Run: 2026-09-23-01M37HD3X1ESNPXZ94N75YA8PR

Molly spread a floor plan across the café table, pinning its corners with two sugar bowls and a stolen traffic cone. Across the street, balloons bobbed above the entrance to the Happy Hippo Play Barn. Every child who went in carried a present. Every parent who came out looked relieved to have handed one over. “Thirty-seven presents,” Molly said. “One door, one loading bay, and a mascot who takes a break at three.” Bill studied the drawing. “Why have you marked the ball pit with a skull?” “Because you still owe me an apology for Tuesday.” “Tuesday was a misunderstanding. I thought you said hide the diamonds in the ball pit.” “I said don’t.” Bill adjusted his fake moustache. It was made of felt and sat crookedly above his real one. He had dressed as a magician, reasoning that nobody questioned a man in a cape carrying a large empty trunk. Molly had dressed as his assistant, reasoning that somebody needed to question him. At three fifteen, according to Molly’s reconnaissance, the guests would gather around the cake. She would trigger the sprinkler in the puppet theatre, causing a distraction. Bill would wheel the presents through the loading bay. By three twenty, they would be rich, or at least surrounded by expensive toys they could sell. “Isn’t the sprinkler connected to the fire alarm?” Bill asked. “Only if there’s a fire.” “Then what are you triggering?” “A convincing puppet emergency. You’ll see.” Bill folded his arms. “I would prefer to see it before we’re inside.” They crossed the road with the trunk rattling behind them. A woman at the play barn door handed Bill a paper crown and Molly a clipboard. Before either could object, she hurried them into a room full of bunting, shrieking children, and a cake shaped like a suspiciously accurate hippopotamus. “There you are!” she cried. “The entertainment agency said you’d be early.” Molly looked at the clipboard. It contained a schedule, a list of food allergies, and one instruction underlined three times: DO NOT LET THE MAGICIAN NEAR THE CAKE. Bill saw it too. “That seems unnecessarily specific.” The woman vanished into the kitchen. Twenty-seven children turned toward Bill. He had once escaped a museum through a ventilation shaft the width of a bread bin. This was worse. He opened the trunk, hoping inspiration might be inside. It was not. “Do a trick,” Molly whispered. “With what?” “The moustache. Make it disappear.” Bill peeled it off and tucked it up his sleeve. The children gasped. Molly, surprised, applauded. Bill bowed and knocked his paper crown into the frosting. For forty glorious minutes, they performed increasingly terrible magic. Molly produced a balloon from behind a chair. Bill guessed the colour of a crayon he was holding in plain sight. By the end, the children were cheering and the presents were untouched. Outside, Molly counted the notes the woman had pressed into her hand. “Eighty pounds,” she said. “And no prison,” Bill replied. Molly considered the traffic cone under her arm. “We’re keeping this.”