bill." "*No.*" "Hear me out. A clown at a kid's party is invisible. It's camouflage. It's a ghillie suit of whimsy." "I'm not wearing the shoes." "You don't have to wear the shoes, you just have to wear the nose—" "I'm not wearing the nose." "Then you're the balloon guy. Balloon guys wear normal clothes and just, you know—" she made a twisting motion, "—swan, swan, giraffe, swan." "I can't make a balloon animal, Molly. I can barely tie my own shoes since the incident." "We don't talk about the incident." "*You* don't talk about the incident. I talk about it constantly. It comes up in therapy." Molly rolled up the blueprint with the decisiveness of a general. "Fine. New plan. You're the magician. Magicians get a cape, and a cape has *pockets.*" Bill considered this. A cape did have pockets. A cape had a great many pockets, if you were creative about the lining. "How many presents are we talking?" "Party favor bags included? Forty, maybe fifty units. Plus the big one from the grandparents, which Tommy says is, quote, *enormous and shaped like a horse.*" "I hate this job." "You love this job." He didn't answer, because she was right, and because he was already mentally measuring himself for a cape.