She read the poem to her next door neighbors. She adored Barbara and she despised Barry; she showed it to them both. She didn’t know whether she did that to add to her pride or her shame; she just couldn’t resist the impulse to read it to them.

Barbara was two years older than Melanie, and a lovely gentle person. Melanie admired her so much she tried to act like her. She tossed her head in Barbara’s winning fashion, but Barbara’s hair was short and curly and Melanie’s was lank and straight; the mannerism just wasn’t as cute on the younger girl. Melanie tried smiling more and cooperating better too, but she couldn’t maintain Barbara’s composure for more than a few minutes. She told herself that Barbara had it easier because she was an only child, but she wasn’t convinced. She suspected Barbara was just better than she was. Barbara listened attentively to the two stanzas, and praised Melanie coolly.

Barry lived on the other side of Melanie’s house. He was her age, and he was gross. A pale-faced towheaded rail of a boy, he was not very smart, not athletic, too quiet, and deadly boring. Melanie had to eat lunch with him sometimes, while their mothers talked in Barry’s kitchen, and she always found eavesdropping on the moms more interesting than attempting to chat with Barry. He was the slowest eater in the world. Lunch took forever. And he put ketchup on everything he ate, including peanut butter sandwiches. Once he tried to get Melanie to lick a smear of blood off the back of his hand, telling her it was ketchup. Melanie wasn’t having any of it. She knew the mark was blood, but she wouldn’t have licked Barry’s hand no matter what it bore. He barely listened to her poem. He smirked when she finished and took another bite of his bologna-and-ketchup lunch.

Melanie stopped the oral recitations then. She didn’t bother to try her poem out on her new friends Pam and Nancy, who had moved into two of the split-level houses that had just been built on what used to be a farm behind Melanie’s block. She never submitted the piece anywhere. She tried to forget about it.

And failed. More than half a century later, those two stanzas are stuck in Melanie’s head. Several years after she wrote it, she learned the word “plagiarize.” She felt busted. She confessed about the old poem then to some of her eighth grade peers. Each of her fellows looked at her like she was crazy. No one had ever heard the second stanza; few seemed to believe she had appropriated it. Melanie held onto the word along with the poem. That made her learn a few facts about plagiarizing.

For one thing, she understood that a plagiarizer knows what she’s doing and remembers it.

For another, the lifted may not be good. It took Melanie decades to notice that the second stanza of her first poem sucked, and that the first stanza alone was an improved version of the piece.

For a third, she concluded that she need have no fear of being plagiarized herself. It’s a form of flattery. And when it comes to Melanie’s poetry, she can always improve on the past. Even if someone steals a sonnet from her today, she can issue a better version next week.

And finally, she figured out how to handle a plagiarizing student. Not that she needed to – she briefly considered a teaching career and rejected the idea – but some of her oldest friends, including Barbara and Barry, made their living as teachers. Barbara did seventh and eighth grades, and Barry took on high school. Each of them ran into copycats just about every year. Barbara’s response was to look the student in the eyes and ask “did you really write this?” and reap a lie. Barry would murmur something like “are you sure you shouldn’t attribute at least some of this to a source?” and obtain mostly blank looks and impatient squirms.

Melanie knew what would work. “Ask the student questions about what he wrote,” she suggested. “Make him defend his argument. Really. Try it. You might find yourself involved in an instructive interaction.”

She was pleased with her conclusions. But she was wrong about her friends. Although her family moved to another state before she was nine, the households stayed in touch. Melanie saw Barbara and Barry every few years. She was beyond surprised at the adults her first neighbors became. Barbara remained lovely, but her grace and sweetness faded. She grew vain and avaricious about compliments and seemed to aspire to little but admiration. She went into teaching because no other career invited her. She was a poor instructor. Barry became an improved version of his kid self. His body broadened in his early 20s and his mind broadened before that. He even expanded his taste in condiments; he always favored acetic sauces but grew up to love mustards and kim chee. He dove into education with a passion and excelled. He took Melanie’s advice about how to deal with plagiary.