Recipes for Disaster by Josie Brown

her sergeants-at-arms—Tiffy Swift and the unfortunately named Hayley Coxhead—to come forward with what looks like a wheel made up of individual spokes. 
    Put at ease, the other mothers coo and smile again. 
    Frankly, I think their relief is a bit premature. No matter how Penelope tries to dress things up by writing them on those colorful wheel spokes, the same nasty chores await us.
    “When I call your name, you’ll come up and spin the wheel. The task it lands on will be yours. If the necessary number of volunteers for an assignment have already been chosen, the spoke will be removed. Fair and square, don’t you agree?”
    Heads bob solemnly.
    I raise my hand. “Wait a minute! What happened to the old method?  You know, we peruse the sign-up sheets and write our names beside the job we want?”
    “Too mundane. This is why you’re never chosen for the fun, creative tasks, Donna—because you have no sense of adventure,” Penelope declares. “Time to spin! And may the odds be ever in your favor!” 
    Seriously, a  Hunger Games  quote?
    I know how to kill with one stab of a wheel spoke. Penelope better hope she doesn’t find this out the hard way.
    As names are called, the wheel is spun and the number of assignments are whittled down. I wince when I realize that the choice ones are being grabbed up by Penelope’s favored few.  Hmmm …
    When my own name is called, I make my way toward the front of the room, where the wheel awaits me. I feel like Dead Mom Walking. The wheel looks innocent enough. A slot or two on the Father-Daughter and Mother-Son dance decoration committees are still up for grabs, as are the once-a-month school field trip, and Scrip tallying positions, so maybe I’ll pull something that’s easy to do.
    I churn the wheel, close my eyes and pray.
    “Donna chose ‘Lunchroom Lady!’” Tiffy intones. 
    Hayley smiles viciously. “That’s under my supervision.”
    Noooooo  …….
    Doling out food, and cleaning up the tables afterward? Not to mention, you have to wear the dreaded hairnet.
    I look at the others who have also pulled this suicide mission. Is it a coincidence that two of them shared the Siberia table with me at the Hilldale Women’s Club luncheon? These other unlucky winners include all three-hundred pounds of plumpness Lucinda Manley, and Tara Wills, whose fantasy face and figure put her in the sights of Penelope’s husband, Peter. She turned him down, but Penelope still blames her for looking like a living Barbie doll.
    I bide my time until the last assignment is given. As the other women filter out, I walk up to Penelope. “I’d like to inspect the volunteer wheel.”
    “I don’t know what you’re insinuating,” Penelope sniffs. The looks she exchanges with Hayley and Tiffy imply otherwise.
    I take the wheel anyway. I’ll have Arnie give it a once-over. If it’s been rigged, he’ll figure it out.
    Then there will be hell to pay.
    Suffice it to say what I can do with a spoke is not something to discuss in polite company.
     

    I pull up into Hilldale High’s carpool lane at exactly three-thirty. School let out at three o’clock, so I presume the joint should have cleared out enough that Mary, Wendy and Babs won’t be too disappointed to go home in my mommy mobile.
    I am so wrong.
    Three much older boys hover over the girls, who are sitting on a bench by the curb. The tallest of these man-boys leans in toward Mary. One leg is propped up on the arm of the bench. His body language reads, “You’re mine.” 
    If he were looking in my direction, my body language might be just as easily read.
    And he’d be running for his life.
    When Mary sees me screech to the curb, her coy smile disappears. She doesn’t know it but I’ve tapped open a secret panel holding my spare Glock 23.
    Only the look of guilt in her eyes keeps me from pulling it out.
    I motion toward the park across from the school, indicating that I’ll be waiting for her there. She nods slowly, and