The next morning, after three hours of driving, they reached the town of Ibafo, about fifteen miles from Lagos. Almost there. The problem was that they were again caught in a go-slow, and not just any go-slow, a colossal go-slow. It was the wrong time to be there. Sunny could just barely see the source of their woes about a mile up the Lagos–Ibadan Expressway. There was a cluster of cream-coloured buildings, and the parking lot around the largest of the buildings was packed. It was the Redemption Church Camp.
Being the early afternoon of New Year’s Eve, people were just arriving. And those who could not find parking in the lot were parking right on the road. The go-slow was so thick that traffic wasn’t moving at all. Some people even parked where they were stuck, left their car, and went on to the church.
“Are you kidding?” Sasha shouted out the window at some people in front of them who’d just left their car. They ignored him as they stepped into the grass and kept right on going, wearing their Sunday best, although it was Wednesday.
“Can you get around their car?” Orlu asked.
“I’ll try,” Chukwu said, driving onto the red dirt pathway near the centre of the road. There was already a line of cars stuck there and Chukwu opened his window. “Excuse me, sir. Will you…” The man in the passenger seat pinched his face and said,
“Na no see way we dey hook here like person wey dey inside rat cage?”
The driver ducked down to see Chukwu. “You think I am fool?” he snapped. The man was old enough to be their father. “I let you in and the whole world will be squeezing.”
“The people in the car in front of me have left it,” Chukwu said. “Just let–”
The driver closed his window.
“What is wrong with the people here?” Orlu asked, disgusted.
“It’s not them,” Sunny said. “Chukwu, remember when we all came through here?”
Chukwu nodded.
“It wasn’t this bad, but it was bad,” Sunny told Orlu. “People know that, so they are mean. It’s faster when you don’t let anyone else in.”
In front of them a large truck carrying about fifty people and a great pile of oranges belched out exhaust, and the people in the back coughed and waved at the polluted air. The exhaust soon reached them, and they coughed as Chukwu turned the Jeep on and closed the windows. When the air cleared, he opened them again. Best to save gas by not using the air conditioner.
“If this were a funky train, we wouldn’t be here,” Chichi whispered.
“Yeah, we wouldn’t be here,” Sunny said in a low voice so Chukwu wouldn’t hear. “We’d still be at home because my parents wouldn’t let me travel for so many days without Chukwu.”
Chichi sucked her teeth and opened the door to stretch her legs. Sasha got out and leaned against the car with her.
It was hot and humid, and the shanties that housed a small market were booming with business, selling pure water, plantain chips, and cell phone car chargers. Sunny was looking at the cloudy sky, glad that a few of the puffier clouds were covering the sun, when the idea popped into her head. She had asked Sugar Cream about this very possibility, so she knew a little about it.
“Can Leopard People control the weather?” she’d questioned Sugar Cream one horribly hot day. The entire library had felt as if it would melt back into the earth from which it came. “Or even just temperature? I’d have thought there’d be some juju to at least cool it down in here.”
Sugar Cream had laughed and said, “Can you imagine the world we would live in if we could do that? The entire Earth would be in chaos.”
“Oh,” Sunny’d said, leaning back on her elbows. As usual, she had been sitting on the floor of Sugar Cream’s office. She’d tried her best to ignore the red spider scuttling across the floor a few feet away.
“The weather is the business of Chukwu,” Sugar Cream had said.
For once, Sunny hadn’t needed an explanation. Chukwu was her brother’s name, but he was named after someone much greater. First and foremost, Chukwu was the name the Igbo people used for the Supreme Being. The great deity known as Chukwu was so inaccessible to human beings that one didn’t even pray to it. If Chukwu gave you audience, you probably would have no idea why and you’d be in such awe, it wouldn’t really matter.
“But,” Sugar Cream had said, raising an index finger. “If the weather is already moving in a direction, we can sort of push it along. For example, if it’s breezy, with some effort and consequence, a skilled Leopard Person can make it windy.”
“What kind of consequence?”
Sugar Cream had laughed loudly. “Nothing worth discussing. There’s a reason not many Leopard People play around with changing the weather.”
Now, as Sunny looked up at the cloudy sky, she wondered. She climbed out of the Jeep and walked around to the other side where Sasha and Chichi stood smoking cigarettes.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Chichi said, rolling her eyes. “We’re outside and there’s a breeze.”
Sasha blew out some smoke as he scrutinised Sunny. Then he said, “She’s not here to whine. She’s got an idea.”
Sunny nodded. “I do,” she said. “Well, it’ll only work if one of you guys can do it. I know I can’t.” She glanced at Chukwu, who was fiddling with the stereo. Orlu was behind him reading the Book of Shadows, his brow furrowed with concentration.
Sunny nodded her head towards the sky. “It’s supposed to rain later today. Can you make it rain now? Either of you?”
They were silent as they considered. It didn’t take long. “If it rains, people will return to get their cars,” Sasha said. Sunny nodded.
“But only if it rains hard. A deluge that covers the roads,” Chichi said.
“Exactly,” Sunny said. “Can you…”
“Of course, we can,” Sasha said. “But it’s the consequences that bother me.”
“What’ll happen?” Sunny asked. “It can’t kill you, right?”
“No, no,” Chichi said. “Water no get enemy.”
“Water is life,” Sasha added. “Aman iman.”
Chichi was quoting Fela, Sasha was quoting old proverbs and speaking in some Arabic type language; Sunny was completely lost.
“Sunny, get in the car,” Sasha said, bringing out his juju knife. He lowered his voice. “Talk to your brother and Orlu for a while. We’ll be right back.”
Chichi poked her head in the Jeep window. “Chukwu, we’re going into the market to find something real to eat. Do you want anything?”
Chukwu shook his head. “Just want to get the hell out of here.”
“Orlu?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, his eyes still on the book.
Sasha and Chichi quickly walked away, without a glance back. Sunny climbed into the car and sat beside Orlu. She wanted to explain to him what was going on, but Chukwu was right there. Orlu seemed too preoccupied with the book, anyway.
“Daddy warned me not to take this way today,” Chukwu moaned. “I completely forgot. With all that craziness last night, I was distracted. We should have been there by now.”
“Don’t worry,” Sunny said. “We’ll get there.”
“So close yet so far.”
A half hour had passed, and they’d only moved up about twenty feet thanks to two cars that were pushed off the road because they’d run out of gas. Drops of rain started falling just when Sasha and Chichi returned carrying bags of chin chin.
“That’s all you got?” Chukwu asked as Chichi got in. “What took so long?”
“There wasn’t much to eat,” Chichi quickly said.
Sasha slowly climbed into the passenger seat. He looked ill, his face sweaty. Sunny frowned as he sat with his legs pressed together. He smiled weakly at her. Chukwu looked at him, frowned, and asked, “What is wrong with you?”
“Just gotta pee,” he said.
“Then go do…”
The rain started hitting the car in large droplets. Then it began coming down like a waterfall.
Orlu looked up for the first time from the book. He looked at Sasha and then Sunny, and Sunny nodded.
“Turn the car on,” Chichi shouted.
As soon as Chukwu did, she closed her window. They all followed suit as the car was pounded with rain. Sasha groaned and jumped out of the car. “Can’t hold it!” he screeched. Sunny turned away as he stood in the rain right there beside the Jeep and relieved himself.
When he finished, he got back in the car, still looking strained. He pressed his legs together. Whatever he had done, it had only been him who did it. She couldn’t imagine Chichi suffering the same problem. That would have been more complicated.
“What kind of rain is this?” Chukwu asked, leaning forwards. Outside, they could see people running for shelter and to their cars. All around them, vehicles were starting and the paved double road ran with sludgy red mud. For several minutes, it was chaos. Women in their best church clothes took off their heels to hop into cars or beneath canopies. Men in church-appropriate suits and caftans jumped into driver’s seats. The cloudburst above was like nothing Sunny had ever seen. And poor Sasha kept having to pee and pee. He was soaked from jumping outside to urinate and then getting back into the Jeep. Needless to say, Chukwu was perplexed and deeply annoyed by Sasha’s problem.
“Did you eat some bad mango?” he asked, reaching beneath the seat and pulling out a blue battered towel. He threw it on Sasha’s seat.
Thankfully, within minutes the go-slow began to move. Within a half hour, they’d outrun the strange weather and were cruising down the road. Sasha’s peeing fit continued but decreased the farther they got from the Redemption Church Camp and soon, exhausted from the agony to his bladder, he fell into a deep sleep.
A half hour after that, they entered Africa’s biggest megacity, Lagos.