Akata Witch: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Sunny and Chichi are in the bathroom, trying to clean up before the social. Chichi took Sunny to get her hair braided earlier, but there are no showers. The girls leave the bathroom and meet up with Orlu and Sasha. Then, they all head to a tent near the field for the social. An older student checks them in at the door and praises Sunny for her performance on the soccer field—she’s always wanted to play, but she didn’t know she could. The male student helping, though, chuckles that girls have to play as well as Sunny. This annoys Sunny, but she accepts the white towel the students offer her and enters the tent.

The tent is humid and there are vines growing everywhere. A huge tree is in the center; it lifts onto its roots and spins as it starts raining over the dance floor. Orlu leads Sasha, Sunny, and Chichi to the buffet to get food. As they eat, Yao approaches and exchanges insults with Chichi. Chichi sends him away, and Orlu groans that something bad is going to happen. Proudly, Chichi says she got the better of Yao last year, and now she’s going to have to do it again. Orlu warns Chichi to not do anything dangerous. A few minutes later, Yao approaches again—and asks Chichi to dance. Sasha scowls as she accepts, and he leaves to talk to Agaja and Ousman. Sunny invites Orlu to dance, and though she feels awkward at first, they dance happily for an hour and a half.

Near the end of the social, the music slows and students start to leave the tent. Chichi rejoins Sunny and Orlu, and then she notices that Sasha is standing with five girls. She storms in his direction, but Ibou and Yao intercept her and ask what she has. As Sunny, Orlu, and Sasha approach, Chichi asks Yao the same thing. He pulls out his juju knife and blows a charm at Chichi—and her rapa turns to gold and becomes very tight. The girls who were with Sasha are impressed, but Chichi isn’t. As Chichi brings out her knife, Sasha reminds Ibou that Sunny humiliated him on the soccer field earlier. Godwin shouts that though the white team won, the game was supposed to be about brains—not just brawn.

Chichi slashes with her knife, but nothing happens. Yao and Ibou insult her for being incompetent, and Chichi says they’re right. But as she reaches out to shake Yao’s hand, Yao hits something—Chichi created an invisible barrier around him. After laughing at him for a minute, Chichi undoes the juju. She insists she has full control of it, even though it’s third-level juju, but Yao angrily insists he has more to show. Chichi offers a deal: she calls a masquerade, and Yao never challenges her again. Orlu scolds Chichi for taking things too far, and Yao and Ibou look worried. Sasha, though, says he’s called a masquerade already—he tells Orlu it was “that day at [his] house.” Yao accepts the deal, on the condition that Chichi call the masquerade. Chichi notes that she told Sasha how to do it the first time.

Orlu begs Chichi to not do this, but Chichi ignores him and begins to draw in the dirt with her juju knife. Sunny has known about masquerades her whole life. They’re spirits that enter the physical world through termite mounds. In the Lamb world, people dress as masquerades and pretend—but in the Leopard world, masquerades are real. The tent is silent as everyone still at the social watches Chichi draw a circle with radiating lines. She stands, speaks in Efik, and cuts the air with her knife. As the ground starts to move under the circle, some people flee the tent.

The mound grows to be six feet tall, and termites crawl out of holes. Chichi announces that this juju charm came from Udide’s Book of Shadows—and Yao yelps. Sunny wants to run, but she doesn’t want to abandon Chichi. A wailing begins, followed by the sound of small drums, a flute, and then big drums. Orlu warns Sunny not to run as the masquerade emerges from the mound. It has a wooden knob at the top, which is attached to a tuft of raffia. The body is blue fabric with strings of beads and cowry shells hanging from it. The raffia falls away to reveal four mask faces as the head. Students call for deities as the masquerade looks around—and drops its wooden masks. Under the masks are angry stinging insects.

Orlu shouts for everyone to get down, but people are too panicked. The masquerade dances and Orlu shoves Sunny down. He tells Chichi and Sasha that “it” is going to happen soon. Just as Orlu tells Sunny to hold her breath, insects fly out of the masquerade’s body, burying students in bugs. Sunny is sure she’ll die, especially when Orlu stands up. He calmly makes scooping motions and as he does, insects return to the masquerade’s body. As he does this, he asks the masquerade gently to go home now that it’s frightened people. When the masquerade has been put back together, it points to Chichi, says something in Efik, and disappears back into the termite mound.

Orlu leads Sunny, Sasha, and Chichi to where they’re supposed to meet Anatov. They’re late, and Orlu is enraged. When Sasha tells him to loosen up, Orlu shouts that everyone knows Sasha is brilliant—and now they know he’s “stupid.” Chichi notes that nobody got hurt because Orlu was there to fix it, which Orlu resents. Anatov also looks angry when they reach him. He asks how many chittim they got and says they got paid because they made a mistake and learned they could fix it.

Then, Anatov tells Sasha he’s an “idiot.” Orlu’s mother told him about the masquerade he called—and calling a powerful water spirit like Mmuo Miri could’ve been deadly. Anatov threatens to have Sasha caned and to take Udide’s Book of Shadows away if Sasha does something like this again. Turning on Chichi, Anatov says they’ll go to the council as soon as they get home. The trip home the next day is somber, but Godwin does find Sunny, Orlu, Sasha, and Chichi. He laughs that everyone’s talking about Sunny’s soccer skills, and Chichi’s ability to call a masquerade and send it back.