‘Oh right, I forgot,’ I said. ‘That’s why clowns wear those big shoes, SO THEY CAN RUN AWAY FROM AIDS!’

A door down the hall opened and I realized how loud I’d just been. Luckily, it wasn’t Sister Hellda – just a girl shuffling towards the bathroom in her robe and bunny slippers. But I pulled Maggie-Meggy into our room just in case, and spoke in a whisper.

‘Listen, you’re in the third-floor wing, right? I’ll come get you right after classes tomorrow. We’re going to Planned Parenthood.’

‘There’s a Planned Parenthood here?’

‘Well, near here,’ I said. ‘Or not that near actually … After we scale the fence and sneak off campus, we’ll have to walk a mile to the interstate, and possibly sell our bodies to some truckers to get the rest of the way. But we’re going for STD testing anyway, so it’ll be fine.’

Maggie-Meggy was too panicked to even notice I was joking. She just nodded obediently, and when I opened the door she scurried off – a little uncomfortably, which wasn’t too surprising, given she was probably dealing with post-balloon vaginitis.

St Anne Hall 305.

That morning, Maggie (it was Maggie) and I had made a successful trip to Planned Parenthood. Well, we would still have to wait forty-eight hours for the blood tests to see how successful the trip had actually been, but Maggie was at least a lot calmer. Of course she had frozen up and turned bright red the minute it came to explaining to the nurse that she’d rounded the bases with a helium penis the night before, which meant I had to pretend she was a Bulgarian exchange student and I was her translator, but all’s well that ends with free birth control. Now she was back at our dorm, relaxing in her room, easing her discomfort with cranberry juice and a romcom marathon.

And I was here, in front of a door: St Anne Hall 305.

Even Katie Casey’s door was annoyingly perky. A cartoon penguin decorated her nameplate and friendly messages were scrawled all over the whiteboard in pink marker: Movie night downstairs at 8 and Don’t forget milkshake mass! and I ♥ you! – Sarah.

I did not want to be here. But my mindset had changed since Katie Casey and I had spoken last. Until yesterday, I’d thought I needed to put on The Vagina Monologues to get kicked out of St Mary’s. But now I realized I needed to put on The Vagina Monologues BEFORE I got kicked out of St Mary’s. After all, once I was gone, who were girls like Maggie going to turn to? I needed to act now and start spreading some knowledge. Mary Kate may call me a selfish only child, but when you realize there’s young people around you having unprotected sex with amateur clowns, it’s a wake-up call, lemme tell ya.