Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRE8QPFXYKZZ98PDAHR3R6

Molly had drawn the layout on the back of a grease-stained napkin: the bouncy castle, the piñata, the folding table sagging beneath a mountain of glittering wrapped boxes. She circled the table three times with her pen, hard enough to tear through, then slid the napkin across the diner booth to Bill, who was busy excavating a molar with a coffee stirrer. The party started at two. Nineteen guests, all of them under the age of eight, all of them hopped up on frosting and fruit punch, which meant chaos, which meant cover. There would be one adult on presents duty — an aunt, Molly's intelligence suggested, the sort of aunt who drinks white wine from a plastic cup and loses track of things. There would be a magician arriving at two-thirty. The magician was the window. Bill studied the napkin with the gravity of a general. He tapped the bouncy castle twice. "We go in dressed as clowns," he said. Molly closed her eyes. She had known him eleven years and he had never once been reasonable. "No clowns," she said. "Balloon animals. Nobody suspects a man twisting a giraffe." Bill considered this, nodded slowly, and ordered pie, which he always did before a job, for luck.