I grabbed it and shook it. ‘What is it?’

‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘Can’t tell. Santa would sue me.’

I leaned further out of the window. ‘Come on! I always snoop on my gifts beforehand.’

‘Not this time. Pinkie swear or I’ll take it back.’

He threatened to grab it, so I sighed and hooked my pinkie in his. Then I pulled him close and kissed him.

Something light hit me in the back of the head and dropped to the floor. A purple tampon. I looked up and saw Mary Kate armed with another one, grinning.

‘Oooooooh,’ she said in a teasing sing-song. ‘Alex has a boyfriend.’

I picked up the tampon and threw it behind her. When she turned around, I grabbed Pat again, kissed him even harder and pushed him away.

‘Get outta here,’ I said. ‘Mary Kate and I have to go on a walk.’

‘We do?’ Mary Kate asked.

‘See you in January. Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas!’ Pat called, and jogged off across the quad.

A light snow was falling on white-blanketed Girls’ Quad as we crossed through the soft drifts, bundled up. The dorms were hushed and dark. Most people had already gone home. Academic Quad was frozen as still as a postcard, the Mary statue wore a white hat of snow, and the golden doors of the main building were locked. The late-afternoon sky turned pink and orange as we walked down the long avenue of pine trees, and, when we came to a little flight of stone steps, I stopped.

Mary Kate, who was wearing furry earmuffs with her power bun, looked around. ‘Where are we going?’

I held out my hand.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘What are you doing?’

‘We’re walking around the lake,’ I told her proudly.

She looked out at the lake, which was pink with reflected sunset under branches bowed by sparkling snow. She groaned and shook her head.

‘You’re in love with me, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Well, I guess in the back of my mind I’ve always known. This explains why you kept trying to spoon me the night the radiator broke.’

‘What? No! This is a SYMBOL, Mary Kate. This is me helping you fulfill your semester goal. This is a gesture! Not a romantic gesture, but a friendship gesture.’

She sighed heavily, pulled off her mitten and held out her bare hand. I took it, and we walked down the steps and set off on the tree-lined trail around the lake.

‘This doesn’t count as achieving my semester goal, you know,’ she warned me.

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘you might be wrong about that.’