Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPT5TKQNK4H4Q1GMDNQ8D4

Molly unrolled the blueprint across the hood of the Buick, smoothing it flat with her palm. It was, technically, a paper placemat from the Sizzler, but she'd drawn the bounce house in red pen and that counted for something. Bill leaned in, chewing a toothpick with the gravity of a man defusing a bomb, and studied the crayon-colored perimeter she'd labeled BALLOON ARCH — CHOKE POINT. The party started at two. By two-fifteen, the presents would be stacked on a folding table beside the piñata, unguarded except for a grandmother and a golden retriever named Pudding, both of whom Molly had assessed as neutralizable with sliced turkey. "Clowns," Bill said. "One clown." He shook his head slowly, the way men do when they've seen things. Molly ignored him and tapped the placemat twice. The plan was elegant. Bill would arrive as a magician, badly, and hold the crowd hostage with an eleven-minute rope trick. Molly would enter through the side gate dressed as an aunt — nobody ever counts the aunts — and load the gift bags into a wagon painted to look like part of the decorations. The dog barked somewhere down the street. Bill spat out his toothpick. "For the record," he said, "I hate cake."