Free The Next Eco-Warriors by Emily Hunter Page A

became my duty to showcase the stupidest costume known to humankind. I wanted to announce my sudden rise to power, but in the absence of a podium and a cheering crowd, I opted to send out an email instead.
    The great part about using SurvivaBalls is their amazing ability to disarm any situation. It's one of the best suits for actions, because security doesn't know how to handle them, and someone has yet to find a way to handcuff someone inside. That's how I found myself in Whole Foods—it was the first time I wore the suit. We had been taking audiences that had seen the documentary out on actions. That particular night, the target was Whole Foods, since the CEO, John Mackey, had just released a tirade against health care reform. The U.S. population was up in arms over health care, as many of us who needed it didn't have it or couldn't afford it, since we're all not CEOs of major corporations over here. If we couldn't get health care right, the climate bill would have no hope.
    I felt a bit ridiculous walking into the store with a deflated SurvivaBall suit and pretending to decide what brand of crackers to buy. Part of what makes a flash mob work so well is the ability to be inconspicuous beforehand, and I was failing miserably. Luckily, it's New York, and considering I had just seen Elmo walking home from work the other day, I probably fit in better than I thought. After the signal, I scrambled to assemble myself, first finding the flip-flops glued into the bottom of the costume in order to put my feet in. Then I took the helmet, adjusted the straps, and flipped on the fans before clipping it onto my head. The dual fans fastened above the helmet suck in air from the outside, turning me into a bulbous ticklike creature, free to roam about the world. Forgoing peripheral vision, I soon found out the real trick is trying not to knock things (including people) over.
    I heard the whole store break out in song. It was 10:30 at night, and the security guards had no idea how to handle a mob of one hundred with six inflatable blobs roaming about. This was definitely not in their training manual. I sang along, although I couldn't remember all the words, and it was too hard to hold the piece of paper with the lyrics in my hand nubs.
    Then I started having other problems. Inflatable suits tend to hold in heat, which is great for cold nights, but otherwise meant I started to sweat after about five minutes. My neck started to tire from holding up the fans, and my shins began to ache from only being able to walk with a six-inch stride. With screaming muscles and soaked in sweat, I tried to shuffle my way out of the store with the rest of the crowd but could only move so fast with my legs being shorter than two feet. I caught a glimpse of one of the security guards trying to manhandle Rocco, who was also in a suit. I couldn't help but smile as the poor guard got bowled over in slow motion ten seconds later.
    As I made my way outside, I couldn't wait to get out of my sweaty enclosure. If only I could find my damn helper. The biggest irony of the SurvivaBall is that you really can't “survive” alone since someone from the outside has to zip you up in order to complete the ensemble. That means even though I'm suffering from near heat exhaustion and lactic acid buildup, I am still at the mercy of whoever wants to lend a hand because the person who has zipped me into the costume also has to unzip me. Perhaps the zippers should have been sewn on the inside. But we're not all engineers, after all.
    Mechanics aside, there were bigger and better targets to humiliate. I was feeling quite cozy with the team of misfits I was now a part of as we piled up in our tiny office hatching the next plan. New York City was hosting Climate Week in support of the international climate summit being held by the United Nations. All the world leaders would meet in one place to discuss climate change, and we were going to do our part to make sure those heads of state