Synopsis

After moving to the countryside, Nella feels lost. Spring is drawing near, yet she has not made a single real friend among her new classmates. She is sure that a few small changes to her appearance would help her move up the social ladder, but every attempt at reinventing herself — a bolder hairstyle, pierced ears, even a nose stud — is quickly shut down by her parents. As if that were not enough, they now want to take her out of school altogether and switch to home schooling.

Nella refuses to give up. One evening, as she falls asleep, she comes up with a plan: she will try harder at school and be more helpful at home. But when she wakes the next morning, everything seems to go wrong. Somehow she ends up on the school bus in a jam-stained nightdress, and not long after that the teacher writes on the blackboard: “Nella is stupid!”

This could only happen in a nightmare. Or could it? Are the events, in fact, far too lifelike to be just a dream?