I looked west to Boys’ Quad, from where the hockey players had come with the gossip, where Mary Kate was imprisoned in a strange room with a potentially murderous Canadian. Little Mary Kate, who still bought three-pack training bras from GapKids.

I looked south. Father Hughes had stepped down from the golf cart and was striding towards us through the wintry storm, his long dark coat blowing behind him.

Heat was blazing at my back. This was my chance. This was the moment I’d been building towards for two and a half years. I had literally set fire to the campus, and now I got to stand in front of a righteous flame and face down Father Hughes – got to look into the stern grey face of the patriarchy and declare: You can’t make me wear a bra. Or a green-plaid skort that gives me wedgies. And you can’t make me feel like I’m any less important than some ’roid-rage human jockstrap with no nerve feeling left in his shoulders. Fuck the patriarchy, and fuck you, Father Hughes!

Fuck you, Father Hughes – and goodbye.

But I couldn’t stop imagining Mary Kate’s face, remembering her big, scared brown eyes during that first dodgeball game.

I turned to Katie Casey. ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I told her.

‘WHAT?’ All her freckles stood out in her pale, shocked face. ‘Where are you going?’

‘You know in Beauty and the Beast when the brunette dweeb who likes to read gets chained up by this, like, big hairy monster and a bunch of French furniture, and her dad goes into the village and has to get that muscle-bound prick to go break her free?’ I explained hurriedly. ‘It’s kinda like that.’

‘I think I’m the muscle-bound prick,’ Pat contributed over my shoulder.

Father Hughes was waving away the smoke from the fire as he walked towards us.

‘Look.’ I grabbed Katie’s arm. ‘You don’t have to get in trouble if you don’t want to. You can tell him I started it, and you tried to stop me. He’ll believe you, trust me. If you saw my disciplinary file, you’d know why. Tell him I started the fire – tell him I made you start the fire – tell him I tried to set you on fire. I don’t care.’

And, before she had a chance to respond, I grabbed Pat and sprinted off through the snow.

I had a best friend to find.

18

Snow was swirling. It was impossible to see. We slipped and slid and struggled against tundra winds that almost blew us over. Even Pat was panting heavily, clutching his fleece closed, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes. It seemed like a thousand miles to St Ambrose Hall. How would we ever get to Mary Kate?