Be Prepared
Copyright© 2025 by Han Jansz. van Meegeren
Chapter 3
Loving a guy with the label ‘High-Functioning Autism Disorder’ brings out a whole myriad of challenges. I met my guy at the public library. I was 16, and my job was to put all the books that were returned on their shelves. You might think that’s not the greatest job in the world, but you are dead wrong. My mother knew someone who knew someone at the library, and it sure beat stocking shelves in the supermarket. Plus, it paid well.
So I was very serious about doing a good job of putting the books back in their spots. One day I was in the tech-section of the library, which is quite big. Lots of students from the Technical University come to our library rather than their own for some reason.
I was shelving a book titled ‘CRISPR Systems in Drug Development.’ Top Shelf ‘Drug development & design’. The library put numbers on the spines of the books so we could neatly put them back in the correct order. It was quite a hassle with all those numbers, but I finally found the right place to put number 615.19 (Drug Development & Design).
“You are putting the books in the wrong place. It should be filed under 576.64, Genetic engineering.” A boy who was far too young to browse through shelves like Molecular Biology, Biotechnology, Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, looked at me as if I was a criminal. He seemed about twelve.
“How would you know?” I challenged, staring down at the boyish face before me.
This young dude smiled at me and said, “It’s true that CRISPR is being used to develop therapies, but the book focuses on the mechanisms of CRISPR-Cas9, gene editing strategies, delivery vectors like AAV, and regulatory pathways in cell lines. It’s more about the tech enabling therapy than about actual drug formulation or clinical trials. The cataloguing system is wrong.”
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. “You know all about this stuff?” I lost no time in revealing the full extent of my intelligence to him.
He nodded. “Yes. I have my own little lab at the university. It’s not much, but enough for now.”
“Get away; you can’t be old enough to study at Uni.”
“Have a nice day, miss.” He said and turned around.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”
“You said, ‘get away,’ miss.”
“Nah, I didn’t mean that. I was just —
He took my hand and led me away from the technology area. His pace was so fast that I almost had to run to keep up. He held my hand the whole time, navigating the labyrinthine bookshelves as if he knew the way. He stopped short and presented me with a book from the shelf.
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon,” I read out loud.
“Yes. It’s a book about a 15-year-old boy who is solving a mystery like he was Sherlock Holmes. He’s like me. High-functioning autism. You should read it. Do you have a library card? You can use mine if you want to borrow it in case you haven’t.”
“I work here, remember? I’m sure I could lend a book if I wanted to.”
“Good. It’s only 274 pages. I will be here next Friday at 12 o’clock. We can discuss the book then.”
And he was gone. I read the book. All 274 pages in a day. It opened up a whole new way of understanding. It blows my mind how people can hear the same thing and get totally different meanings. There has always been a certain allure for me in people who diverge from the norm.
“Did you read the book?” He asked me next time we met, arriving at 12 on the dot.
“How old are you?” I asked.
“14 years, 7 months and 8 days.”
“I am 16. And ... one month, I suppose. But I don’t know how many days.”
“I know. Few people do. It doesn’t matter.” Without warning, he stepped forward and kissed my cheek softly. His smile found its way to my heart.
“I’m Drew, nice to meet you.”
“My name is Sharon. It’s more common, Drew, to shake a girl’s hand instead of kiss her when you first meet her.”
“Did I do wrong? I’m not used to girls. I have only one friend, and she is my Mum. She taught me to kiss her whenever we see each other, or every time I walk past her. You don’t mind, do you?”
I smiled and shook my head.
“Good. That makes you my second friend. I often have trouble talking to girls, but you’re very easy to talk to, Sharon. My mother asked me to invite you for dinner.”
And so our first date started and ended at his mother’s dining table. Within an hour, Joyce became my best friend. Instead of reading books about autism, I learned from her. How she handled the quirks of “Einstein,” her pet name for him. I inhaled it like the first breath after diving deep.
Joyce differed from my mother. My mother taught me that the provider was the head of the household. My dad was the sole decision-maker in the house. Joyce, as a single mother, raised Drew to embrace feminist principles, hoping to shape him into a compassionate man.