‘You know,’ I told her, after I’d shut the window and Pat had jogged away across the howling quad, ‘you should really put these skills to better use. You could go into Central Intelligence. You could negotiate peace talks with Putin. Of course, you’d have to ride a horse topless with him, but you’re a My Little Pony fan. I’m sure you’ve fantasized about that at some point.’

Completely ignoring my suggestion, she looked up from the yearbook. ‘What about Chase Rajatowski? You’ve never seen him with a girl, have you?’

‘No …’ I said, tossing her one of the candy bars Pat had smartly brought. ‘But I do see him with Father O’Hanlon a lot …’

She frowned for a moment, then drew a decisive red X through Chase Rajatowski.

And then, one day, she was ready.

It was Friday afternoon, exactly one week before the show. I was on my way out of the door with a stack of flyers in my hand, heading to Boys’ Quad to invite some guys to The Non-Vagina Monologues.

Save Your Heart and the Feminist Club were both technically co-ed, but, in reality, they were mostly female – and the festival probably would be, too. Not just all girls, but all girls like Katie Casey: bubble-headed, pink-sprinkled purity doughnuts in human form.

So I was going after a new demographic. And I had designed a very different handout: something eye-catching, tantalizing, with edge and sex appeal. The flyer announced a FREE can’t-miss performance of ‘An Extract from the Works of Eve Ensler … author of The VAGINA Monologues!!!’ All that was printed in bold against a background of a Georgia O’Keefe painting to inspire subconscious erotic thoughts. Clearly, Mary Kate’s reading about subliminal mind control had subliminally seeped into my subconscious and was controlling my mind, but it was all for the better.

Then, just as I headed out, making sure my stack of flyers were VAGINA side up in case I ran into Sister Hellda, Mary Kate stopped me and said very dramatically: ‘WAIT!’

She rose from our futon. She shed her blanket cocoon. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Then, standing in the center of our room, she took a deep breath, gripped the edge of the bandage covering her nose and ripped it right off her face.

I gasped. ‘Mary Kate!’

She panicked and faltered suddenly, bringing both hands up to her nose. ‘Wait, does it look okay? Technically, I wasn’t supposed to take it off for three more days.’

‘No, it looks good!’ I took a step closer and squinted. ‘And your skin looks really clear, too. I think the bandage acted like one of those blackhead pore-strip thingies.’

‘All right.’ She rubbed away the red marks on her cheeks where the bandage had been. ‘Let’s go talk to some boys.’