The primary sanitation protocol at the North Loop Veterinary Hospital requires a twelve-minute sterilization cycle in the autoclave at two hundred and fifty degrees. Inside the Great River Trampoline Park, there were no such rigorous measures, only eighty-four children bouncing under blue fluorescent lamps that made their teeth look violet.
I adjusted the silver band of my wristwatch, checking the alignment of the metal clasp against my wrist. It was exactly fourteen minutes past two, and my son, Kobe, had just cleared the safety perimeter of the foam pit.
His eight-year-old birthday party had cost three hundred and eighty dollars, paid in full from my personal checking account. I had already logged the transaction in my notebook under the heading of non-essential domestic expenses, maintaining a strict column for the decimal points.
A boy in red grip-socks collided with Kobe at the edge of the vinyl safety mat. Kobe did not shout, but his shoulders tightened, a physical reaction I recognized from three years of monitoring his social transitions.
I reached down to touch the paper birthday crown sitting on the bench beside me. It was a cheap, gold-trimmed band with cardboard peaks, still smelling of the packing box it had arrived in.
The mother sitting on my left, whose child had arrived twenty minutes late for the safety briefing, was opening a plastic container of wet wipes. The chemical scent of artificial lavender cut through the smell of hot concession popcorn and synthetic floor sealant.
“They should have more staff supervising the main platform,” she said, without looking up from her screen.
“The facility maintains a one-to-twenty supervisor ratio,” I said, citing the liability disclosure I had signed at the entrance terminal.
She did not offer a reply, and I did not initiate further conversation.
Then the overhead klaxon began its high-decibel cycle.
The sound was a continuous ninety-decibel screech, the standard frequency for an active building evacuation sequence.
The blue lamps did not shut off, but the bouncing stopped instantly.
Eighty-four children froze mid-jump, their shadows stretching long and thin across the vinyl floor like specimens on a slide.
