Before you could say frostbitten nipples, snowballs were whizzing every which way, hitting the backs of people’s coats and beanies and exploding into soft confetti. Great fluffy flakes were swirling around, people were running and leaping through the fresh white drifts, skipping carelessly over my charred physics quizzes and almost somersaulting over Katie Casey, who was crouched intently in the snow with my lighter. She managed to get a small circle of flame going again in the wet, whirling wind.

‘Defend the fire, Katie!’ I called back to her, and I was defending it myself, racing around, fending people off, blocking them with my body, loading snowball after snowball into my slingshot and launching them through the smoky air. My heart was pounding, I was hot and sweaty inside my coat and a strange exhilaration was pumping through me. Even though I took my protest seriously, I couldn’t fight off a stray thought that made me smile: This is kinda fun.

But then I saw something that wiped the smile off my face. My fury roared with flaming power that put our reborn baby bonfire to shame.

Pat.

Pure Minnesota through and through, he wasn’t even wearing a coat. No hat, either – no gloves, no scarf. His green fleece was open over his sweater, his tousled hair damp with snowflakes, and he strolled through the snow flanked by his douchelord hockey cocks (including Lundqvist the Ginger Viking), infuriatingly casual as ever.

Flinging my slingshot aside, I snatched up a handful of snow and hurled it as hard as I could. It hit Pat right in the face. Surprised, he turned his head. There was a bright red mark on his right cheek where the snowball had hit him. Sure, I’m no Hulked-out Mary Kate with a football, but I’m not bad.

‘Hey!’ He frowned.

But I was already launching another snowball. Pow! It hit him in the stomach and all the white snow clung to his sweater. He took off running, and I took off after him. Crushing snow castles, stomping through snow angels and shoving aside cheerful snow bunnies, I pursued him, scooping up snow and packing and throwing snowballs as I ran.

Pat was bobbing and weaving between people in puffy coats and pompon hats; at one point he ducked behind a snowman and I hurled a snowball straight at it and its head exploded. But he just kept running, laughing as he ran, and, as I raced after him through the gale of snowflakes, he began to scoop snow and toss snowballs back at me. It didn’t even look like he was aiming, but the first hit my left cheek with a wet, cold splat. Then another – whoosh! – in the side of my head. And boom! A third snowball hit me right in the boob.