“Sunny? What about you?”
Sunny opened her mouth and then closed it. She didn’t know what she wanted to be. A professional soccer player? she thought. I’m good at that.
For the past few months, she’d been playing soccer with her male classmates when they gathered in the field beside the school. Proving to them that she was worthy enough to play with them had been easy. All she had to do was take the soccer ball and do her thing; it came as naturally as breathing.
However, it was explaining how she could have albinism and yet play in the pounding Nigerian sun that was trickier; she certainly couldn’t tell them that her ability to do this was linked to her being a Leopard Person. “My father had a drug delivered from America that makes me able to be in the sun,” she told the boys who asked. She was such an excellent soccer player that they all accepted her answer and let her play. When she was on the field, she was so so happy.
But being a soccer player wasn’t a career. Not really. Not for a girl. And honestly, did she want to make such a spectacle of herself for a living? If she played, she’d play for Nigeria, and she’d stand out too much, having albinism. She frowned, her own thought stinging her. I’m not really good at anything else, she thought. “Um . . . I . . . I don’t know, ma,” she said. “I’m still figuring it out.”
Mrs. Oluwatosin chuckled. “That’s okay, you have plenty of time. But let yourself think about it. God has plans for you; you want to know what they are, right?”
“Yes, ma,” Sunny said quietly. She was glad when Mrs. Oluwatosin moved on with the lesson. Considering the chaos of last year, Sunny wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to know what “God had planned” for her. I would be surprised if God took notice of me at all, she thought tiredly.
“That lake beast and the river beast clearly have a thing for you,” Sasha said that afternoon in Chichi’s mother’s hut. “What’d you do to them in your past life?” He laughed loudly. Chichi snickered, plopping down onto his lap and leaning back against his chest. She was carrying a large heavy book, and Sasha wheezed beneath her weight. “Jesus, Chichi, you trying to kill me?”
“Oh, you’ll live,” she said, kissing him on the cheek and nuzzling it with her nose. With effort, she brought the book up and began to flip through the pages. Sunny rolled her eyes but smiled. It was so nice to be around her friends after all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
“The lake beast is of the genus Enteroctopus,” Orlu said. “They’re born and raised in the full lands by large extended families. Most of them venture out into the world moving with their bodies of water. Why was it in Leopard Knocks?”
“What are ‘full lands’?” Sunny asked.
“Places that mix evenly with the wilderness,” he said. “A few places in Nigeria are known full lands: Osisi, Arochukwu, Ikare-Akoko, and sometimes Chibok gets a little full. Full places are a little bit of here and a little bit of there, layered over and meshed with each other.”
“A beast attacked her in Leopard Knocks,” Chichi said. “Who cares why it was there? Things come and go all the time for whatever reason. I’m more interested in who saved you! Hey, can I see the comb?!”
Sunny plucked it from the front of her hair and handed it to Chichi. As soon as it was out of her hair, she was very aware of it not being there. The comb was rather heavy, but it was a nice kind of heavy, comforting. The oysterlike coloring went well with Sunny’s thick blonde Afro.
“What’s this? Metal or shell?” Chichi asked.
Sunny shrugged as she got up. “I have to go home.”
Chichi handed the comb back to her, and Sunny tucked it into her hair. She slapped hands with Sasha, and Chichi gave her a hug. “Are you all right?” Chichi asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “It didn’t get me; I’m alive.”
“Don’t know why that thing goes after you when it can more easily catch smaller weaker prey,” Chichi said, pinching one of Sunny’s strong arms.
Sunny smiled but looked away from Chichi. Sunny’d always been somewhat tall, but even she had to admit, she’d become quite strong. It was probably all the soccer she was playing with the boys, but there was something more to it, too. She wasn’t bulking up like a body-builder, but there were . . . changes, like being able to squeeze someone’s wrist into terrible pain, being able to kick the soccer ball so hard that it hurt if it hit anyone, and being able to lift things she hadn’t been able to lift last year.
“You want me to work some juju on it to humiliate all of its ancestors and deform every single one of its offspring?” Sasha asked.
Sunny smiled, pausing to consider. “Nah,” she said. “I’ll let karma handle it.”
“Juju works better and faster than karma,” Chichi said.
Sunny walked out and Orlu followed her, gently taking her hand. When Sunny let go of his hand as she stepped onto the empty road, Orlu said, “See you tomorrow.”
Sunny smiled at him, looking into his sweet eyes, and said, “Yeah.”
You’re not yet reading this correctly if this is your first time reading Nsibidi. Keep reading. It will come. But you can hear my voice and that’s the first step. I am with you. I am your guide. Nsibidi is the script of the wilderness. It is not made for the use of humankind. However, just because it is not made for us does not mean we cannot use it. Some of us can. Nsibidi is to “play” and it is to truly see. If you lose this book, it will find you again but not without forcing you to suffer a punishment . . . if you deserve it. Don’t lose this book . . .
—from Nsibidi: The Magical Language of the Spirits
3
HOME
Sunny’s oldest brother, Chukwu, sat in his Jeep in front of the house staring at the screen of his cell phone as he furiously typed a text. Sunny watched him as she quietly crept closer. He was frowning deeply, his nostrils flared. He’d discovered his potential to easily bulk up last year, and his recently swollen biceps and pectorals twitched as he grasped the phone.
“What is wrong with this silly girl?” he muttered as Sunny leaned against the Jeep with her arm on the warm door. She didn’t need to worry about dirt. As always, it was spotless. Sunny suspected he paid some of the younger boys in the neighborhood to wash it often. Chukwu had gotten the Jeep three weeks ago, and he would take it with him to the University of Port Harcourt in five days.
He didn’t see her standing there. He never saw her. Since they were young, she could do this to him; to her other brother, Ugonna; to her father. She never crept up on her mother. Something in her, even when she was three years old, told her never to do that.
Sunny rolled her eyes. This was her oldest brother. Reeking of cologne. Wearing the finest clothes. His hair shaved close and perfect. Seventeen years, soon to be eighteen, and already adept at juggling four girlfriends he’d leave behind in less than a week. Going on five if he could convince the one he was texting to go out with him this weekend. Sunny read as his fingers flew over the touch screen.
Just try me, he typed. U kno u interested, cuz u kno I show you a gud time.
Sunny was glad that she’d never gotten that into texting. Look how it stupid it made you sound! Plus, she didn’t need it. She only used her cell phone to call her parents to let them know where she was. When you knew juju, a lot of technology seemed primitive.
“Are you serious?” she finally said, when she couldn’t stand watching him make an ass of himself any longer.
He screeched and jolted, dropping his cell phone on his lap. Then he glared at Sunny. “Shit! What is wrong with you?”
Sunny giggled.
“I hate when you do that!”
On his lap, his phone buzzed. He picked it up. “This is private. Go cook dinner or something. I’m hungry. Make yourself useful.”
“Don’t you have enough girlfriends?”
He flashed a toothy grin, quickly texting the girl back. “It’s jus
t so easy. I can’t help myself.”
“Stupid,” Sunny muttered, walking toward the house.
“Where are you coming from all sweaty like that?” he asked her, looking up.
She’d been playing soccer with the boys. Chukwu’s soccer group was older, so he had no idea she was playing now. If he did, Sunny didn’t know how she’d explain. Really, she had more to worry about with Ugonna, who was sixteen. Sometimes her age mates played with the boys from his age group. Thankfully, he wasn’t that interested in soccer. Thus, so far, so good.
“None of your business,” she said over her shoulder, quickly going inside.
Her parents wouldn’t be home for a few hours. Her mother was on call and had sent a text to all of them describing what they could eat. And their father always came home late on Thursdays. Ugonna was at the kitchen table nibbling on an orange. He had a pencil in his hand. He was drawing again. Sunny considered leaving the kitchen, but she was hungry.
Ugonna had always liked to draw; he’d sketch things like smiling faces and vague images of girls, trees, cars he liked, and gym shoes. But in the last year, after discovering an instruction website on the Internet, he’d gotten more serious with his skill. Instead of going out with his friends, he began to spend more and more time at the kitchen table, drawing. He was best at drawing faces and abstract images of forests.
Some of these abstract drawings reminded Sunny of the Nsibidi she was learning to read. Not that they looked the same, but they carried a similar energy. His drawings didn’t literally move as the Nsibidi in her book did, but they seemed to move. The trees seemed to blow, the insects on the branches seemed to walk.
Then last month, he’d drawn what she’d been dreaming about since a week after facing Ekwensu. The city of smoke. It was a good drawing. Their mother had thought it was so beautiful she’d had it framed. Sunny had to look at that image on the family room wall every day now whenever she wanted to watch TV or exit the house. The dreams themselves were horrible enough.
They were worse than the vision of the world ending. The dreams were what happened as it ended. A city of smoke that rippled as it burned, that looked almost like another world entirely. It was like seeing through the eyes of a god. The first time she’d had the dream, she’d woken up, run to the bathroom in the dark, and vomited into the toilet. The second time, a week later, she’d fallen sick hours afterward and been unable to leave the house for two days while fighting a horrible case of malaria. The third time, she woke crying uncontrollably. She’d told no one about the dreams. Not even Sugar Cream. Yet her non-Leopard brother was drawing it, and her mother had framed and hung it on the family room wall.
“Hey,” she grunted, walking quickly past Ugonna to the refrigerator.
“Good afternoon,” he said, not taking his eyes from what he was drawing.
She opened the fridge, her belly growling horribly. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, had forgotten her lunch, hadn’t had enough money to buy a snack during lunch, didn’t feel like asking Orlu yet again; essentially, she hadn’t eaten since the pepper soup Sugar Cream had given her last night after the attack. She brought out three ripe plantain.
“Is Chukwu still in his Jeep?” Ugonna asked.
“Yeah.”
“His head is so big,” Ugonna said. “I don’t know why Mummy and Daddy had to buy him that! He’s staying in the government hostel, how’s that even going to look?”
“Dad tried,” Sunny said with a shrug. Chukwu was going to make a big splash at the university. Not only had he been one of the top students in his graduating class, he was the best soccer player in the area. Still, his father wanted his oldest son to really experience university life. Thus, instead of having Chukwu stay in one of the cushier private student hostels off campus, he’d insisted Chukwu stay at the more stripped-down government-owned hostels on campus. He’d have to stay in one large room with five other students. Chukwu had angrily protested, but he finally shut up when he learned that their mother had bought him the used Jeep.
Ugonna chuckled. Sunny did, too. She slit the black-yellow plantain skins and peeled them off. Then she sliced the plantain up into thin, round, slightly diagonal pieces and put them into a large bowl. She fired up a deep pan of hot oil and then dumped the plantain into it to fry. As she did all this, she resisted the urge to look at what her brother was drawing. Yet again she wondered how it was that he’d drawn that horrible burning city. He wasn’t a Leopard Person. Was someone working some sort of juju on her? On her family?
She frowned, flipping the frying plantain over. She dished out the first batch and placed the hot slices on a plate covered with three paper towels. She picked one up and bit into it. Her mouth filled with saliva as it savored the tangy, sweet fried fruit that was so much like banana but not like banana at all. Perfect.
She focused on making the plantain and not on the talk she planned to have with Sugar Cream tomorrow night. Not on the fact that she had been keeping such deep secrets from her friends. From Orlu, in particular, it was the most difficult. Soon, she’d tell them. All three of them would hit the roof.
She put the plate of plantain in the middle of the table. “You want some?” she asked, placing several on her plate.
Ugonna looked at the plantain, then got up to get a plate. “Thanks.”
They both ate plantain and watched a Nollywood movie on the kitchen TV. Minutes later Chukwu joined them. As they laughed at the stupid woman who was so dumb that she’d left her baby in the taxi cab, Sunny glanced at Ugonna’s drawing. It was of a tricked-out Viper with a sultry-looking woman draped on the hood.
She smiled and enjoyed her plantain and her brother.
That night, Sunny lay on her bed, gazing at the photo of her grandmother. Her grandmother, the only one of all her relatives who was a Leopard Person, the only person she could have talked to about all things Leopard. Where Sunny was albino, having pale skin, hair, and eyes, her grandmother was indigo black with closely cropped black hair. Sunny held the photo closer and looked at the juju knife her grandmother held to her chest.
It was particularly large, almost like a pointed machete, and looked made of a heavy raw iron. And both edges were notched with many sharp teeth and etched with deep designs. Did they bury you with it? Sunny wondered. Did you even have a body to burn after Black Hat murdered you? She shut her eyes. It was late and she was tired. This was not a place to go in her mind right before bed. She put the photo aside and unfolded the only other item that had been in the box with the letter from her grandma, the thin piece of paper with the Nsibidi symbols on it.
Sunny tried to read it yet again. When she felt the nausea setting in, she folded it back up. She shut her eyes, willing the nausea to pass. The first time, she hadn’t heeded her body’s warning; she kept trying and trying to read it. She wound up vomiting like crazy. It was so much that her father was overcome with wild worry no matter how much her mother, who was a medical doctor, assured him that Sunny was okay.
“What’s wrong with taking her to the hospital, anyway?” he kept angrily asking, as he stood at her bedside with her mother. “Kai! This is a regular illness, isn’t it? Then the cure is regular!” Eventually the nausea did pass, leaving Sunny with the nagging question of what the Nsibidi on the piece of paper said. She’d have to get better at reading Nsibidi in order to find out. She glanced at the piece of paper just for a brief second. Then she put all her grandmother’s things away and grabbed her book Nsibidi: The Magical Language of the Spirits instead.
She wasn’t ready to read her grandmother’s complex Nsibidi page, but she had gotten a lot better at reading Nsibidi. Each day, she got better and better at “reading” Sugar Cream’s book—particularly when she was rested, had eaten a good meal, and managed to go most of the day without talking to anyone. One did not simply read Nsibidi as one read a book or even music. Nsibidi was a magical writing script. It had to call you, and it only c
alled those who could and wanted to change their shape.
Shape-shifters who saw Nsibidi would see the symbols moving and even hear it whispering. Sunny had experienced this the moment she picked up the book of Nsibidi at random in Bola’s Store for Books last year. And though the book had cost some heavy chittim (Leopard currency that could only be earned by acquiring knowledge), it was worth it. It was her first lesson in mastering a Leopard art. Learning to read Nsibidi was initially intuitive, forcing the reader to reach deep within and understand that the symbols were alive and that they were shape-shifters, too. And when Nsibidi symbols changed shape for you, the whole world shifted.
The first time it happened had been two weeks ago, after Sunny thought she’d already learned to read Nsibidi. She’d managed to get through the first page, which was basically an introduction to the book, or at least, this was what she thought. Sugar Cream wrote that her book would never be a bestseller. So few could “hear” Nsibidi and even fewer wanted to listen. She said that Nsibidi was more a language of the spirits than one for the use of humankind. Then she began explaining how the book was split into sections. The book was quite thin, so the sections were very short. This was as far as Sunny had gotten.
For some reason, no matter how much she turned the wiggling symbols over in her head, unfocused her eyes, and strained to “hear” what the whispers were saying, she could get no further in her reading. She’d hit a wall.
Sweating and frustrated, she’d set the book down on her bed, the thick pages open. She leaned against the pillows on her bed.
“Come on,” she tiredly whispered.
Understanding that first page had been deeply satisfying. With all that she’d experienced in the past year, here was something she felt made sense. Every part of her being loved and wanted to learn Nsibidi. And it seemed as if the understanding came to her because of this. It was exhausting, mentally taxing and frustrating, but she loved it. So it came. Then she hit this wall.
Akata Warrior Page 3