Four: That when a StarMart moves to the outskirts of your town, it quickly drives all the small stores in the center of town out of business, because they can’t afford to compete with StarMart’s insanely low prices. A lot of times, after StarMart has moved in and killed all the family-owned businesses in one town, they’ll close down that store and open a new one in the next town over, because the new town will offer them fresh bonuses and tax breaks to build a new store. And the first town is left with nothing: no small businesses, no StarMart. A ghost town where a thriving community used to be.
Five: That StarMart opens a new store somewhere in the world every two days.
Jesse and Esther sit, stunned, staring at the computer.
“They’re like… the Death Star of stores,” Jesse murmurs. “It’s like they only exist to ruin people’s towns and take their money. It’s like they don’t even care what they do to the world.”
“Corporations don’t have consciences,” Esther explains. “They don’t have souls. They don’t care about things. They only exist for one purpose: to make money.”
“Well, we can’t let that money touch our school. I mean, clearly. We need a plan.”
“Posters,” Esther says.
“Posters,” Jesse echoes. She opens her notebook to a blank page to start taking notes for ideas.
“We’ll make them yellow, the StarMart color. And we need to go to the next student council meeting and make a presentation.”
Jesse’s stomach lurches.
“Student council? Do we have to?”
“Of course. They’re the ones running the dance, aren’t they? The ‘Official StarMart Prom Night,’ or whatever it’s called now?”
“‘Starry Starry Night,’” Jesse says dully, recalling the flyers announcing the dance that went up around school at the end of the week.
Jesse looks down at the floor, picks listlessly at the braided rags in Esther’s rug. She pictures herself standing in a room full of student council kids, all looking at her while she looks at Emily. She pictures Emily at the center of the room, giving Jesse her brightest blank smile, banging her gavel on the desk to make Jesse sit down and shut up.
“Right. So if it’s their dance, we have to go talk to them about it,” Esther says patiently. “Obviously.”
“Can’t we just go directly to the principal?”
“If we start by going to Mr. Greil’s office alone, just the two of us, we won’t have any power. We need to develop awareness and solidarity among the student body. We should really start a petition. Oh! We’ll start a petition!” Esther bounces a little in her desk chair with excitement. “The student council meeting is the perfect place for us to start getting the word out about it.”
“I just…” Jesse feels two tides moving through her simultaneously, a surge of wanting to tell someone about Emily—an urgent, almost physical wave of needing to confess—and a grinding-to-a-halt feeling in her throat, as if her words are drying up and evaporating before they can even reach her tongue. “I just… I just…” she struggles.
“Do you have some kind of allergy to the student council? Why don’t you want to go to this meeting?” Esther looks at her with open curiosity.
“I just… hate public speaking,” Jesse says finally, unconvincingly.
“Oh,” Esther says. “Well, fine. I mean, Mother Teresa used to be afraid of public speaking and she got over it, but that’s fine. I’ll do all the talking. You can just stand there and hand out literature.” It’s a compromise; Jesse doesn’t see how she can keep objecting once Esther offers this.
“Okay,” she agrees.
“Okay. So first thing Monday morning we’ll put up posters with, like, bullet points about StarMart and their relationship to Vander, saying that everybody who wants to learn more should come to this week’s student council meeting. Then we’ll write up an information sheet with all the facts on it that we can hand to people when they come to the meeting on Wednesday. Then we’ll start a petition that we can bring to Mr. Greil.”
“Cool.” Jesse nods. “That’s cool. It’s a lot of work, though.”
“Yes, I like to work,” Esther says briskly. “I like to do anything that gets me out of the house.”
WAKE UP, VANDER! SERIOUSLY!
Say NO to StarMart in Our School!
DID YOU KNOW that StarMart is trying to move into our town?
DID YOU KNOW that when StarMart moves into a town, it makes local businesses close down, takes good jobs away from people, and is bad for the environment?