Akata Witch: Chapter 6 Summary & Analysis

Fast Facts for Free Agents defines a free agent as someone who “isn’t privileged with even one pure Leopard spiritline,” as a “result of mixed-up and confused spiritual genetics,” and as someone who will struggle to learn anything. The book warns free agents to find someone to help them, as they’ll be helpless, like a disoriented baby.

Angry, Sunny throws Fast Facts for Free Agents across the room—the author is so pompous and discriminatory. But Sunny doesn’t want to look ignorant in front of Anatov, so she gets up to fetch the book. As she does, the book sprouts legs and climbs onto her pillow. Sunny is terrified, especially when it then flies open to Chapter Four once she gets close to it. But she reads that Lambs focus on attaining perfection. Leopard culture, the book says, isn’t like this. All Leopard People, even free agents, have an ability that usually stems from the things that set them apart, like a talent or a physical trait. The book’s tone is still condescending, but Sunny learns to look past it to the useful information within. She reads whenever she can and comes to enjoy how eagerly the book crawls into her lap.

Mostly, Sunny focuses on a juju called “Etuk Nwan” in Chapter Eight, which will allow her to leave the house undetected on Saturday night to meet Anatov. Three ingredients are easy to get, but the final ingredient is going to be a challenge. So on Saturday, Sunny goes to the market and asks the meat seller for a sheep’s head. This request isn’t unusual—but then she asks the seller if the sheep is an ebett, a “sleeping antelope sheep.” Suddenly afraid that she’s going to look like a scary albino witch asking for such a thing, she says the regular sheep head will be fine.

When Sunny gets home, she only has an hour to butcher the head. It disgusts her, and it’s clearly not an ebett, but she decides to work with what she has. So Sunny scrapes all the flesh off of the skull, wraps it in paper, and then makes it look like she’s actually cooking. Her brothers, Chukwu and Ugonna, briefly come into the kitchen for snacks and to share that Black Hat killed a kid in a nearby town, but they notice nothing. Sunny sneaks upstairs with the sheep skull so it can dry, hides her purse outside, and then makes a spicy red stew with the sheep’s brain.

Sunny must work the juju at exactly 11:00 p.m. It will allow her to pass through locked doors if she’s successful. So Sunny sips her rainwater, rubs palm oil on her hands, and sprinkles chamomile on her hands. Then, she sits and holds the skull, trying to empty her mind of all thoughts. Suddenly, the skull drops to the floor—and Sunny can’t pick it up again. The keyhole yanks her through it and on the other side, chittim fall around her. She leaves them, since she can’t pick them up, and then passes through the front door’s lock. Outside, she fetches her hidden purse and runs for Chichi’s hut.

Sunny almost cries as she tells Chichi about performing the Etuk Nwan. Sasha and Orlu appear a minute later, and they hail the strangest vehicle Sunny has ever seen. Chichi calls it a “funky train,” and Sunny starts sneezing as soon as she gets on. Chichi suggests that Sunny is allergic to juju powders as they reach Anatov’s hut. Inside, Anatov tells the kids to sit down—but Sunny startles as she sees a hand-size red bug on the wall. Orlov explains that it’s a harmless ghost hopper, and Sunny asks if she can see lots of new creatures now. A bronze chittim falls in her lap.

Anatov welcomes Sunny to Leopard school and asks how she snuck past her parents—he visited her mother and father at work this week and can tell they’re strict. Sunny jokes that she’s albino and is basically a ghost, and Chichi says Sunny worked an Etuk Nwan. When Sunny says she made do with a normal sheep’s head instead of an ebett, Anatov laughs that she’d never find an ebett’s head at a Lamb market—ebetts are albino sheep with spirits that go to the spirit world when they sleep. He says that Sunny could do it because she’s albino and instructs her to reread chapter four on abilities and “bad” qualities.

Sunny asks if Leopard People aren’t proud of their imperfections, and Anatov says that the students must learn how to learn, and they’ll do this by gaining experience. He explains that the author of Fast Facts, Isong Abong Effiong Isong, is very knowledgeable—but she was educated in Europe and America, and so came to think that free agents and African Americans are ignorant and misguided. So she has problematic biases, but the book itself is good.

Addressing everyone, Anatov says that Leopards are confident, but they’re insecure like every other kind of person. Sasha, for instance, is here because he’s a troublemaker and has a photographic memory. Chichi is much the same. In the Lamb world, they’d be diagnosed with ADHD and medicated—and when the medications don’t work, they’ll be thought of as budding criminals. But in the Leopard world, they’re almost guaranteed to be successful. Orlu was diagnosed with dyslexia, which went away as soon as he realized he could instinctively undo bad juju.

Sunny, because she’s albino, has one foot in the real world and one in the wilderness (the spirit world). Chichi and Sasha say that Sunny should be able to make herself invisible by stepping into the wilderness, harness time, and receive premonitions. Abilities, Anatov explains, are things Leopards can do without the help of juju knives or other ingredients; all experienced Leopards can learn to manipulate time and be invisible, but Sunny will be able to do these things naturally.

Then, Anatov asks Orlu and Chichi to tell him about their assignment last time, which was to talk to “street folk.” Chichi and Orlu say that a few men tried to attack them, but most of them were just hungry—and the kids learned that those people have stories and lives, just like anyone else. Staring at Sunny, Anatov says that he’ll teach his four charges about themselves, about new juju, and will help them pass their levels. This will be dangerous and scary, but if they die, the world will keep going. Sunny finds this disturbing, but Anatov goes on to give a new assignment: the kids are to go call on Kehinde. They’ll have to figure out how to get to him.