“What happened?” Chelu asked. She didn’t even have the courtesy to keep the stupid grin off her face.

“I needed a change,” Sunny said, and walked away. Behind her, she still heard them laughing.

“Now she’s really ugly,” she heard Chelu say.

“She should wear some bigger earrings or something,” Buchi added. Sunny’s ex-friends laughed even harder. If you only knew that your days were numbered, she thought. She shivered, pushing away the images of what she’d seen in the candle.

Her day grew even worse when her literature and writing teacher handed back the latest class assignment. The instructions were to write an essay about a relative. Sunny had written about her arrogant oldest brother, Chukwu, who believed he was God’s gift to women, though he wasn’t. Of course, it didn’t help that his name meant “Supreme Being.”

“Sunny’s essay received the highest mark,” Miss Tate announced, ignoring the class’s sneers and scoffs. “Not only was it nicely written, but it was engaging and humorous.”

Sunny bit the inside of her cheek and gave a feeble smile. She hadn’t meant the essay to be funny at all. She’d been serious. Her brother was truly an arrogant nyash. To make things worse, her classmates had all scored terribly. Out of ten points, most received threes and fours.

“It’s a waste of time trying to teach you all proper English,” Miss Tate shouted. She snatched a boy’s essay and read it aloud: “‘My sista always beg though she make good money. She likes to have but not give. She no go change.’” Miss Tate slammed the essay back onto the boy’s desk. “Do you come here just to stare into space? Eh? And you were all so timid in what you wrote. Who wants to hear ‘My mother is very nice’ or ‘My auntie is poor’? And in rotten English, at that! This is why I had you write about a relative. It was supposed to be easy!”