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Back The Copycat Save as PDF
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Chapter One
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Chapter Two
  12. Seven
  13. Eight
  14. Nine
  15. Chapter Three
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Chapter Four
  19. Twelve
  20. Thirteen
  21. Fourteen
  22. Chapter Five
  23. Fifteen
  24. Sixteen
  25. Chapter Six
  26. Seventeen
  27. Eighteen
  28. Nineteen
  29. Chapter Seven
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Chapter Eight
  34. Twenty-Three
  35. Twenty-Four
  36. Twenty-Five
  37. Chapter Nine
  38. Twenty-Six
  39. Twenty-Seven
  40. Chapter Ten
  41. Twenty-Eight
  42. Twenty-Nine
  43. Thirty
  44. Thirty-One
  45. Chapter Eleven
  46. Thirty-Two
  47. Thirty-Three
  48. Thirty-Four
  49. Thirty-Five
  50. Chapter Twelve
  51. Thirty-Six
  52. Thirty-Seven
  53. Thirty-Eight
  54. Chapter Thirteen
  55. Thirty-Nine
  56. Forty
  57. Forty-One
  58. Forty-Two
  59. Chapter Fourteen
  60. Forty-Three
  61. Forty-Four
  62. Forty-Five
  63. Forty-Six
  64. Forty-Seven
  65. Chapter Fifteen
  66. The Following Summer
  67. About the Author
  68. About the Publisher

“I know it’s silly—” Emily started to say, then stopped. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name and it seems rude to ask you a favor until I do.”

“Jackson Mather” was the gruff response.

Emily’s smile dazzled. “I know it’s silly, Jackson, but I really want to sit here. If you’re desperate to stay, fine, but if you don’t care, it would be super nice if you’d give it to us.”

Ali expected Jackson to say something snarky, so she was surprised when he elbowed Tom. “They can have it.” The two boys gathered their things and stood up.

“Awesome!” Emily squealed. “You guys are the best! I won’t forget this.”

Jackson’s defiance was replaced by a bashful smile. He mumbled, “No problem,” and scurried after Tom to the other side of the library.

“Wow,” said Ali, flopping onto the couch, “I can’t believe they moved!”

Emily sat down, opened her notebook, and uncapped a red pen. “My dad says that if you’re nice to people, people will be nice to you. Some people forget that.”

EMILY’S RULES

  1. If you are nice to people, people will be nice back to you.
  2. You can only be excellent if you put in the work.

Ali made a mental note to create a new category called Emily’s Rules as soon as she got home, and make what Emily had just said rule number one. She’d never met anyone so wise.

Emily bit down on her pen cap. “We need to come up with something stellar. I want to get the best mark. Do you have any ideas?”

Ali might have forgotten that today was project brainstorming day, but she’d come prepared. “What about a field study? In my last school, we did a field study of wildflowers. Everyone collected whatever they could find in their neighborhood and brought them to school. We worked together to identify them. It was fun.”

“A field study.” Emily repeated the words like she was testing them. “How would we do that for the classification of organisms?”

Ali stared at the gold stars scattered across Emily’s leggings. She needed to impress Emily. If she didn’t, she might be on the outs with the popular kids, and she couldn’t afford to do that. It was a relief when the perfect solution popped into her head.

“What if we did a field study of a single block in Saint John? You know, take pictures of everything we see from the five kingdoms and then do a summary about what we saw.”

Emily smiled. “Ooh—I love that idea! It’s so scientific! We could do the block that runs around the park near where I live!” Her face clouded over. “But how can we see everything?”

“Do you mean monerans and protists, because they’re so tiny?” Ali asked.

Emily nodded. “We can’t leave anything out. . . .”