“You’re fine,” Sugar Cream said with a wave of a hand. “You met the lake beast, cousin of the river beast. I don’t know why it tried to eat you, though.”
Sunny felt dizzy as her attention split between trying to figure out what was on her head and processing the fact that the river beast had relatives. “The river beast has family?” Sunny asked.
“Doesn’t everything?”
Sunny rubbed her face. The river beast dwelled beneath the narrow bridge that led to Leopard Knocks. The first time she’d crossed the bridge it had tried to trick her to her death. If Sasha hadn’t grabbed her by her necklace, it would have succeeded. To think that that thing had family did not set her mind at ease.
“And then it was Ogbuide who saved you from it,” Sugar Cream continued.
Sunny blinked, looking up. “You mean Mami Wata? The water spirit?” Sunny asked, her temples starting to throb. She reached up to touch her head, but then brought her hands down. “My mum always talks about her because she was terrified of being kidnapped by her as a child.”
“Nonsense stories,” Sugar Cream said. “Ogbuide doesn’t kidnap anyone. When Lambs don’t understand something or they forget the real story of things, they replace it with fear. Anyway, you’re still fresh. Most Leopard People know to walk away when they see a lake that should not be where it is.”
“Is there something on my head?” Sunny whispered, working hard not to drop her bowl. She wanted to ask if it was a spider, but she didn’t want to irritate her mentor any more than she already had by nearly dying.
“It’s a comb,” Sugar Cream said.
Relieved, Sunny reached up and pulled it out. “Oooh,” she quietly crooned. “Pretty.” It looked like the inside of an oyster shell, shining iridescent blue and pink, but it was heavy and solid like metal. She looked at Sugar Cream for an explanation.
“She saved you,” she said. “Then she gave you a gift.”
Sunny had been attacked by an octopus monster that roamed around using a giant lake like a spider uses its web. Then she’d been saved by Ogbuide, the renowned deity of the water. Then she’d seen Miknikstic fly by. Sunny was speechless.
“Keep it well,” Sugar Cream said. “And if I were you, I’d not cut my hair anytime soon, either. Ogbuide probably expects you to have hair that can hold that comb. Also, buy something nice and shiny and go to a real lake or pond or the beach and throw it in. She’ll catch it.”
Sunny finished her pepper soup. Then she endured another thirty minutes of Sugar Cream lecturing her about being a more cautious rational Leopard girl. As Sugar Cream walked Sunny out of the building into the rain, she handed Sunny a black umbrella very much like the one Sunny used to use a little more than a year ago. “Are you all right with crossing the bridge alone?”
Sunny bit her lip, paused, and then nodded. “I’ll glide across.” To glide was to drop her spirit into the wilderness, or spirit world, and shift her physical body into invisibility. She would make an agreement with the air and then zip through it as a swift-moving breeze.
She had first glided by instinct when crossing the Leopard Knocks Bridge for the third time, hoping to avoid the river beast. With Sugar Cream’s subsequent instruction, Sunny had now perfected the skill so expertly that she didn’t emit even the usual puff of warm air when she passed people by. With the help of juju powder, all Leopard People could glide, but Sunny’s natural ability allowed her to glide powder-free. To do it this way was to dangerously step partially into the wilderness. However, Sunny did it so often and enjoyed it so much that she didn’t fret over it.
“You have money for the funky train?”
“I do,” Sunny said. “I’ll be fine.”
“I expect you to prepare a nice batch of tainted pepper soup for me by next week.”Sunny fought hard not to groan. She’d buy the tainted peppers this time. There was no way she was going back to the field down the road. Not for a while. Sunny held the umbrella over her head and stepped into the warm, rainy early morning. On the way home, she saw plenty of puddles and one rushing river, but thankfully no more lakes.
NSIBIDI FOR “NSIBIDI”
This book will never be a bestseller. The language in which it is written is much like that of the highest level of academia. It is selfishly exclusive by definition. It is self-indulgent. This is the nature of anything written in the mystic juju-rooted script known as Nsibidi.
You can hear me. You are special. You are in that exclusive group. You can do something most Leopard People cannot. So shut it down, turn it off, power down, log off. You feel the breeze; it is warm and fresh. It smells like palm and iroko leaves, damp red soil; they have not started drilling for oil here. There are few roads, so leaded fuel has not poisoned the air. There is a dived in the palm tree on your right, and it looks down at you with its soft, cautious black eyes. A mosquito tries to bite you and you slap your arm. Now you scratch your arm because you were too slow.
Walk with me…
—from Nsibidi: The Magical Language of the Spirits
2
YAAAAWN
“In social studies we learn about history, geography, and economics. We put it all together so that we can study how we live with one another,” Mrs. Oluwatosin said as she sat in her chair at the front of the class. “But in many ways, social studies class is all about you. It should help you look at yourself and ask, ‘Who am I? And who do I want to be when I am an adult?’ So today, I want to ask you all: Who do you want to be? What do you want to do when you grow up?”
She paused, waiting. No one in the class raised a hand. Sunny yawned, pushing up her glasses for the millionth time. She was too busy navigating an intense magical world to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up. She’d only managed two hours of sleep after she’d returned home. And those two hours were plagued by thoughts of the giant lake-dwelling octopus that had tried to grab her. What the hell was its problem?. She’d been too sluggish to bother with breakfast, and though she’d finished all her homework, she could barely remember what she’d done. Beside her, Precious Agu raised a hand. Mrs. Oluwatosin smiled with relief and nodded for her to speak.
“I want to be president,” Precious said with a grand smile.
There was a pause, and then the entire class burst out laughing.
“You can’t be president when you are not rich,” Periwinkle said from the other side of the room.
“What will your husband think?” a boy beside him asked. They slapped hands.
Precious cut her eyes at them and turned away, hissing. “You people are still living in the Dark Ages,” she muttered.
“Because we live on the Dark Continent,” Periwinkle retorted, and the class laughed harder.
“Quiet!” Mrs. Oluwatosin snapped. “Precious, that is a fine idea. Nigeria could use its first female president. Hold on to your dream and study hard, and you may be the one to make it come true.”
Precious seemed to swell with pride, despite the snickering of the boys. Sunny watched all this through her groggy haze. She liked Mrs. Oluwatosin. She had just joined the faculty at Sunny’s exclusive secondary school, and she was a welcome addition; she was the type of teacher who truly believed in the potential of her students.
Periwinkle raised his hand. When Mrs. Oluwatosin called on him, he said, “I want to be chief of the police force.”
“So that people can be dashing you money all over the place?” Jibaku asked.
More laughter.
Periwinkle nodded. “I plan to have many, many wives, so I’ll need to make extra money to keep them all happy.” He winked at Jibaku, and she sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.
“You’ll be lucky to even have one wife,” she retorted. “With your fat head.”
Sunny chuckled, resting her chin on her hands. Jibaku’s meanness was certainly funnier when it wasn’t aimed at her. She shut her eyes for a moment, feeling sleep try to take her. In the darkness behind her eyes she felt that thing again, like something was pulling her to
the left and something else was pulling her to the right. It was unsettling, but for a moment she tried to analyse it. Doing so made her stomach lurch. She felt her body sway and was about to open her eyes when she heard snoring.
Oh no! I’m asleep, she thought, quickly opening her eyes, sure people would be staring at her. No one was, thank goodness. Apparently her snoring had been in her head.
“Orlu,” Mrs. Oluwatosin said. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Sunny perked up. Orlu was at the front of the class so she couldn’t see his face. She’d barely had a chance to say hello to him this morning, but it seemed Orlu had gotten a fine night’s sleep. She wondered what his mentor, Taiwo, had him doing last night and how he’d been able to return early enough to sleep well.
“A zoologist, I think,” he said. “I love studying animals.”
“Very nice,” Mrs. Oluwatosin said. “That’s an excellent career. And an exciting one, too.”
Sunny agreed. Plus, Orlu was already like a walking encyclopedia when it came to creatures and beasts, magical or non-magical.
“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. Ever since she and Orlu had caught them kissing the year before, the two had become inseparable. It was nice to see her friends happy 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 colouring 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 out there,” 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 neighbourhood 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 old, 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. “Damn! 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 just so easy. I can’t help myself.”
“Stupid,” Sunny muttered, walking towards 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.
Sunny and the Mysteries of Osisi Page 2
