“You… you see it?” Orlu said, his eyes wide.
“Make it stop,” Sunny said.
“See!” Chichi said. “I was right!”
“Oh, stop,” Orlu snapped. “You don’t know for sure. She could just be sensitive.”
But Chichi looked very smug.
“Do you solemnly swear on the people you hold dearest, on the things dearest to you, that you will never speak of what I am about to tell you to anyone on the outside?” Orlu asked.
“Outside of what?” Sunny shrieked. She just wanted it to stop.
“Just swear,” he said.
She’d have sworn anything. “I swear.” Before she could get the second word out of her mouth, it all stopped, settled, grew still, normal.
Chichi got up, took the empty cups of tea, and walked out. Sunny looked down at the book. The markings had disappeared. She could still taste blood in her mouth.
“Okay, so ask and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” Orlu said.
A thousand things were flying through Sunny’s head. “Just tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
She groaned, exasperated. “What’d we just do?”
“We gave our word,” he said. “That was a trust knot. It will prevent you from telling anyone about any of this, not even your family. I couldn’t tell you anything if we didn’t make one.”
“Chichi would have,” she said.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t ask her. She doesn’t do what she’s supposed to. We’d have all been in terrible trouble if you let things slip after she told you.”
“Let what slip?”
Orlu clasped his hands together. “Chichi and I,” he began, “and our parents are-”
“Don’t bother telling her like that,” Chichi said, coming back in. She was carrying a tray with three fresh cups of tea on it. “She’s ignorant.”
“Hey, no, I’m not.”
“Plus, she understands things better when you show her,” Chichi said. “I know her some.”
Orlu shook his head. “No, too early.”
“Not really,” Chichi said. “But tell her about what you can do, first.”
Orlu looked at Sunny, then looked down and sighed. “I can’t believe this.” He seemed to gather himself together. “It’s hard to explain,” he said. “I can undo bad things, bad… juju. It’s like an instinct. I didn’t have to learn how.”
“Isn’t all juju bad?” she asked.
“No,” her friends both said.
“It’s like anything else: some good, some bad, some just is,” Chichi said.
“So you all are-witches, or something?”
They laughed. “I guess,” Orlu said. “Here in Nigeria, we call ourselves Leopard People. Back in the day, there were powerful groups called the ekpe, Leopard societies. The name stuck.”
Sunny couldn’t deny what she’d seen. The world had done a weird blossoming thing, and though it had stopped, she still felt it with her. She knew it could happen again. And what about the candle?
“Chichi can remember things if she sees them,” Orlu said, “so her head is full of all sorts of juju. See all these books, ask her to recite a paragraph from a certain page and she can.”
Sunny slowly got up.
“Are you all right?” Orlu asked.
“This is-I don’t-I… I think I need to go home,” she said. She felt ill.
“Do you have anything this weekend?” Chichi quickly asked.
Sunny slowly shook her head as she picked up her schoolbag.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Chichi said. “Come here in the morning, like around nine A.M. Make room for the whole day.”
“To… to do what?” Sunny asked, clutching her schoolbag. She stepped toward the door.
“Just come,” Chichi said.
Sunny nodded, and got out of there as fast as she could.
What Is Chittim?
Chittim is the currency of Leopard People. Chittim are always made of metal (copper, bronze, silver, and gold) and always shaped like curved rods. The most valuable are the large copper ones, which are about the size of an orange and thick as an adult’s thumb. The smallest ones are the size of a dove’s egg. Least valuable are chittim made of gold.
When chittim fall, they never do harm. So one can stand in a rain of chittim and never get hit. There is only one way to earn chittim: by gaining knowledge and wisdom. The smarter you become, the better you process knowledge into wisdom, the more chittim will fall and thus the richer you will be. As a free agent, don’t expect to get rich.
from Fast Facts for Free Agents
3
When Sunny got home, everything seemed normal. She kicked a soccer ball around with her brothers. She easily stole the ball and wove between them with her fast feet, and because they found this annoying, they talked rubbish about how she looked like a white girl. Her mother, who was home early, made spicy red stew with chicken. Her father came home late and ate alone as he read his newspaper. Not once did the world bloom or shift.
But goodness, she was tired. Exhausted. She tried to read a few pages of Purple Hibiscus, a book she’d begged her mother to buy, but soon she fell asleep. She slept like the dead. When morning came, she felt better. She lay there thinking about what happened yesterday. Whatever Chichi and Orlu had done to her, she would open her mind to it, she decided. Why not?
She quickly dressed in jeans, a yellow T-shirt, leather sandals, and her favorite gold necklace. It was the only costly gift her father had ever given her.
“Be back by four o’clock,” her mother said during breakfast. Sunny was surprised that her mother hadn’t asked a whole bunch of questions. She quickly got up before her luck changed.
“Where are you going?” her brother Chukwu asked.
“Out,” she said. “’Bye.”
In one hand, she carried her black umbrella. In the other was her blue purse with a stick of lip gloss, some sunscreen, a washcloth, a mango, her cell phone, and enough money for lunch and a little whatever.
“Sunny!” Chichi yelled when she saw her coming up the street. Chichi was dressed up, at least by Chichi’s standards. She wore a green rapa with yellow circles on it and a white T-shirt. She was wearing sandals, too. Sunny raised a tentative hand in greeting.
“Oh, stop,” Chichi said. “Relax.” She linked her arm in Sunny’s and they walked toward Orlu’s house. He stood at the gate.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Nice shoes,” Chichi said, looking at Orlu’s brand-new red Chuck Taylors.
“My mother’s brother is visiting from London,” he said. “He brought me these.”
“So where are we going?” Sunny asked.
Chichi and Orlu exchanged a look.
“You told your parents you’ll be back around three?” Orlu asked her.
“Four,” she said proudly.
“Well done,” Chichi said, grinning.
“I asked my mother about this,” Orlu said to Chichi. “She was really angry with me for making that trust knot with Sunny.” Here we go again, thought Sunny. More things I don’t know. More of them not telling me anything.
“Sunny has to be involved,” Chichi said, looking annoyed. “I told you what my mother said.”
“Well,” Orlu said slowly. “I asked my parents. She can’t set foot in Leopard Knocks… unless she’s fully initiated.” Chichi tried to hide a smile. “Chichi, you knew this was the rule!”