Before she said anything, the beast stopped laughing and looked her square in the eyes. It stepped forward, and then it bowed slowly. The gesture was so charming, especially coming from a giant rodent, that Sunny forgot her anger. Grashcoatah nodded and then disappeared.

“See, no shaking,” Chichi said. “It’s going to cooperate.”

Mmmph, the invisible creature said. It was right beside Sunny, judging from the blast of warm beast breath Sunny felt on the side of her face, blowing between her cornrows. Its breath smelled like the sweet incense her auntie in America liked to burn when she was stressed out.

“Thank goodness,” Sunny said. She turned toward where Grashcoatah probably was. “Thank you so much! We . . .”

“Not yet,” Orlu quickly said.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh . . . we, um, we really, really truly appreciate your understanding.” She frowned at Orlu. Grashcoatah only thought it was going with them to Osisi. If they didn’t ask it now about carrying them there, then when? When they needed to leave? No one, not even a smart beast, liked to be asked such things right before the favor had to be done. But for the moment, she was relieved. At least they would manage to get back to her brother’s friend’s place more easily. How long had they been gone? A few hours? He’d be really worried.

“One thing at a time,” Orlu said.

She nodded. At least one phase of their journey was behind them now; they were done with Udide. And now Grashcoatah was going to stay invisible and thus avert the chaos and disaster of a bunch of Lambs seeing what they’d only deem a monster.

Getting the flying grasscutter back to Adebayo’s aunt and uncle’s house was a nightmare.

It was such a ridiculous disaster that Sunny couldn’t stop laughing and saying, “There is a haunted basement with all of our names on it waiting for us at the bottom of the Obi Library!” Then she’d laughed harder as the driver of the kabu kabu carrying her, Chichi, Sasha, and Orlu whimpered and whined as he stared into the rearview mirror and pressed down on the accelerator. Grashcoatah had a sick sense of humor and he (Sunny had just seen Grashcoatah fly overhead and, yes, Grashcoatah was definitely a he) had zero intention of staying hidden to the world.

At first things were okay. Strange, but okay. When they’d arrived at the back entrance to the market, about a fifth of a mile from the entrance to Udide’s cave, they found the market booming. It was packed with people as if it were the middle of any non-holiday week.

On top of this, as soon as they stepped past the first couple of booths, Sunny’s cell phone began to buzz like crazy as it received text message after text message.

“Are you kidding?” Sunny whined as she shoved past a group of women waiting in front of a woman selling large tomatoes.