The girls who’d been hovering around Sasha all went, “Oooh,” and then clapped. “How pretty,” one girl said, feeling the material of Chichi’s sleeve. Chichi snatched her arm away.
“Oh, please,” she said. “Petty juju. Notice which of us is impressed and which of us is not.”
Several of the girls sucked their teeth, one of them grumbling, “Look at this girl. Might as well be a man if she can’t appreciate that material.”
Chichi brought out her knife. By this time, Sasha had stepped forward. He put his arm around Chichi’s shoulder and looked with amused eyes at Yao and Ibou. “Yao, you’re an idiot,” he said dismissively. “And Ibou, first you’re bested on the soccer field by one of my classmates and now your best friend’s gonna be bested by another of my classmates. You’re inferior.”
“You forget,” Ibou said. “Your team lost.”
“Only because you choose the oldest players,” Godwin said from the gathering crowd. “The game is supposed to be about brains and brawn, not just brawn.”
Yao, who had been looking at Chichi the entire time, said, “You won’t best me this year.”
“Careful,” Orlu whispered to Chichi.
Chichi slashed in a square and then spoke something in Efik.
When nothing happened, Yao grinned and said, “I guess it didn’t work. You’re losing your touch.”
“Maybe her dress is too tight,” Ibou said. Several people laughed.
Chichi frowned, close to tears. She looked down. “I guess you’re right,” Chichi said, quietly. She looked up. And slowly held her hand up and whispered, “You win.”
“Obviously,” Yao said, looking more triumphant than ever. He brought his hand up to shake hers. A third of the way there, it hit something. He gasped, his eyes growing wide. He banged on the invisible barrier with his fists.
“See!” Chichi said, laughing hard. “You can’t even touch me!”
Yao cursed and banged on the barrier. Then he turned to the side and found that there was a barrier there, too. She’d literally boxed him in.
“Take it off!” Yao said, in a panic. “Take it off!”
Ibou tentatively knocked at it and then reached around to make sure he wasn’t enclosed, too. This made Chichi grin wider.
“Nice,” Sasha said.
“I know,” she said. She lazily raised her knife and made another square. This time, she did it in the opposite direction and the words she spoke were different. Yao’s hand instantly went through the air, the barrier gone.
“How did you-”
“As if I’d tell you.”
“That’s third-level juju,” Ibou said. “We’re not allowed-”
“I obviously have full control of it,” she said. “It’s easy for me. But you wouldn’t possibly understand what that’s like.” She lifted her chin, looking at the people behind Ibou and Yao. “Anyone else?” Chichi said loudly. “I don’t care how old you are.”
No one stepped up.
“I’m not finished,” Yao angrily said.
“Yes, you are. You don’t have anything stronger than what I just did.”
“How do you know?”
She paused, cocking her head. “How about this,” she slowly said. “I call up a masquerade and you never challenge me again.”
“Chichi, enough!” Orlu said. “You always go too far! What are you taking it there for?”
“Orlu, relax,” Chichi said. “I’ve wanted to try this.” She turned to Yao. “Notice how I said ‘try’? You’re no match for me, so I might as well challenge myself, eh? Why not kill two birds with one stone? Be done with you once and for all and do something I’ve never done.”
Yao and Ibou looked worried. In a low but shaky voice, Yao said, “You don’t even know how-”
“We do,” Sasha said.
“Oh, what is wrong with you two?” Orlu said, throwing his hands up. “You think I don’t know where you got the juju? That book was trouble the minute you saw it, Sasha.”
“I’ve done it already,” Sasha said.
A loud murmur flew through the room.
“Do it, then,” someone said.
“Yeah, I want to see,” someone else added.
“I hear that you can die if you fail.”
“Do it!”
“What do you mean, you’ve done it?” Orlu asked. Then something seemed to dawn on him.
Sasha smiled. “Yeah, it was that day at your house.”
Orlu was silent.
Yao and Ibou whispered to each other, and when they stopped, they didn’t look so terrified. “Okay, I accept,” Yao said. “Do it. But you have to do it, not him.”
“Who do you think showed him how?” Chichi said mysteriously. “And if you didn’t know, my mother is a third leveler. I come from thick spiritual blood.”
Yao and Ibou’s smiles faltered. Sunny glanced at Orlu, wondering if she should grab his hand and get them both out of there. Even she knew a masquerade was bad news. And there was no stopping Sasha and Chichi combined.
“What of your father?” a girl behind her said. “I hear he’s Lamb. Your spirit blood can’t be that thick.”
Chichi glared at the girl. “Don’t you worry about my father,” Chichi said. “I certainly don’t.”
“Chichi, don’t do this,” Orlu said. “Masquerades are hard to control even when they’re successfully called. They can force their freedom.”
But Chichi had already sat down. “I have it all in my head,” she softly said. She started drawing in the dirt with her knife.
“Ugh! Goddammit,” Orlu angrily whispered to Sunny. “I want to just kick her! Do you know how bad this is?”
Even before becoming a Leopard Person, Sunny knew about masquerades. They were supposedly spirits of the dead, or just spirits in general who for various reasons came to the physical world through termite mounds. During weddings, birth celebrations, funerals, and festivals, people dressed as them and pretended to be them. That was the key word, pretend. But in the Leopard world, they were real.
“Chichi,” she said. “Maybe you should-”
“Back off,” Chichi said, still drawing. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Of course you do,” Orlu said. “Until you get us all killed.”
“Didn’t you hear? We’ve done it before,” Sasha said. “Chill.”
The entire tent was quiet as everyone watched. For the first time that night, Sunny wished some figures of authority were allowed to keep an eye on things. “Are you sure you won’t get sent to the Abuja Leopard Council?” Sunny asked loudly.
“Do you see any goddamn Lambs around?” Chichi snapped. The design she was drawing looked like a giant circle with lines radiating out and into it.
She quickly made a cross in the center and then sat back, looking at her work. She stood up and began chanting something in Efik as she cut the air with her knife.
“Look,” Sunny said to Orlu. People started to whisper to each other. Many either stepped back or ran out of the tent, especially when the dirt in the center of the drawing began to churn up into a small mound.
A minute passed. The mound grew taller and taller. It looked like the beginning of a termite mound, the places through which masquerades were believed to enter the physical world. It reached about six feet before it stopped. Termites emerged from tiny holes throughout the hill. The winged ones immediately took to the air. Sunny swatted at one that landed on her arm.
“This juju charm,” Chichi said dramatically, “is straight from Udide’s Book of Shadows.”
Several of the remaining people gasped. More turned and ran out of the tent.
“Udide’s Book of Shadows?” Yao almost shouted. Now he looked highly alarmed. Ibou must have fled, because Sunny didn’t see him anywhere. “You’re crazy! Do you know what you’ve just invited?”