Akata Witch

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.”