I always wondered what I’d do if I met him. I always wondered how I’d act if I met Young Me.

Well, this was my chance to find out.

“What am I doing in this elementary school?” I was thinking. “They tore this place down years ago.”

I looked at my clothes. I was in pajamas. And barefoot. My toenails needed trimming.

I was standing in the old public school. Children’s cardboard-paper creations hung on the walls. Art projects lined the corridor like triumphant little banners. Each student’s name was scrawled onto the paper proudly, some letters backward.

I saw the boy.

He was walking down the hallway. He was going to the drinking fountain.

Remember drinking fountains? Remember when the whole class waited in line to use them? Back in the days before corporations started bottling water and selling it for $8 a pop at gas stations—my father would roll over in his grave.

The little boy was strawberry blond. I say “strawberry blond” because this is how maternal

teachers would comfort Young Me whenever some heckler teased me with common redhead nicknames such as, to choose a nickname at random, “Bozo the Clown.”

“Oh, sweetie,” such teachers would say, tucking my tear-stained face into their great bosoms. “You have beautiful strawberry blond hair.”

I never believed them. I thought I was ugly. To be a redhead at that age was the kiss of death. You were different. You were a leper. You were nicknamed “Red” by adults who thought they were original. You were capable of developing a third-degree sunburn in 0.003 seconds.

The little strawberry blond used the white porcelain drinking fountain. He tilted his head and assumed the hydration stance.

And all at once, I saw this boy for who he…