Okay, pumped may be an overstatement. Robbie Schmidt was trying surreptitiously to smell-check his pits without anyone seeing. Sophomores Sarah and Sophia, whichever one was which, were watching him and giggling. Claudia was trying out different eyebrow pencils on the back of her hand, and Mary Kate was reviewing her French verb flashcards.

So they weren’t pumped exactly. But they were all here, and they were about to be pumped because I was about to make a big announcement.

Even with the stolen signatures from Save Your Heart, I had come nowhere close to the 500 I needed to petition St Mary’s for an official school production of The Vagina Monologues. But, undeterred, I had decided to take the project in a new – and interesting – direction.

‘Ladies and gentleman!’ I barked. Then I realized how heteronormative and gender binary that was. What about ‘my loyal followers’? Too Mussolini?

‘People!’ I boomed finally. ‘I have a very exciting announcement to make. It’s a little daring, it’s a little bold, but I know you joined this club because you are daring and bold …’

Robbie Schmidt broke out in a sweat; there was no hope for his armpits now. Sophia and Sarah giggled. And Mary Kate interrupted me as soon as I opened my mouth to speak again.

‘Um, Alex? Shouldn’t we wait for Sister Georgina?’

I looked down the table. Sister Georgina’s usual seat in the back corner was empty. Honestly, it was a bit weird. As spaced out as Sister Georgina was, she had never before failed to show up for her weekly nap in the mildewy dungeon that was our meeting room. But I was too jazzed about my idea to care.

‘As I was saying, we are gonna do something bold. Something daring. Something controversial, unprecedented, revolutionary – even incendiary! We are going to – What the hell are YOU doing here?’

The door had opened, interrupting my speech and my momentum, and, when I saw who it was, I had blurted out the first thing that came into my head.

Mary Kate looked up and gasped. ‘Alex!’ Her face was dead white. Panicked, she stood up immediately and – I swear to God – did a little curtsey. It was awkward, but no one laughed because everyone was frozen in terror.

Father Hughes had just walked into the room.

Sometimes I forget that not everyone at St Mary’s has this whole playful, antagonistic, Sherlock–Moriarty thing going on with Father Hughes like I do. For most of them, he’s an awe-inspiring figure they only see at a distance, looming over them from his giant pulpit during mass or assembly, making big, thunderous pronouncements from God and the school board. Me, I see him on the regular. The principal’s office is my second-best hang-out on campus, after that secret smoking area on the roof of the science building.