Everything was perfect.

The lighting – natural Californian sunlight streaming between the buildings, illuminating my set. The setting – a quintessential all-American high school in Los Angeles, on the last day of term before spring break. The cast – giggling quietly just off camera, waiting for their big moment. The music – all queued up and ready to burst out of the speakers the instant I gave the signal. The camera angles – my friend Matty behind one camera, ready to get the static shots, and me darting in and out of the action with my trusty mini-camera, getting the really interesting views.

This was going to be phenomenal.

I’d been planning this day for months now, more or less since my second week at school here in LA. I wanted to create an event, the sort people would be talking about all through spring break, and beyond. I wanted to get noticed, in a way that my fledgling YouTube channel just hadn’t achieved yet. When Matty and I had been paired to work together on a small project at Film Club, we’d realized our styles melded well. Which was why I’d asked him to help me … and suddenly everything had come together.

There’d been a lot more to it, of course. People to persuade, rehearsals to schedule, blocking and planning and costumes and make-up … but finally we were there.

Today was the day I was going to make a real impression on my little corner of LA. Today, St Saviour’s High School, tomorrow the movie studios! Or at least, some recognition.

“In five, four, three,” I whispered into the mic, linked to my assistant’s earpiece. She watched me carefully from over where the cast were waiting as I held up two fingers, then one, then gave her the nod.

The music blasted out from the front steps of the school and over the grass verges, loud enough to be heard all the way to the far end of the car park. Students passing by looked up, some confused, some smiling. On the beat, my first few dancers emerged from their hiding places, their coordinated costumes and moves spectacular in the sunlight. With a quick glance to check that Matty was capturing the action in a wide shot, I darted into the dance to get the close-up shots.

We’d rehearsed this to the second and everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to do. As the beat changed, five students who’d seemingly just been hanging around the steps suddenly jumped up and started jiving, fast and furious, to the music.

It was just as I’d planned it. Right down to the cartwheels over the cars parked by the main hall, and the dancing on the edges of the concrete planters. I spun around in the middle of it all, catching the carefully coordinated chaos on film. Around us, people were laughing, clapping, cheering – even joining in. It was everything I’d dreamed it would be.

Right up until the moment I saw Principal Carter stalking across the grass towards me.

Everything was horrible.

OK, fine, not everything, not all the time. But right now, as I hid in the girls’ bathroom at school, waiting for everyone else to leave, things felt pretty horrible.

I wasn’t supposed to be in the girls’ bathroom. I was supposed to be at Climate Change Club, in the science classrooms. But it was the last day of the spring term, and no one else had even bothered to show up. Not that many people had shown up most of the other weeks this term either. Some days it was just me and Miss Morris, the teacher who ran the group.

This week, even Miss Morris had gone home early.

I always watched the climate protests on the telly, saw teenage activists across the world speaking on social media, yet I couldn’t even get my school to change the name of the club to Climate Crisis Club. News reporters told me that my generation were fired up about climate change but apparently ‘my generation’ didn’t go to Bollingsdale High School.

At my old school, we had recycling drives and designed awareness posters and no one got in too much trouble for skipping school to attend the march in central London. I went with Dad and his girlfriend, Mabel, and the whole day was incredible – being surrounded by people who cared about the same things I did.

Basically the opposite of my new school.

When Dad and I moved from Cambridge to London in January, I tried to think of it as an adventure. I was happy that he’d got a new job at the university where Mabel worked. But living in Mabel’s tiny flat until we found a new home, taking the tube to school every day instead of riding my bike, and sleeping with the noise of London outside my window took a lot of adjusting to. And then there was school.

Bollingsdale was a good school – great reputation, outstanding inspection reports, higher than average exam results. Dad never stopped telling me how lucky we were that I was able to get in there. And I was sure it was a good school for lots of people.

Just not for me.

I didn’t fit in there. I didn’t want to be there ­–­ and from what I could tell, the other students didn’t want me there either. Everyone already had their group of friends – I mean, they’d had fourteen or fifteen years to sort that out.

I tried to go to an after-school club most days, because that meant leaving later than everyone else. To be precise, it meant leaving later than Cassidy, Mollie and Jana, the three girls in my year who seemed to get a peculiar joy out of making me miserable.

“Alice?”

My name echoed around the empty bathroom and I smiled. OK, fine, maybe there was one person in the whole school who didn’t mind me being there.

“Hal, you are definitely not allowed in the girls’ toilets,” I told him as I unlocked the stall door.

He was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, waiting for me. “I’m not in. I’m hovering on the boundary. Plus you’re hiding and I want to get home, so come on!”

Hal spent last summer helping my best friend Willa pretend to be me (long story) and they became pretty good friends. I think she must have told him to keep an eye out for me because ever since I started at Bollingsdale, he’d checked in on me most days. He had his own friends but he still made time for me, walking me to and from the tube station nearest our school. I appreciated that a lot. Willa said he had a crush on me, but I didn’t believe her.

Grabbing my bag I followed him out, and we headed for the tube together.

“When do you leave for LA?” he asked as we walked along the busy London pavements.

“Tomorrow morning.” I had my bags packed, my passport and paperwork triple-checked, and a book already picked out for the plane.

“Are you excited?”

“Very.” This time tomorrow I’d be almost there – in fact, by LA time, I would be there! I’d be in Hollywood, with Willa, a world away from Bollingsdale. Me and my best friend, relaxing in the sunshine and having fun for two whole weeks. I couldn’t wait.

“Just don’t let her talk you into anything crazy this time, yeah?” Hal joked.

I laughed. “I think we used up all our craziness last summer! We’ll probably just go to the beach and stuff.”

Which was true. But I couldn’t stop a small part of me hoping there might be a touch of Willa’s unique mayhem about my trip. Because I couldn’t deny that last summer had been fun. And I hadn’t had a lot of fun lately. I thought about how, if I had been pretending to be Willa, Bollingsdale wouldn’t be nearly so bad. Willa wouldn’t care what other people thought about her. And when I’d been Willa last summer, I’d had some of that magic confidence too.

Maybe hanging out with her for a fortnight would help me find it again.