Akata Witch

Sunny Nwazue, a 12-year-old girl, lights a candle one night in her home in Nigeria. Staring at the flame, she sees a vision of the end of the world. Leaning in to see better, she sets her hair on fire, panicking her mother.

Sunny reflects that because she is American-born but of Igbo ethnicity, living in Nigeria, and because she has albinism, she tends to “confuse people.” She recalls a time when she was very sick as a toddler and was saved by a light that glowed above her head. Sunny thinks that this strange event was a sign of what was to come.

An excerpt from the book Fast Facts for Free Agents explains who “Leopard People” are: a secret, worldwide population with mystical abilities who were once massacred two thousand years ago.

At school, Sunny’s classmates tease her about her hair, cut short after it caught fire. Sunny is horrified when her teacher, Miss Tate, asks her to stand in front of the class with a wooden switch and strike each of her classmates’ hands as punishment for writing poor essays. She refuses, but her classmates are angry with her anyway, whispering insults like “akata witch” (11).