Akata Witch (27 page)

It moved groggily around the empty casing. Then it picked up half, flew to her dresser, and dropped it. It retrieved the other half and did the same. Then it rested for a moment. A minute later, it began to noisily eat the casings, making crunching and cracking sounds.

“I hope you’re not poisonous,” she muttered, putting the opened package of biscuits next to the wasp. Before she knew it, she was asleep.

Something woke her around midnight. PHC had taken the lights, and because it was a cool night, the generator had not been turned on. A clicking sound came from her dresser. She grabbed her flashlight and turned it on. The biscuit package was empty, and beside it was a castle the size of her hand made of what looked like crumbs. The blue wasp stood on top of the castle as if waiting for applause.

“Oh my goodness,” she said, smiling at the nonsense of it all. “That’s—wow!” She softly clapped and the wasp buzzed with pleasure. She spent the next two hours doing homework before finally going back to bed.

17

Basic Juju

The next two weeks passed quickly. Sunny spent most of it studying and reading and practicing and reading more. She was living two lives. In Lamb school, she did well in her classes and kept away from Jibaku, who seemed to believe that what she’d seen during their fight was just Sunny’s extremely ugly face. In Leopard school, she did as well as she could.

The next time they met after Abuja, they didn’t do much. Chichi was still recovering from her caning. Sunny winced when she saw Chichi’s back. The skin wasn’t broken, but it was very bruised and tender. The council people didn’t make empty threats; if you broke the big rules, you paid a big price. Chichi refused to talk about it and got angry at the slightest mention of Sugar Cream.

After that, to Orlu’s great dissatisfaction, Sasha and Chichi grew more obsessed with
Udide’s Book of Shadows
. Thankfully, they only read and discussed the book.

They also grew obsessed with something else. Days after Chichi’s caning, Sunny and Orlu had gone to Chichi’s hut after school, only to find Sasha and Chichi standing in the doorway locking lips.

“What the—!” Sunny exclaimed. Sasha and Chichi jumped apart, straightening their clothes. Sasha grinned and shrugged. Chichi only laughed. Orlu rolled his eyes and Sunny just stood there, shocked. Totally unexpected. She glanced at Orlu and looked away.

“It’s nothing,” Chichi said, going into the hut.

“Yeah,” Sasha said.

But Sunny saw how he watched Chichi go inside. This was not “nothing.” And it wasn’t the last time she saw them kissing, either.

On top of this, Orlu was careful around her. He was the same Orlu she’d always known, except that he made it more of a point to open doors for her, things like that. Once, he even bought her some chocolates. Chichi and Sunny never discussed her and Orlu, or Chichi and Sasha. It was an unspoken agreement between the four of them.

By the second week, Sunny knew several basic knife jujus, like how to amplify her voice, move small things, and keep mosquitoes away. But nothing that would harm a monster like Black Hat Otokoto.

“It’s so weird,” she said one day as they sat outside Chichi’s hut. “It builds something new every day. I leave my window open so it can go out and find new materials and hide from my mother.”

“It’s a wasp artist,” Orlu said. “They live for their art. If you want it to live for a long time, make sure you let it out like you’ve been doing, and show it that you appreciate its work.”

“I’d smash the thing,” Sasha said. “My sister had one when she was small, and when she forgot to give it praise once, it got pissed and stung her. Its sting paralyzes you for ten minutes so you can do nothing but watch it build its ‘final masterpiece’ and then keep watching as it dramatically dies. The damn things are psychotic.”

“Not if you treat them well,” Orlu said.

“You shouldn’t be
forced
to treat anything well,” Sasha said, giving Orlu an annoyed look. “It should be your choice.”

“Not all things are a choice,” Orlu said. “Some things should come naturally.”

“For me, it—”

“Will you two shut up?” Chichi snapped.

Sunny laughed. Things were back to normal.

18

Seven Rainy Days

Even though it was the middle of harmattan dry season, it had been raining for almost a week. The markets were muddy. The streets were flooded. The schools had closed two days ago. The rain was so unexpected that, though it was perfect mosquito weather, there were no more mosquitoes than there usually were. It was as if someone had flipped a switch marked RAIN.

The morning of the seventh rainy day in a row started like almost any other.

The first thing Sunny did when she woke up was look at her cabinet. Her wasp artist, whom she’d decided to name Della (after the famous sculptor she’d read about on the Internet named Luca della Robbia), had built a mud sculpture of the mermaid deity Mami Wata. As always, the wasp stood on top of its creation waiting for her response.

“That’s
really
beautiful, Della,” she said, meaning it.

It buzzed its wings with glee, circled its creation, and then flew out the window. Sunny unrolled her
Leopard Knocks Daily
. Tomorrow they were to meet with Anatov and probably find out what they were expected to do about Black Hat. She braced herself for news of his latest act of debauchery.

Instead, the headline read, RAIN, RAIN, PLEASE GO AWAY!

She laughed, relieved. Everything was rained out. Even the criminals seemed to have taken cover. Maybe Black Hat’s hat wasn’t broad enough to protect him from the rain, either.

She went to get some breakfast and froze. Her heart threatened to leap from her chest. There at the kitchen table sat her mother, and she was handing a cup of hot tea to . . . Anatov.

“Good—good morning?” Sunny squeaked.

“Sunny,” her mother said, looking uncharacteristically rattled. “Sit.”

Sunny had to really force herself to move.

“This is—this is the son of a friend of your grandmother’s—my mother.” Her mother’s hands shook as she picked up her cup of tea. She laughed to herself. She sounded on the verge of tears.

“Yes,” Anatov said. He poured a large amount of cream into his tea, stirred it, and took a sip. “I was in town and decided to . . . drop by.”

Sunny could only nod.

Suddenly, her mother whirled around and faced her. She obviously wanted to say something. Instead she kissed Sunny’s cheek and nearly ran out of the room.

Anatov took a calm sip of tea. Sunny waited. “We’re going to Leopard Knocks,” he said.

“
What?
But it’s—isn’t that tomorrow?”

“Bring your knife, your powders, and one of your umbrellas.”

“Won’t my mom—”

“She won’t stop you,” he said. “Go fetch your things. There’s little time.”

One of the official Obi Library cars waited outside. Behind the wheel was a short, unsmiling Hausa man. A lit cigarette hung from his lips.

“Put it out, Aradu,” Anatov snapped.

“Sorry, sir,” Aradu said, quickly flicking the cigarette out the window.

Sunny looked back at her mother, who stood like a statue in the front doorway. Sunny waved. Her mother didn’t wave back. She just stood there as they drove away.

Maybe she knew she would never see her daughter again.

The driver maneuvered the car easily, first on the muddy road and then on the slick street. It was an oddly smooth ride. When they accelerated, there was no sound at all. Clearly, like the funky train, the car ran on some kind of juju. Sunny wondered why the Leopard People didn’t share this technology with the rest of the world. It would solve some serious environmental problems.

They passed Orlu and Chichi’s houses. “Aren’t we picking up—”

“They’ll meet us there,” Anatov said. “Your home situation is not so easy, so I had to come get you.”

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“When we get there.” She nodded and looked out the window. “You’ve made good progress, Sunny,” Anatov said.

“Thanks.”

“What I’d like you to think about, though, is
who
you are. Because within that knowledge is the key to how much you can learn.”

She frowned, thinking about what had just happened with her mother. “
Oga
,” she whispered, “these days I don’t really think I
know
who I am.” Anatov was silent. “What do you know of my grandmother? Who was she?”

“Only her oldest daughter, your mother, can tell you that.”

“Why won’t
you
tell me?” she asked desperately.

“It’s not my place,” Anatov said.

“Was she bad?”

He didn’t respond.

“Why was she Black Hat’s teacher? Of all people?” she asked.

When Anatov remained silent, she pounded her fist against her leg. For a while, the windshield wipers going back and forth were the only sound.

Anatov patted her shoulder. “We have a half-hour drive,” he said. “Take the time to relax while you can.” He leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Put on some Lagbaja.”

Sunny closed her eyes and listened to the afrobeat music.

The car stopping woke her up. They were outside of the Obi Library. Sasha and Orlu were already there. “Wait here,” Anatov said, and went inside.

They were too nervous to talk. Instead, they just stood together, shoulder to shoulder. Five minutes later, Chichi arrived with her mother, walking under a large green umbrella. Even with the umbrella, both of their cheeks were wet. Chichi looked shaken. Her mother sniffled and wiped her eyes. Chichi gave her a tight hug and watched her mother walk down the street toward the Leopard Knocks markets.

Sunny hugged Chichi. Sasha and Chichi exchanged more than hugs. Sunny and Orlu just avoided each other’s eyes. Standing out there in the rain, it was as if they were waiting to be sent into battle, to their deaths.

“Okay,” Sasha said, standing up straighter. “Everyone lighten up. God.”

Orlu sighed. Chichi put her arm around Sasha’s waist and said, “Children are dying and being maimed, right?”

“Right,” Sasha said. “We’re lucky, really. We’re going to have a chance to prove what we’re made of. Some people never get that, man. Not in their whole life. But what’s up with this rain?”

“That’s what bugs me,” Orlu said.

Sunny was about to say something when Sugar Cream came up behind them. She held a white umbrella and wore white pants and a long top with fringe. She smelled like flowers, even in the rain. “They’re ready for you,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The library felt different. People weren’t smiling and no one spoke, even when they reached the university on the second floor. Students walked close with their heads together, whispering. And when they saw the four of them, they stared, some occasionally giving them fake reassuring smiles.

To Sunny’s surprise, there were buckets and towels all over the floors and on the stairs, catching drips. She’d have thought that the library, of all places, would be protected from something as simple as heavy rain. She hoped the books were okay.

They followed Sugar Cream to a large door on the third floor. “Your best behavior,” she sternly told them. “Don’t ask any questions until you are told you may.”

She opened the door. Another indoor jungle. Sunny had to work not to groan. She was reminded of the tent at the Zuma Festival, and
that
brought back memories of the terrible masquerade.

But this jungle was more controlled—the foliage grew only around the edges of the room. A toucan sat in a tree near a window. The bird looked at them suspiciously. In the center was a large oval table. Around it sat seven people, all of them ancient except for Taiwo, Kehinde, and Anatov. Sugar Cream motioned them to sit in the four empty chairs.

A bent woman with black skin and milky blind eyes laughed loudly and said something Sunny couldn’t understand. The language she spoke was full of click sounds, most likely Xhosa. The man beside her wheezed with laughter, slapping the table with a rough hand. Sugar Cream sat down in a chair beside the blind woman and said something. Sunny only understood the last word: “English.” Two of the scholars on the far side of the table, both women, sucked their teeth loudly.

The blind woman said something else in her click language and the old man beside her added his two cents, pointing accusingly at Sasha. Sugar Cream responded soothingly. The two old women on the other side of the table joined the conversation. One of them switched languages and started speaking something that sounded like French. Kehinde, Taiwo, and Anatov remained silent.

As the heated conversation ensued, the toucan whistled and flew a circle over the table. It landed in an empty seat next to the two women on the end. Sunny gasped as the bird slowly grew into a large-nosed old Middle Eastern- looking man with green eyes. He wore a white turban and a white caftan. He slapped his hands on the table and scowled at Sasha.

Sugar Cream politely said in English, “It must be this way. Sasha’s American. And this one here is American, too, though she’s Igbo also and speaks the language.”

The toucan man scoffed. “They don’t teach them to understand others, they teach them to expect
others
to understand
them
,” he said in English. He humphed and said, “Americans.”

“Hey,” Sasha said, growing annoyed. “I’m not deaf! Don’t insult my country.”

“Yes,” the toucan man said. “You
are
deaf. Dumb and blind, too! Now
shut up
!”

Sasha jumped up, angry.

“Sasha,
sit
,” Anatov said firmly.

“Now!” Kehinde said, pointing a long finger.

Sasha sat down, looking pissed. There were even tears in his eyes.

“Let me open your ears, mind, and eyes a little,” the toucan man said, leaning forward. “
Your
beloved country, Sasha and Sunny, the United States of America, has made Black Hat economically wealthy enough to push his plan forward.”