I’ll be sharing a chalet with Noon and GMT and Ama. Mrs C Eckler says they mixed the ages so some of the older ones can mentor the younger ones, except Noon, who might need mentoring herself. GMT is also 16 and Ama is 14, which is good because I find it easier to talk to people older or a lot younger than me. Big Ben’s the main person my age I speak to. Ama goes to the Music, Maths and Movement School. In 2048, children go to schools depending on what they’re good at. The E-College-E pupils are good at biology and geography and conflict resolution.

I’m excited to meet all these new people but scared because I haven’t met them before. Mrs C Eckler showed us everyone’s photos so I know what they look like. I always remember what I see. Noon has short blonde hair in a bob and big starey eyes; GMT has tanned skin and long black straggly hair that looks like she never combs it; and Ama has a huge ginger afro and a gap in the middle of her teeth. Ama’s going to be my mentor for the week. Big Ben has to share with Jake and two other boys he doesn’t know. He doesn’t like meeting new people and he finds boys harder to talk to than girls. But he liked looking at the photos of the boys and he’s excited about the trip. One of them’s called Martin Aston, which is Aston Martin the other way round. I hope he’s into cars.

I like looking at the list and imagining what the other girls will be like and then I remember I’m going to be excluded and will never meet them anyway. I’ve never been excluded before but I’ve had several red cards and been sent to the Head Teacher lots. I don’t know why they use red cards because school isn’t a football match, it’s learning. When it’s meltdown, and I go from 0 to 10, the last thing I need is a red card. They should give me a white card. A white card would calm me down but a red card makes me dizzy and scared.

The last time I went to the Head was when I hid under the table during maths because Joanne Fletcher was sitting in my seat and told me to get over it, and Mrs Grayling grabbed me by the hands to pull me back to my seat so I could finish my algebra and I wanted to hit her but couldn’t because I’d get excluded if I hit a teacher so I started to scream until they had to get Mrs C Eckler to calm me down.