Run: 2026-10-27-01M5YF5E6ZXM0ZA8THNPMR6EYQ

Molly spread the birthday invitation across Bill’s kitchen table, weighting its corners with a mug, a wrench, and half a doughnut. Balloons printed around the border seemed to watch them. Bill moved the doughnut before it could compromise the operation. “Tomorrow at two,” she said. “Twenty guests, one magician, and a present table beside the conservatory. We go in as caterers, fill three cake boxes, and leave before anyone notices the jelly.” Bill leaned closer, frowning at a drawing of a smiling dinosaur. “Why would anyone notice the jelly?” Bill asked. “Because you’ll be carrying it,” Molly said. On the invitation, Mrs. Pembroke promised games, tea, and an appearance by a real fire engine. Molly had underlined fire engine twice. Bill had drawn a moustache on the dinosaur. Their previous job, at a bankers’ awards dinner, had failed because Bill tried to improve the seating plan. This time, Molly intended to control every variable, including Bill’s shoes, which currently did not match. He straightened. The frown vanished, replaced by the solemn expression he usually reserved for menus and unattended luggage. “I could be the magician. I already own a cape, and children are famously easy to impress. Last week your nephew applauded me for finding my own shoes,” Bill said. “You were wearing them on your hands. Besides, the magician is called Professor Marvo, and he has a rabbit,” Molly said. “I have a rabbit. It’s a hat with ears, but the principle is sound,” Bill replied. Molly tapped the conservatory on her sketch. It was a remarkably detailed sketch, considering she had drawn it on the back of a takeaway menu. A small cross marked the present table. Another cross marked the kitchen. A third, much larger cross marked Bill. “No magic. No juggling. No telling the birthday boy that his bicycle has been selected for a government experiment,” she said. “You never let me develop my material,” Bill said. From the hallway came a soft tearing sound. Bill’s terrier, Cromwell, was eating the second catering apron. Molly rescued it, brushed off a button, and wrote lint roller beneath Catastrophe. Bill looked offended when she added spare trousers. Cromwell swallowed the button with the discretion of a trained accomplice. She turned the menu over and revealed three lists headed Entry, Exit, and Catastrophe. The last was already the longest. “We enter, touch nothing until the cake arrives, and never, ever improvise,” Molly said. “So my cape with the hidden cake boxes is out?” Bill asked. Molly studied him across the table. Somewhere beyond the window, an ice cream van played three notes and died. Bill waited, one hand resting protectively on the cape he had somehow produced from beneath his chair. At last she folded the invitation, slid it into her pocket, and moved Catastrophe to the top of the list. Cromwell trotted in wearing the second apron. Bill pointed at him with renewed hope. Molly slowly capped her pen. The small terrier, she decided, could be Professor Marvo.