Early this morning, Katie Casey and I had met up at the statue of an old singing nun on Girls’ Quad, halfway between our two dorms. I got there early and, as soon as I saw her coming towards me in her adorable ski-bunny gear, I lunged at her across the knee-high snowdrifts and immediately offered to take the blame. I’d offered last night, of course, when I left her alone with our raging fire, the cigarette lighter and all the incriminating evidence, but maybe she’d been all high on the excitement, or peer-pressured by my West Coast badassery, or dizzy from smoke inhalation. Say what you want about my morals, I knew I had to give her another chance to back out. I was probably done at St Mary’s for good, but that was no reason for her to get screwed over.

She said no. She would come with me to our disciplinary hearing with Father Hughes.

‘Well, in that case,’ I said, ‘there are magic words that will get you through your first disciplinary hearing at St Mary’s. Kinda like Dorothy and the ruby slippers and “There’s no place like home” – except you’re not trying to get sent back to bland-ass Kansas. You say this, exactly this: “I’m so sorry. I made a mistake. I’ve never done anything like that before, and I’ll never do it again.”’

She looked doubtful. ‘That works?’

‘Well, not for me,’ I clarified. ‘Once you keep getting called into the principal’s office, like, forty times for different alcoholic and sexual escapades, plus vandalism involving an obscene spray-paint mural, the magic wears off. But for YOU, a first-time offender, it will work. Trust me.’

So now, in Father Hughes’s office, I waited for the magic words. There wasn’t a chance in hell for me, but it was possible Katie could save herself.

‘I …’ she began.

I’m so sorry, I thought intensely, trying to telegraph the words over mindwaves to her, and almost began to whisper it: I made a mistake. I’ve never done anything like that before …

Instead, she said, ‘I do have something to say.’ And she took a breath and started.

‘I am sorry about the fire. It was dangerous, and it wasn’t fair to the fire department or the school maintenance staff who had to come out in the snow because of it.’

Okay, I thought, watching her with interest. She did the apology. A little more detail than I suggested, but ya know, to each her own …

‘But I’m sure you’ll understand that we were super disappointed. Alex and I have been working this whole semester on the festival. It was important to us. But St Mary’s decided that sports were more important.’

Wait … where was she going with this?