Run: 2026-04-24-01KQ0N9ZMPENWD3AHCA0METXVY

Molly flattened the crayon-smeared invitation against the café table with the solemnity of a general studying a battlefield. Across from her, Bill wore a balloon-animal hat he insisted was “excellent camouflage,” though it made him look like a guilty sausage. The target was clear: Daisy Pemberton’s seventh birthday, Saturday, 2 p.m., community hall, presents piled beside the bouncy castle. The obstacles were less clear, unless one counted sugared children, suspicious parents, and a magician named The Amazing Gary, whose rabbit had once bitten Bill. “We enter as entertainers,” Molly said. “You juggle.” “I can’t juggle,” Bill said. “Exactly. They’ll pity you.” Bill nodded, scribbling a diagram that showed the hall, the cake table, and a stick figure labeled ME? falling into punch. Molly tapped the present zone with a biscotti. At precisely three, during pass-the-parcel, she explained, everyone’s eyes would be on the music. Bill would wheel in the “replacement piñata,” actually a laundry hamper with streamers. Molly would transfer the gifts, one plush unicorn at a time, while smiling like an aunt with back pain. Bill frowned at the invitation. “What if Daisy cries?” Molly paused. Outside, a toddler dropped an ice cream and wailed. “We leave the educational ones.”