The Copycat

Copycat

Zoe was building a tower.

Not just any tower. This was going to be the tallest, most magnificent tower ever constructed on the living room carpet. She had been working on it for twenty-two minutes, which was practically forever, and it was already up to her elbow.

She placed another block on top. Carefully. Carefully. Carefully.

"I builda tower too!" announced a small, loud voice.

Zoe closed her eyes. She breathed in. She breathed out.

Her little brother, Max, plopped down right next to her — so close their knees were touching — and grabbed a handful of blocks from her pile.

"Max. Those are my blocks."

"I builda tower too!" he said again, grinning like this was the best news anyone had ever delivered.

And then he stacked three blocks on top of each other, and they immediately fell over, and he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the history of the world.

Zoe went back to her tower. She placed another block. Then another. It was getting wobbly now, up near the top, and she had to hold her breath and keep her hand perfectly, absolutely, completely still—

CRASH.

Max had bumped her elbow. Her tower collapsed into a sad pile of blocks, and Max clapped his hands and said, "Again! Again!"

Zoe did not say "again." Zoe made a loud, frustrated sound that wasn't exactly a word.

This was the problem with Max. He copied everything.

When Zoe poured herself apple juice, Max wanted apple juice. When Zoe sat in the big blue beanbag chair, Max squeezed in right beside her until there was absolutely no room for either of them. When Zoe practiced her cartwheel in the backyard, Max would throw himself sideways onto the grass and say, "I did a carfweel!"

He had not done a cartwheel. He had done a controlled fall.

At breakfast, Zoe put peanut butter on her toast. Max put peanut butter on his toast. Zoe added sliced banana on top. Max added sliced banana on top. Zoe took a triangle bite from the corner. Max took a triangle bite from the corner and then showed her his chewed-up food and said, "Same!"

"MOM," Zoe said. "He's copying me AGAIN."

Mom looked over from the counter where she was packing lunches. "He just looks up to you, sweetheart."

"Well, I want him to look up to someone else."

"I look up to Zoe!" Max confirmed cheerfully, peanut butter on his chin.

It got worse.

Zoe started drawing a picture of a horse after breakfast. She was using her good colored pencils — the ones she got for her birthday — and she was being very precise about the legs, because horse legs were tricky.

Max sat across the table with a crayon in his fist and drew what looked like a potato with sticks coming out of it.

"Look, Zoe! My horse!"

Zoe stared at it. It was not a horse. It was barely a potato.

"That's nice, Max," she said, in a voice that did not mean nice.

Then Max picked up one of her good colored pencils — the mahogany brown one that was her absolute favorite — and before she could stop him, he pressed way too hard and the tip broke off with a tiny snap.

"MAX!" Zoe snatched the pencil away. "You BROKE it! You break everything! Why can't you just leave me ALONE?"

Max's bottom lip trembled. His eyes got wide and shiny.

"I just wanted to draw horses with you," he whispered.

"Well, I don't WANT to draw horses with you!" Zoe shouted. "I don't want to do ANYTHING with you! Stop following me, stop copying me, stop being my SHADOW!"

A tear rolled down Max's cheek. Then another. He slid off his chair and walked out of the kitchen with his head down, clutching his potato-horse drawing against his chest.

The kitchen was quiet.

Zoe looked at the broken pencil tip. She looked at the doorway where Max had disappeared. She felt a sharp, hot feeling in her chest, like she'd swallowed something too big.

She went back to drawing her horse, but her hand was shaky, and the legs came out all wrong, and she didn't feel like drawing anymore.

Zoe decided to go outside and practice cartwheels by herself, because outside was big and quiet and nobody would copy her.

The grass was still a little damp from the morning.

She raised her arms high, took a breath, and launched herself sideways into her best cartwheel. Her hand hit a slick patch of wet grass, and her wrist twisted, and instead of spinning gracefully, she crumpled. Her ankle folded under her with a sharp, bright pain, and she landed hard on her side.

For a second, she just lay there, stunned.

Then the pain arrived — really arrived — hot and throbbing in her ankle. Her eyes flooded with tears, and she opened her mouth and cried.

She cried hard. The kind of crying where you can't even get words out, where everything is just pain and surprise and wanting someone to come.

She heard the back door bang open.

Little footsteps, running fast.

Max appeared above her, his face red and worried, his eyes still puffy from his own crying. He dropped to his knees beside her.

"Zoe! Zoe hurt?"

She couldn't answer. She just sobbed and held her ankle.

"I get Mama!" Max scrambled to his feet, then stopped. He looked at her. He pulled his blankie out from under his arm — the one he carried everywhere, the one with the satin edge that was soft from a thousand nights of rubbing — and he tucked it carefully around her shoulders.

"You hold Blankie," he said. "Blankie makes everything better."

Then he ran inside, and she could hear his little voice yelling, "MAMA! MAMA! ZOE IS HURT! COME FAST! COME REALLY FAST!"

Zoe lay in the grass, holding Max's blankie. It smelled like him — like graham crackers and baby shampoo. She pressed the satin edge against her cheek, and even though her ankle was still throbbing, the crying got a little quieter.

Mom came running, and there was ice, and a gentle look at the ankle, and a carried-trip back inside to the couch. It was just a sprain — nothing broken — but it was puffy and sore, and Zoe had to keep it propped up on pillows.

Max stood beside the couch, watching her with enormous serious eyes.

"Does it still hurt?" he asked.

"A little," Zoe said.

Max disappeared. He came back thirty seconds later with a juice box, a granola bar, two stuffed animals, a picture book, and a sock — though she wasn't sure what the sock was for.

He arranged everything around her on the couch like she was a queen being presented with gifts.

"There," he said, satisfied. "All better."

Zoe looked at the pile of things. She looked at Max, standing there with peanut butter still on his chin from breakfast, his hair sticking up in three different directions, wearing one shoe for some reason.

That sharp, hot feeling came back to her chest. But this time it was a different kind of sharp. The kind that comes when someone is so small and so kind that your heart doesn't quite know what to do with itself.

"Max?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I yelled at you."

He climbed up onto the couch, very carefully avoiding her ankle, and nestled in beside her.

"That's okay," he said. "I'm sorry I broked your pencil."

They sat there for a minute, and it was warm and quiet.

"Max?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to draw horses with me?"

His whole face lit up like a sunrise.

"YEAH!"

So Zoe got her colored pencils, and Max got his crayons, and they drew side by side on the couch, their elbows touching. Zoe drew a horse, and Max drew something that might have been a horse or might have been a potato, but this time Zoe said, "That's a really great horse, Max," and she meant it.

Max held up his drawing next to hers and beamed.

"Same!" he said.

Zoe smiled.

"Yeah," she said. "Same."