A half hour after that, they entered Africa’s biggest megacity, Lagos.

24

THIS IS LAGOS

So many people. All in a rush.

In Lagos, people were perpetually on alert because anything could happen at any time. The roads were narrow, overcrowded, and littered with street traders and beggars of all kinds. There were so many rickety golden-yellow danfo packed with people. Even the air quality was different. At times it smelled like burning cedar wood, rotten medicine, garbage, exhaust. It was noxious. Was it even air? Sunny felt like she was breathing fumes, better yet, juju powder.

By the time they reached Victoria Island, her nose was running like crazy and she’d gone through half her box of Kleenex. Maybe Lagos really was dusted with juju powder. It was a crazy idea, but she had to wonder. She’d been to Lagos with her family many times before her initiation into Leopardom and never had this problem. She’d never had any type of allergy . . . other than being allergic to the sun.

When they entered the gated community where Adebayo’s aunt and uncle lived, it was like driving into yet another world. A world of super wealthy people. Sunny had been to this part of Victoria Island before when the family had visited one of her father’s friends. She’d felt displaced in the same way back then, and she didn’t exactly come from poverty, either. Coming here after the crazy drive through Nigeria’s many worlds of poverty, wealth, rural and city, trees to concrete jungle was even more unsettling. It was as if they’d left Nigeria and entered the cushiest part of the United States. The houses here were huge and gluttonous in the way that they were in the wealthiest suburbs of New York.

The streets were paved and pothole-free, clean and lined with flowers. A white woman walked a tiny white dog. A man in a jogging suit walked fast, sweating like crazy as he shouted into his cell phone in Yoruba.

“Okay, we’re going left,” Chukwu said into his phone. Adebayo was guiding him. “Oh . . . okay, I see it. White with the yellow Hummer in front.” He laughed hard. “You can drive that? Ah-ah.”

“Ugh,” Chichi said, disgusted. “I’ll bet half these people work for the government and oil companies.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Chukwu asked, holding the phone aside.

Sasha laughed hard and shook his head.

Chichi only looked salty.

“Okay,” Chukwu said into his phone. He laughed loudly, playfully dropping into Pidgin English. “I dey road now, I dey come to your big, big house. I dey yahn you so that na go dey ready for me, o!” He listened for a moment and then laughed hard. “Okay, o!” Still chuckling, he ended the call. “Adebayo is ready for us.”

Sunny didn’t feel elated at arriving. The closer they got to the house, the closer they got to their destination. Tomorrow was New Year’s Day. What did the New Year have in store for her?