‘NO!’ I panicked, realizing that my uncustomary cheer had trailed off into my usual bitter but witty sarcasm and I was traumatizing the kid. ‘No, it’s totally awesome! I mean … we have Fajita Friday!’

And I gave his scrawny freshman self a comforting hug. He sniffled into my bare shoulder for a few seconds – then, as we pulled apart, his wet eyes lit up and he asked, ‘Hey! You wanna make out?’

To be fair to both Pats, the atmosphere had taken a turn for … well, sexy would be too strong a word. More like horny and sweaty. Now that it was after nine o’clock, a lot of the older, crankier nuns and priests had left and gone back to their rooms to put on hair shirts and pray for our sinful souls. Mostly the semi-cool chaperones were left – like Father Dan, the youngest dorm priest, who plays guitar for us on school retreats. It was darker, someone had put on an R&B song with no bleeped-out words and the dance floor was filling up. Couples were clinging to each other, and Theology John’s friends had finished their rum-spiked sodas and were cruising for anyone to grind their khaki shorts against. All the rum breath and sweat and khaki-boner friction had made the room so hot and steamy that the windows were completely fogged up. As I stared at the windows in gross, horrified fascination, I saw a kid reach up and smear his handprint across the condensation in a clear homage to Kate Winslet and the sex-in-the-car scene in Titanic.

I laughed. Then I saw who it was.

‘Well, well, well,’ he hailed me. ‘The Tampon Terror!’

It was the Shaggy Hockey Player – the one I’d dumped tampons on. He was perched on the ancient radiator under the window, swinging his legs.

‘You know,’ I told him, swaggering over, ‘when you make ignorant jokes about a woman’s body, you just prove to everyone around that you’ve never actually touched one.’

He put his hand to his chest in mock offense. ‘I’ll have you know I can get one of those plaid skorts unbuckled in thirty-four seconds.’

I leaned in. ‘I wouldn’t brag too much about what you can get done in thirty-four seconds.’

He laughed, throwing his shaggy head back.

‘But it doesn’t matter,’ I said airily. ‘You Neanderthals actually ended up giving me a great idea.’

‘Oh yeah? What’s that?’

‘I am going to put on the first-ever St Mary’s Catholic School production of The Vagina Monologues.’

He barely raised an eyebrow at my bold statement. Then he shook his head and said calmly, ‘No you’re not.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’ll never be able to put on The Vagina Monologues here. You can’t pull it off, trust me. Last year the Drama Club got Beauty and the Beast censored because the vice-principal didn’t like the “overtones of bestiality”.’