[Chasmo]

Apologies for having been away for a while as well as for the long build-up to this story. Folks have fairly criticized these tales before for being big on the lead in and then short on the stripping -- all hat and no cattle if you will. I hope to do better here. That said, this is likely the last installment until the weekend (at the earliest) due to some unforeseen travel. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless and will work on writing the installments that follow to a standard that will - if I succeed - not again disappoint.

* * *

"Let's go boys, we don't have all day," Mrs. Parnell chided, as Will and his friends gathered their backpacks and gym bags.

It was 5:00 am the morning of "Political Awareness Day" and Danielle, although still questioning the wisdom of permitting Will to have his sleep over the evening before, was feeling better after last night's bath and a restful sleep. Her plan now was to drop Will and his friends at crew practice in Anacostia (from where a bus would return them to school), hit the gym herself and then make her way over to Gonzaga to shower and change before taking the reins of the day's planned "discussion" between the washed up Sarah Palin and the effectively useless Emily Duncan. She smiled inwardly at how she planned to dominate the two women with her poise, intellect and -- most of all -- beauty.

Mrs. Parnell likewise grinned at having prevailed upon the trustees the year before to finance the construction within the school's four walls of what was essentially a private club for the Mothers' Guild executive officers -- of which she now was one. What formerly had been rooms reserved for such nerdy pursuits as the chess and math teams had been taken down to the studs and rebuilt as a small paneled library, kitchenette and two rather large offices -- each with its own bathroom and shower -- one for the guild's president and one for its current vice president -- Danielle Marie Parnell.

"Move over Quentin," Malcolm Biggs' voice announced pulling Danielle from her thoughts of a late morning shower to the task at hand of getting these savages to practice, "I can't get my bag over your seat."

"Okay, okay . . . give me a minute would ya' man," came Quentin's tired response, "I'm still half asleep."

"Be careful back there boys," Danielle snapped testily, gesturing over her shoulder at a garment bag hanging from a hook above one of the Range Rover's passenger side rear windows, "I don't need my clothes getting wrinkled by your shenanigans."

To the boys' delight, Will's mom was this morning wearing a skin tight pair of black yoga pants, trainers and a fitted cotton tank top due to her heading off to the gym once she dropped them at practice. Clearly the clothes she was going to change into for the day were hanging in that bag.

"Will honey," Danielle continued, finally having gotten his friends into the car as she pulled out of her driveway in the darkness toward DC, "do mommy a favor and take her garment bag and that little suitcase with you to practice. I'm going to Equinox after I drop you boys off and I'd rather get ready for the assembly in my office at school than in the locker room at the gym."

"But mom . . . ," Will protested annoyed again at his mother's continuing use of the word "mommy" in front of his friends but more so at imagining the hassle of carrying not only his own stuff, but now his mother's, to practice and then on the bus back to school.

"But nothing young man," the harsh response came, "I'm not asking you . . . I'm telling you. Take my clothes to my office and hang them on my office door so that I may change into them when I get to school. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes mom," came the boy's defeated response.

By that point, with a fairly long car ride before ahead before they arrived at practice, Quentin and Malcolm -- along with Christian Tabash -- had already fallen back asleep. Calum Duncan on the other hand was too charged up for slumber. He had been thinking all night about how he might be able to use his "film" to take down Will's snob of a mom. One thing was for sure, he couldn't imagine his day starting much better than it had this morning. That is, until he heard the conversation Will had just finished with his mother.

* * *

After getting dropped off at the boat house, powering through their morning practice on the river, hitting the showers and changing into their clothes for school -- a blazer and tie day due to the Political Awareness Day presentation scheduled for the afternoon -- Will and his friends finally boarded the bus to head to Gonzaga and morning class. As was often the case, practice had run a bit long so the team would need to hustle once the bus pulled up to the school to permit them to make it to class on time and avoid "JUG." The acronym, which humorously stood for Judgement under God, represented what was the equivalent of detention. And Will Parnell was worried.

"I can't believe my mom needs me to drop off her stupid stuff in the Mothers' Guild lounge," he complained to his compatriots, continuing, "I've got math as my first class and it's all the way across campus -- I'm totally going to get JUG which will make my mom - who caused it in the first place - that much more pissed."

This wouldn't be the first time that following his mother's directions for had caused the young rower to be subjected to her wrath due to their unintended consequences.

"Walk your little sister to the bus do you hear me," Will remembered Danielle saying recently only to have hell to pay when after doing so he missed his own bus and was late for school.

Although Will Parnell loved his mom without question, he on more than one occasion wished that she could, for once, be the one who suffered some consequences.

"Hey Parnell," came Calum Duncan's voice interrupting Will's panic attack. "I've got Brother Joshua's history class and it's right next to the lounge -- I can drop your mom's outfit in her office and still make it to class with time to spare."

Feeling like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, Will Parnell handed his mother's garment bag as well as the small duffle she had given him off to Calum Duncan.

"You da' man Cal," enthused Will clueless as to the motivation for his friend's magnanimity, "just make sure it gets there okay."

"No problem buddy," came the Duncan boy's smiling reply, "and don't worry -- what could possibly go wrong . . ."

Knowing full well the answer he planned for his own question, Calum Duncan hustled from the crew team bus into the school's hallways so as to give himself as much time as possible for his intended sabotage. To his delight, there was no answer when he softly knocked on the door to the Mother's Guild lounge. To his even greater joy -- and throwing fuel on the fire of his plan to finally get back at Mrs. Parnell -- when he entered the lounge the first thing he spotted was a second garment bag, this one hanging on the door to the Mothers' Guild President's office. On it, written in bold black letters across a piece of masking tape were the words "Governor Palin's suit -- do not remove."

Knowing that Gonzaga's student body would give anything to see the converse of that message - namely the removal of the stunning stateswoman's suit -- the mischievous teen decided to raise the stakes of his already risky gambit. Quickly hanging Danielle's suit on the door to her office, Cal Duncan grabbed a pair of scissors that was sitting on her desk, unzipped the garment bag hanging on the President's door, and immediately went to work weakening the seams of Governor Palin's fancy suit and blouse.

Unfortunately, as soon as he finished that task and placed the bag -- to all appearances untouched -- back where he found it, the door to the lounge opened from the outside heralding the entrance of none other than the former Governor of Alaska and her good friend -- the fabulously fit Ellie Kerr.

Kicking himself for not turning first to Will's mom's clothes which remained untouched, Calum hid from sight behind one of the opulent couches in the lounge and then, as the two women walked across the room toward the office door upon
which Ms. Palin's now modified outfit hung, he stealthily sneaked out through the still closing main door and into the crowded hallway.

* * *

"I want to apologize again about my not moderating this thing," a contrite Ellie Kerr said to her friend Sarah as the latter prepared to change from her street clothes into the suit that she had her assistant ensure was waiting for her.

"No problem," replied the Governor, "it sounds like that friend of yours has the entire board wrapped around her highly manicured little pinkie -- even Stuart."

"Don't get me started," replied a visibly annoyed Mrs. Kerr, "ever since that little tease's son and she got here she's been leading my idiot of a husband -- along with Adam Hess and the rest of these morons on the board -- by their noses."

"Or by something else," offered Mrs. Palin laughing.

Not amused, Ellie raged on, "for instance this entire Mothers' Guild suite was her brainchild -- can you believe it! Shaking that little bottom of hers in front of the male population of this place -- men and boys alike -- she loves it. And what's more she loves lording it over me and every other wife, mother or girlfriend in her path. Just once I'd like to see that arrogant snob get hers."

Smiling again at her upset friend Sara Palin wrested a scissors from her purse and -- pointing at the garment bag hanging on the door across the lounge -- laughed, "well I think I know just how we can make that happen."

And then, carefully unzipping the very fancy Louis Vuitton garment bag -- upon which in embossed gold letters appeared the words Danielle M. Parnell, Esq. -- Ellie Kerr and the one-time candidate for Vice President of the United States -- quickly went to work weakening the seams of the contents of said bag -- namely, Mrs. Parnell's fancy, black, Prada leather suit. They were indeed -- going rogue!