Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCQVHF98T2Z2AK1DDZQSBBJ

Molly spread the napkin across the diner table and smoothed it flat with the side of her fork, revealing a floor plan drawn in ketchup and mustard, which was, she felt, an underappreciated medium. Bill leaned in. The party house sat on Ferndale Crescent: two stories, hedge maze of a back garden, and a garage that the birthday boy's mother had, according to three weeks of patient surveillance, converted into a gift-staging area of almost military organization. Ribbons sorted by color. Gift bags nested like Russian dolls. Bill had wept a little when he saw the photographs. "Bouncy castle's the weak point," Molly said, tapping a mustard blob. The inflatable would be positioned against the garage's side window. Thirty children would be screaming inside it. No adult voluntarily approaches a bouncy castle containing thirty screaming children; this was established science. They would go in through the window, out through the window, and the loot would travel down a slide of Bill's own design, into the hedge. He was already shaking his head, because he knew what came next. "We'll need the clown suit." "Absolutely not." "Balloon animals." Molly stabbed a pancake. "Learn them." Bill ordered another coffee, defeated.