I glared at Katie Casey as she bounced out of the library, her swinging ponytail wafting the scent of strawberry shampoo in her diabolic wake. I hated her more than ever. She had power, she had the love and approval of the St Mary’s administration and faculty – and she had the McLaughlin Theater.

Which meant I had to come up with a new plan.

October

11

‘HELLO, FEMINISTS!’ I boomed across Academic Quad.

The bold fall colors of the campus in October matched my bold spirit and my color scheme for the day. Planting my motorcycle boots right in front of the Virgin Mary statue, I flung my arms open wide, showing off my red T-shirt, which read VAGINA in big black paint letters across my boobs. ‘Are we ready for this?’

Undaunted by the fact that no venues on campus would let us put on the Monologues, I had decided to move on and pursue it in a different way. Who needed those crusty old venues anyway? They were all haunted by that church smell of incense and anal-retentiveness. Not to mention the ghost.

No, instead I had come up with a new approach. We were going to bring The Vagina Monologues direct to the people – raw, shocking and unfiltered.

We were doing a Vagina Monologues flash mob.

And, to my surprise, all the members of the Feminist Club had actually showed up. All six of us.

‘I’ve been leading everyone in vocal warm-ups,’ Claudia informed me. I had told everyone to dress in red, and she was in it from head to toe – a red beret, red lipstick and pointy red flats. ‘Everyone repeat after me: “red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather …”’

‘We made our shirts like you did,’ Sarah or Sophia told me. ‘See?’

S1 on the left was wearing a red sweatshirt that said THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE, with an arrow pointing to the left. S2 on the right was wearing a nearly identical red sweatshirt that said THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE, with an arrow pointing to the right.

‘Switch places,’ I told them.

They switched places. Then one of them turned to Mary Kate, who was standing a couple of yards away, fiddling with my phone. ‘Hey! She’s not wearing red.’

Actually, Mary Kate was wearing red – I had made her an identical version of my T-shirt, with VAGINA in big black letters. But she had her green St Mary’s fleece zipped to her chin to cover it up.

‘C’mon, Mary Kate,’ I had tried to coax her on the way over. ‘We are about to do something amazing. Something shocking and revolutionary. Everyone else is excited about it! Claudia’s excited about it!’

‘Of course Claudia’s excited about it,’ she had said. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing Claudia likes.’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean by that?’