Murder by the Slice Read Free Page A

had emerged triumphant more often than not, and Phyllis tried to tell herself not to let that bother her, but it was difficult not to, sometimes.
    The previous summer, all that had taken a backseat to the tragedy at the Peach Festival and the other murders that had occurred, but those troubles were behind them now and Phyllis’s thoughts were turning to other matters. Even though the auction wasn’t exactly a contest, Phyllis had a feeling that her friend would try to come up with the cake that sold for the largest amount of money. That was in Carolyn’s nature.
    And in her own, too, Phyllis was forced to admit as she realized why she was being secretive about what she had seen in the magazine. She didn’t want Carolyn stealing her idea.
    “What were you saying?” Carolyn asked.
    “Never mind,” Phyllis said with a wave of her hand. Carolyn was still holding up both index fingers. “So, what was your idea that would make it different?”
    “We can have a contest, too.”
    Here we go, Phyllis thought. “A contest?” Carolyn had gotten around to that even more quickly than Phyllis had expected.
    “Yes, but not with the fancy cakes. Those will just be for show, and for the auction.”
    “Okay,” Phyllis said, not sure now where Carolyn was going with this.
    “The contest will be to see who can come up with the best-tasting healthy snack.”
    Phyllis frowned. “Healthy snack? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
    “It doesn’t have to be.” Carolyn waved her hands with enthusiasm. “Think about it, Phyllis. When we were teaching, didn’t you absolutely hate seeing what those poor children put in their mouths all the time? Twinkies and potato chips and candy bars and on and on, everything either packed with sugar or salt, nothing but empty calories and fat. It was awful. And most of the time it was the parents who put those things in their kids’ lunches.”
    Phyllis knew that Carolyn was right, at least to a certain extent. Kids had never eaten healthy, not back in the sixties and seventies when her own son, Mike, was a little boy and not now. But Phyllis had tended to worry more about her students who came to school with nothing to eat, rather than the ones consuming junk food. Then there were the students who were abused or sick … When it came to children, there were definitely enough worries to go around.
    “So you think we should have a contest for healthy snacks?”
    “That’s right. Everyone who wants to enter would pay a small entry fee … a donation to the school, really, is what it amounts to … and the people who come to the carnival would have to pay to be the judges. A couple of tickets would entitle them to sample all the entries, and then they could vote on which one was the best. At the end of the carnival, when we auction off the cakes, we’ll also announce the big winner of the contest.” Carolyn beamed. “Everyone likes snacks. And everyone likes a contest, too.”
    Maybe she was right, Phyllis thought. It wouldn’t cost anything to try, and again, it was a variation from the run-ofthe-mill bake sale. She wasn’t sure how well the idea of healthy snacks would go over with the kids, though. The lit tle Twinkie-munchers liked their goodies crammed full of sugar and sodium and fat.
    “So you’ll enter, Phyllis?”
    “I don’t know. I have a lot to do around here.”
    Carolyn waved a hand at the sink. The cabinet doors were still open underneath it. “What, fixing leaky pipes? You should leave that to someone who knows what he’s doing.”
    Phyllis caught that reference to he . “You think a woman can’t fix a pipe? You think we’re just suited for baking and things like that?” She knew she sounded irritated. She couldn’t help it.
    “I never said that. I just assumed you’d want another chance to try to beat me at something.”
    “Oh, you’re entering the contest, are you?”
    “I certainly am.”
    “Even though you’re in charge? Doesn’t that strike you as being a