Cupping his hands around his mouth, he made an announcement: ‘Fellow students! I call your attention to something SHAMEFUL going on here. The Toothless Beast’s girlfriend is sitting down – I repeat – SITTING DOWN – during the game!’

The crowd erupted in righteous fury. They were shouting, hissing, spitting. Everywhere I turned was body heat, angry breath and the crush of impending doom. My chest was tight with panic. I was a trapped animal. The booing and hissing swelled into a single angry, manic chant:

‘STAND UP, STAND UP, STAND UP, STAND UP!’

This is how it ends, I thought in terror, my heart racing under my puffy coat. Iceman, get ready – you’re about to have two rival ghosts on campus. Any second now, the two of us would be ground to dust beneath a thousand pairs of snow boots.

I looked down at my room-mate for one last glimpse of her before the angry mob swallowed us whole, expecting to see her quivering like a tiny white rabbit in a meme that said, ‘PWEASE HELP ME.’

But she wasn’t. She was small, yes, but her narrow shoulders were drawn proudly back, and her jaw was set: everything in her body language showed steely determination.

And then something happened, something heroic and shocking and incredible: Mary Kate stood up.

She stood up, planted her crutches on the bleachers and, in a clear, angry, self-confident voice that carried over that entire thousand-person crowd, yelled, ‘SHUT UP!’

Everyone was staring at her.

‘All your little whispers and rumors and lies. It’s all BS!’

My jaw dropped. This wasn’t the kind of language my room-mate used in her Downton Abbey fan fiction!

‘In fact, this whole school is BS!’ Mary Kate plowed on, a savage relish in her voice. ‘I’ve tried to fit in here. I’ve tried to be a perfect St Mary’s girl. But I walk around the lake and what happens? I get BARFED on! I try to play football – because sports are soooo friggin’ important around here – and what happens? I get my nose broken!’

Whatever was happening on the ice, none of us cared anymore. What was the score? No one knew. Everyone was riveted by Mary Kate’s rant. And I could tell from the light in her eyes, from her chest heaving with excited breaths, that she was enjoying holding court. I don’t think she’d ever raised her voice that loud in her life.