“Call in a few hours,” their father told Chukwu.

“And don’t drive too fast,” their mother said.

Sasha clicked PLAY and as soon as the song he’d chosen started, Chukwu’s eyes lit up and he grinned. “Nas!”

Sasha looked surprised and then nodded appreciatively. And together they said, “Illmatic.”

They hit the road, the Jeep bouncing on a cloud of hip-hop beats.

Within a half hour, Sunny had a raging headache. Chukwu was speeding down a good stretch on the freeway. Sasha had the stereo bumping nearly as loud as it would go. At some point, Chukwu had installed a new, more powerful sound system, and this one was like the ones Sunny remembered from the streets of New York. She even suspected that Chukwu’s system could do that thing where it set off car alarms if it was turned up to the highest volume.

As they sped, they bumped Nas’s Illmatic so loudly that Sunny felt as if her head would explode. She could feel the bass vibrate through her entire body. The only time she’d ever felt anything remotely similar was when Ekwensu’s drums were booming when she’d tried to break into the physical world last year. But this time, with each body-shaking beat, Sunny laughed and Sasha and Chukwu rapped “It Ain’t Hard to Tell” along with Nas.

Sunny looked at Chichi; she looked annoyed. Sunny giggled. She couldn’t have expected the two to bond over Nas. Orlu had fallen asleep, his head resting against the window. When he’d arrived, Sunny had noticed he looked tired.

“I’ll be fine,” he said when she asked him if he’d slept that night. “Stayed up late beading protective spells onto Chukwu’s Jeep.”

“Shit,” Chukwu suddenly hissed. He slammed on the brakes.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Sasha said.

Sunny, the only one who insisted on wearing a seat belt, was thrown against it, her glasses flying off. Sasha held on to his seat. Orlu quickly woke and threw a hand forward just in time to keep himself from mashing his head into the front seat. Chukwu managed to slow down and swerve, narrowly avoiding an enormous pothole.

“Didn’t you see that coming?!” Orlu said.

“No!” Sasha said, shaking his head. He turned around. “Everyone okay?”

“Barely,” Chichi said, picking up her book, which she’d dropped on the floor.

“Two words,” Sunny said, putting her glasses on. “Seat belt.”

Chukwu sucked his teeth and waved a dismissive hand at her.

“Weak American,” Sasha said, grinning. “Don’t you know we in Nigeria?”

Sunny shook her head, disgusted. Sasha had bragged from the moment he’d come to Nigeria about his hatred of “confining” seat belts and how he never wore them even when in the States and neither had his dad.

“The roads are going to get bad,” Orlu said. “We should slow down from here on.”

“I know how to drive,” Chukwu snapped.

“And that’s why we all just nearly died?” Orlu asked. “I’m not saying you’re a bad driver, though. I’m just giving you sound advice.”