I don’t think the chick had ever dropped the F-bomb before. But all of a sudden it burst out of her: ‘F-F-FUCK THE PATRIARCHY!’

And she flung the cute bra into the flames. Shoulder to shoulder, we watched the fabric of our bras burn away, exposing the underwire, which lit and twisted, glowing orange. It was pretty fucking awesome. Katie started giggling for some reason and couldn’t stop, and then I started giggling, and someone walking by probably would’ve thought we were drunk. Obviously, Katie Casey dropping her first F-bomb and being actually drunk at the same time was way too ‘Never Have I Ever’ for one night, but I have to admit it was a crazy natural high – the flashing flames, the swirling smoke, the adrenaline-pumping ecstasy of annihilation and anarchy which I know so well and she was tasting for the first time.

The fire blazed on, even in the howling wind, and Katie and I raced around the quad, giggling like psychopath arsonists, grabbing sticks and leaves and throwing them on the fire, emptying our pockets of crumpled graph paper and cough-drop wrappers (her) and old clove cigarettes (me). The flames climbed higher.

‘Bring on the destruction!’ I growled enthusiastically, punching the air and hopping from foot to foot like a boxer. ‘BURN, BABY, BURN!’

‘Someone’s definitely gonna come yell at us soon,’ Katie said, and she sounded excited about it.

‘Hell, yeah!’ I affirmed. ‘They can’t ignore us!’ I flung my arms out wide and yelled to the frozen sky: ‘YOU CAN’T IGNORE US! WE’RE SETTING ST MARY’S ON FIRE!’

Inhaling a deep, frosty breath, I was filled with savage satisfaction.

And then, at that exact moment, because the universe likes to give me a metaphorical purple nurple at every possible turn, one thing happened – the one thing that would one hundred percent definitely, indisputably, irrevocably ruin my last act of violent disobedience at St Mary’s.

It began to snow.

The first flake fell on my nose. The second on my eyelashes. Oh great, I thought. Snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes. Now I’m Maria from the friggin’ Sound of Music. I’m supposed to be a raging Amazon death-goddess of destruction here!

The snow was swirling and swirling, covering the bare tree branches and the stone buildings. In just a few minutes, the Mary statue was cloaked in white, and Katie and I, too. And our fire …

‘It’s going out!’ I shouted. ‘Defend the fire! Defend the fire!’

‘The wind is blowing this way,’ Katie calculated quickly. ‘If we both stand here, we can block it.’

But the fire was already flickering lower, and, as we hurried to stand shoulder to shoulder in defense of our flaming protest, we saw through the whirling white snowflakes another enemy approaching: people. Lots of people.