Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCR6SK3SYFE6EN3KXPP7S9F

Molly spread the blueprints across the hood of the van, weighting each corner with a half-eaten juice box she had confiscated from the recycling bin at the community center. The layout of the Pemberton back garden was crude but adequate: trestle table, piñata, gazebo, and, glittering at the far end like the vault of a small Swiss bank, the present pile. She had been surveilling for six days. She knew the caterer's schedule, the grandmother's nap window, and the precise minute at which forty children would be simultaneously distracted by cake. Bill, meanwhile, had spent those six days learning to inflate balloon animals, and had produced only one recognizable species, which he insisted was an eel. "The clown is the weak link," Molly said, tapping the gazebo. Bill lowered his eel. "I hate clowns." "Then hate him quietly, from inside the bouncy castle." He nodded slowly, as though this were reasonable, which in the context of their partnership it was. Molly rolled the blueprints, tucked them into a Peppa Pig backpack, and checked her watch. Twenty-two minutes until the pony arrived. Bill's eel deflated with a long, mournful whistle. Neither of them acknowledged it.