I WAS SENT TO SCHOOL in girl’s clothes. My mother told me it was “Opposite Day.” Fortunately, this only involved having my hair tied up in a bun and wearing a pink shirt and jeans. None of this outfit fit me well. The shirt was too constricting, the jeans — stone washed — were ridiculous, as were those white sneakers. The bun was the first to go. It felt so good to let my hair down, and by that time, my body had torn the pink top, so that my hairy chest was revealed in all of its grotesque, Planet of the Apes glory. “Opposite Day” was a great failure.
The school had grown in the decades since I had left it. I was, after all, the sixth grade class of 1992. Nineteen Ninety-two. The summer of the Dream Team at Barcelona. The presidential election that brought us “Slick Willie” Bill Clinton, the Comeback Kid, blazing his saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show. There were new wings of the school, and to get from one part of the school to the other, a gondola lift system had been installed. I rode the gondola lift from the farthest wing of the school. I rode past the cafeteria and the old Theatre Arts classrooms.
Things had changed in every way. Dramatically. All of the stone walls had been rebuilt with rough wood planks. There were trees — birch saplings — growing in the entrance. The library too had trees growing in it. The stone floors had been replaced with gravel and grass. There were also red chickens clucking around the foyer, and some students were harvesting giant-sized pumpkins, and putting them in carts. It was a New England scene. Everyone in vests.
But the layout of the school remained the same. Mrs. Coldflesh’s Nurse’s Office was still there, as was Mrs. Laketree’s office. She was the assistant principal. And on the right, facing the front of the school, I could see Principal Clocks’ grandiose office. This too had been reconstructed of wood, and a smaller, older woman came out to greet me. She was wearing a gray jacket and had on a black shirt. I was still wearing my Opposite Day outfit. The pink top was in tatters, my hair hung down. What a dumb idea, to dress me like a girl. Wasn’t it obvious that I was a man?
“What are you doing here?” asked the new principal. She had shortly cut gray hair and glasses.
“I used to go to school here,” I told her. “Back when Bill Clocks was running the place. Surely you’ve heard of him. I think Bill Clocks was the most well-known principal this school has ever had. We all loved him. Truth be told, I spent a lot of time in his office. We got in lots of trouble.”
“Clocks?” the principal looked at me and folded her hands. “I’ve never heard of a Bill Clocks. That must have been a long time ago indeed.”
north! 