After that, neighbors gathered at Salt one evening to discuss the future of the neighborhood. Everyone came. Well, everyone except the Molinas.

“Go upstairs,” Mom told me when they arrived. “Don’t you have homework to do?”

“I want to join the meeting,” I whispered to her.

“This isn’t child’s play.”

She said those words in front of everyone like I was a stubborn kid asking to stay up past her bedtime. I was about to protest, but Grandma agreed with her.

“Listen to your mother,” she said, not even giving me a chance. And it hurt more than the humiliation of being treated like a baby in front of our neighbors.

I whirled around, making for the stairs, but when Mom’s attention shifted back to the group I hid in the shadows, listening as she read from an article about Deals Deals and their controversial market experiments around South America, how they settle in neighborhoods like ours and lower their prices against the products family-owned establishments already offered.

Companies like these have a large enough safety net that they could run their store at a deficit, just so they could tank small businesses with no way to compete. They take down businesses like Salt and our neighbors’ one by one until there’s nothing left.

It was the first time I heard the term predatory pricing, and I pictured wolves stalking prey. Sharp claws. Baring teeth. For a moment, I even forgot I was angry with Mom and Grandma. I just felt so...scared for Salt. For everyone.

“We can’t let that happen to us,” Mom said. “I propose we only buy from each other. If we stay loyal to our neighbors and we don’t give Deals Deals any business, maybe then they’ll go away.”

I watched the neighbors huddle together at Salt’s counter, each signing the boycott. But when Dona Marta’s turn came, the local florist, she panicked.

“They’ll retaliate!” she shouted.

“So what?” Seu Floriano, the espetinhos vendor, said. “They’re threatening me already. My booth is at the very end of the feirinha, and they want to expand their parking lot to the street directly behind it. But I won’t let them win. We must stand together. Let them know we won’t go down without a fight!”

“You can’t let them intimidate you,” Grandma said, trying to soothe her friend.