Sunny returned home to music playing and her father’s laughter. His friend Ola was visiting and they were mildly drunk on palm wine as usual. “Good afternoon,” Ola said when he saw her trying to slip unnoticed to her room.
“Good afternoon,” she said, trying to shake the dislocated feeling she was experiencing. It was like two realities fighting for dominance. “Hi, Dad.” She froze. The ghost hopper was sitting on his head.
“How was your weekend?” he asked with a lopsided smile.
“Um, it was good,” she said, working hard not to look at the ghost hopper. “Dad, there’s a-a leaf on your head.”
When he brushed his head, the ghost hopper leaped onto the arm of the couch. She slipped away before he could say any more. She heard her mother laughing in the kitchen and speaking in rapid English. She had to be talking to her sister Chinwe, who lived with her African American husband in Atlanta.
“Ah, you know you miss it,” her mother was saying. “You can’t even find half the ingredients there for a decent
Auntie Chinwe was one of Sunny’s favorites. Her mother said that she was the free spirit of the family, and that Sunny’s grandfather considered her a disappointment. In addition to marrying an
Now she was a degreed professional dancer with a group called the Women of the Bush. She taught dance at Columbia University. The DVD of her shows was one of Sunny’s most prized possessions.
“You must have had fun,” her mother said, kissing her cheek and giving her the phone.
“It was great, Mama,” she said. “Thanks for letting me go.”
She patted Sunny on the head.
“Hello?” Sunny said, holding the phone to her ear. Her mother left the room to give them a little privacy.
“Sunny,” Auntie said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I hear you were out with your friends yesterday.”
“Yeah. It was great. It was nice to be out of the house and all.”
With her peripheral vision, she could see two ghost hoppers sitting on a bunch of plantains on the floor. One of them was munching on the stem. So there
“Well, I’m glad that you’ve made some good friends, and that my sister has finally loosened the leash. You’re a responsible girl and you should be treated that way.”
Sunny felt a little guilty.
“Auntie?” She stepped over to look into the hall to make sure her mother wasn’t hiding behind the door, as she often did.
“Mhm?”
She lowered her voice. “Tell me about Grandma-just a little bit. Something. Every time I ask Mama, she refuses to tell me.” There was a pause, a long pause. “Auntie? Are you there? Hello?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Auntie said. “Where’s your mother?”
“She’ll be back in a minute.”
“Why do you want to know? Was someone teasing you?”
“No,” she said. “No-nothing like that.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” she said. She heard footsteps. “Mama’s coming! Can you tell me-”
“No,” Auntie Chinwe said. “I can’t tell you much of anything. Our mother-your grandmother-wasn’t crazy, but she was full of secrets that she took to her grave. She never let any of us really know her.”
“But how do you know there were secrets?”
Her mother walked in.
“Because I have eyes and I have ears,” Auntie said.
“Okay, Sunny,” her mother said. “Let me finish talking to my sister before her phone card runs out.”
“Look in your mother’s side of their bedroom,” Auntie said quickly. “She keeps some things in a box, I think.”
“Okay,” she quickly said. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, sweetie,” Auntie said as her mother took the phone.
“Sister? So how are little James and Gozie?”
Sunny took a small package of biscuits and went to her room. She closed and locked the door and sunk to the floor. Never in her life had she had so much swimming in her head. Never, ever, ever. She would have curled up and gone to sleep right there if she hadn’t seen a ghost hopper sitting on her bed.
She dragged herself up. Carefully, she picked up the ghost hopper. She was surprised when it didn’t struggle. She’d seen one move lightning-fast when it wanted to, and she was sure its legs were very powerful. It weighed about a pound, and she had to use both hands. Its body felt substantial, despite its ghostly appearance. She set it on her dresser.
She lay on her bed and brought out her new juju knife. It truly was magnificent. What
She yelped when she felt something moving in her pocket. She was about to tear off her jeans, thinking it was a remaining wasp or ant from the masquerade, then she remembered. It felt long ago since Junk Man had given her the small blue bean. She held it up as it softly giggled and shook between her fingers. She placed it under her bed as he had instructed. Then she picked up her newspaper.
When she unrolled it, a smaller circular newspaper fell out.
CORRUPTION IN THE OBI LIBRARY
OTOKOTO THE BLACK HAT STEALS TOP-SECRET BOOK FROM THE FOURTH FLOOR
“My God!” Sunny flung the newspaper across the room. “No more!” Not a second passed before she heard a loud crackling sound. The bean. “Thought he said to wait a few days,” she said, frowning. She hung over the bed and watched a small blue wasp emerge. She shuddered, but then she relaxed. This wasp didn’t seem full of stinging, deadly mischief.
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
