“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.