Copycat

Prolouge
Most kids want to go to New York. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool here, but dangerous.
Especially for us.

But, I still need to introduce you to my family. Manny, sixteen, Tay and Mana, fifteen, and Skye, ten. Then there's me, Copycat. I'm the youngest at seven, but Manny tells me I'm mature for a seven-year-old.

We're your normal, homeless, wandering group of kids.
If you can count our powers as normal.
We don't know how it happened. I guess we were born with them. Some of our parents chased us out, and some of us didn't have parents to start out with.

Each of our powers are different. Manny can do things with his mind, like make force fields. Tay can make fire appear out of nowhere, Mana can walk through walls, and little Skye can levitate (though only to a certian height, but he's working one it).
My power is really different. I can Copy anything I see performed if I want to. It's really cool.

But Manny tells us that we have to be careful, because people are watching us. People who want to hurt us and poke us with needles and use us to get things that they want.
I hope they never, ever find us.
But that might not happen...



Part 1

To those of you out there who've never been to New York- it has it's upsides and it's downsides. I mostly live on the downside. It's not the best life ever, living in constant fear, paranoid that people are following you and whatnot.
But there are positive sides.

Something poked me in the side. I rolled over under the thin blanket that covered my body, I did not want to wake up. I was having a pleasant dream, the one where my family and I all lived in a warm, cozy house by ourselves and no one could get to us.
Of course, that was but a dream. Reality was much more harsh.

"Copycat, come on. We need to get moving."
Copycat, my name. A given name, at least, and I had been called Copycat so many times that I couldn't remember my birth name.
So Copycat it was.

I moaned a little and the person who first poked me then flopped on me. Manny was skinny but older than me, and his weight knocked the wind out of me. I managed to shove him off, and then pulled the blanket from over my head to see his bright, smiling eyes.

Manny's one member in our family of five, and the oldest. He's not related by blood, none of us are, but we don't care. There's Manny, Tay, Mana, Skye and I.
Manny's sixteen, and sort of the leader. He's like an older brother I never had. Always he wants to sleep close to me, and make sure I'm safe.

I jumped up and hugged him, and he hugged me back. I could tell he was smiling, he always smiles when he hugs me, and he gets these dimples in his copper-skined face. Manny's not like this around the others; I think it's because he tries to be the leader we already know he is.

I pulled back and rolled up the blanket, stuffing it into my little green cloth backpak. After swinging it onto my shoulder, I tugged on his hand and pulled him towards the back door, where we snuck in last night.

The air was cold when we got outside, and I pulled my jean jacket closer around me. Silently I looked back at where we slept last night.
It was an old empty house, with ivy growing on one side and some of the windows boarded up. We never sleep in the same place twice if we can- it's too dangerous for us.

Mnny lifted me up onto his strong shoulders. "Time to go," he said quietly, and we turned away from the house and started down an alleyway. I hugged his neck, and a tingling sensation started in my stomach.