Sulkily, Mary Kate surrendered and began unpacking her pens again, arranging them in ROYGBIV order next to my clipboard. We had just finished setting up when we heard an irritatingly cheerful voice.

‘Hey, Alex! Hey, MK!’

Coming towards us was what looked like a Valentine’s Day parade float: pink balloons that seemed to hold up a huge white smile. As she got closer, we could make out the freckled face and red hair of my campus nemesis, the girl who embodies everything I hate most about St Mary’s: the irrepressible perkiness, the do-gooder Girl Scout facade, the deep-seated sexual repression.

It was Katie Casey.

‘Fuck my tits,’ I groaned under my breath.

Mary Kate hit me. ‘Stop it! Katie’s really nice!’

‘No, she acts nice. She’s really Kim Jong-un in a scrunchie,’ I said. ‘And why is she calling you MK? Like you two are best buds or something.’

‘We are friends! We had health class together freshman year.’

‘Watching a video about abstinence together doesn’t give you, like, a bond for life.’

Katie Casey stopped at the table next to ours, breathless. She wore a pink T-shirt from a breast-cancer walk, and rubber charity bracelets all up her arm, and was carrying two trays of pink cupcakes.

‘Do you girls mind if I set up here?’ she asked.

‘Actually …’ I began, as Mary Kate chimed, ‘Sure, no problem!’

I glared at Mary Kate.

Katie Casey unrolled a white poster, sending a shower of pink glitter over both our tables. It read:

SAVE YOUR HEART club!
We’re waiting for marriage!

Grrr! It took all my self-control not to tear the poster to pieces. Virginity pledges are the worst. Encouraging young girls to hand over ownership of their sexuality to some disembodied deity? Basically, these girls are denying themselves any kind of physical pleasure until they get a promise ring from some turd in pleated khakis who learned about female anatomy from cartoon prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto IV. That can’t possibly lead to anything bad, right?

As usual, Katie Casey was oblivious to the righteous hatred for her simmering under my skin because she was chatting with us, all freckly and smiley, her ponytail bouncing, asking how our summers were, what classes we were taking. ‘And what’s the St Mary’s Feminist Club up to this semester?’ she asked.

‘Actually, something really exciting,’ I told her. ‘We’re putting on the first-ever St Mary’s Catholic School production of The Vagina Monologues.’

‘Wow!’ she chirped. ‘I don’t know too much about it, but I’ve heard of it! Definitely exciting!’

Oh, is it? I thought. I decided to test her.

‘Yeah, the school doesn’t want us to,’ I continued. ‘The school thinks the play goes against Catholic values and promotes premarital sex. But we’re collecting signatures to support the show.’ I held out our clipboard and pen enticingly. ‘Would you like to sign?’