Nnedi Okorafor - Akata Witch

She brought her foot back and fired the kick. The ball flew to the far right. Godwin jumped, his eyes wide, his mouth open. It was almost in. Almost. Then Godwin managed to tip it away just in time. He fell onto his side.

She slowed down, putting her hands on her hips. She looked down, ashamed that she hadn’t made the goal.

“Wow!” she heard one of the team members say, impressed.

She looked up.

“Man!” another cried. “ Ah-ah , you see that?”

One of the French speakers excitedly said something in French.

Agaja patted her on the shoulder. “Not bad.”

Godwin rose. He walked up to Sunny and just stared.

“See?” Sasha said, grinning.

“Yeah,” he said, taking the clipboard from his brother. “Okay.”

Sunny was all smiles. “I’m almost thirteen,” she said. “And I’m-I was born in America, but both my parents are Nigerian and I’ve lived in Nigeria since I was nine.…”

“So you’re Nigerian?” Godwin said, frowning, unsure what to write down.

“No,” Sasha said. “American.”

“Whatever you want to put,” she said. She was just glad to play.

There were eleven of them in all. Godwin was goalkeeper. Sasha was assigned center half. Sunny was center forward. Her accomplices, the left and right wings, were the two other best and oldest and biggest boys on the team, Ousman and Agaja. As they stretched, she looked up and was surprised at the size of the audience that had gathered. It was huge- almost the size of the one for the wrestling match.

“Hey, Godwin. You ready?” the other team captain asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Give us two minutes.”

They huddled. “Everyone here?” Godwin asked.

They all said, “Yes.”

“The other team looks like they’re all seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds who ate steroids with their fufu ,” Godwin said. Those of them who could understand laughed. Tony translated for the French speakers and then they laughed, too.

“Doesn’t matter,” Godwin said. “Just looking at our center will distract the hell out of them. No offense, Sunny.”

“None taken,” she said. A thought crossed her mind. Are they going to use juju in the match? And if not, what of natural abilities? Her natural abilities would be useless. How could she kick a soccer ball while invisible?

“They’re going to play dirty,” Godwin said. “So if you have to, do the same. We’ll use an attack formation, so threethree-four. Sasha, you’re going to be up there with Sunny, Agaja, and Ousman when you need to be.” He paused. “For those of you who are new to this, you can’t use juju in the Zuma Football Cup. If you do, we’ll all get disqualified. And you can’t use your natural mystical abilities. This is football, Lamb style.”

A few team members groaned, the French speakers groaning seconds after Tony translated. Sunny had never been so relieved.

“Stop moaning!” Godwin snapped. “Buck up. This is real.”

“We’re ready,” Agaja said. He hadn’t groaned at all.

“I’m definitely ready,” Sasha said.

Sunny slapped hands with Ousman. Godwin held a hand out and they all took it.

“For the Zuma Football Cup!” he shouted.

“For the Zuma Football Cup!” they shouted back.

The referee stood in the middle of the field with a pad of paper and stick of chalk. He was drawing a series of loopy symbols that apparently meant: I will not use juju or my Leopard abilities. Both teams faced each other.

“Do you all know the rules?” the referee asked loudly.

“Yes,” they chorused.

“Each of you step up and seal it.”

Everyone crowded in and the referee watched closely to make sure that each player pressed a thumb to the center of the symbol.

“You won’t like the result if you break this pact,” he told everyone. “So don’t even try.”

All the players ran to their positions for the kickoff. The white team had won the coin toss, so Sunny stepped into the center circle as the green team stepped back.

“The players are getting in position,” an amplified young female voice said. Sunny saw the commentator in the front of the audience. “It seems that the green team will play the ball forward first. Not since fifteen years ago when Onyeka Nwankwo played for the green team has a girl participated in the Zuma Cup. But this albino girl is certainly the first ever to play center forward ! What excitement we are having on this warm Zuma Festival Day!”

“What is this?” the center forward for the white team asked his teammates in English. He pointed at her and turned to his teammates. “You see this?”

One of the other boys in white laughed and said something in a language she didn’t understand. Two other boys in white laughed hard, too. There was a rise in the chatter from the audience. She was used to ridicule, but this hurt more than usual. This wasn’t just about her being albino, this was about her being a girl-an ugly girl. Stupid boys. Stupid, blockhead, idiot boys , she thought.

“Hey, Godwin, who said ghosts could play?” the boy in front of Sunny loudly asked.

Godwin only shook his head, hunkering down into position. The white team’s center was about to say something else when he suddenly fell backward. Behind her, Sasha laughed hard. “Asshole,” Sasha said, putting a pouch of juju powder back into his pocket. Sunny grinned.

“Ibou, are you all right?” the ref asked the white team’s center.

“Ibou grunted, angrily getting to his feet.

“Hey, no more of that,” the ref said, pointing at Sasha.

Sasha held his arms out. “The game hasn’t started yet.”

“Well, now it has.” The ref took out a pocket watch, put a whistle to his lips, and blew, handing the ball to Sunny.

She placed it on the center spot and took a deep breath. The moment she brought her foot back, five copper chittim fell next to Sunny, but she was too busy to care. She kicked the ball diagonally to Ousman and ran.

“And they’re off,” the commentator said. “Ousman kicks it back to Sunny. Sunny takes the ball around Ibou, the center forward from Senegal! Look at those feet! ”

She remembered what Godwin said about the other team being distracted by her, and she took full advantage of the element of surprise. She dribbled the ball with speed, zigzagging around the other team and checking her peripheral vision for flashes of green. She spotted Agaja to her left. When she got close enough to the goalpost, she passed the ball to him. He took the shot. It flew in like a bullet. The crowd jumped up and shouted.

“GOOOOOOOOOAL! The green team scores!” the commentator shouted.

“Ha-ha!” she shouted, running over to Agaja and hugging him. She heard someone shout her name and saw Orlu and Chichi standing up and jumping in the front seats. She blew a kiss at them and they cheered louder: “Sunny, o! Sunny, o!!!”

The other team barely knew what hit them. As he stepped into the center circle, Ibou looked infuriated. His nostrils flared like a bull’s. Sunny glared right back at him. Adrenaline was blasting through her veins. Have to move really quick now , she thought. He’s going to try to hurt me .

But she wasn’t afraid. She was playing soccer in the sun with other players and she was good . She knew the minute that ball had dropped. She wasn’t just good at kicking a ball around, she was good at playing with a team. “I’ve had your chittim given to your friends over there for safekeeping,” the ref told her.

She nodded, stepping away from the center circle and keeping her eye on Ibou. The ref blew his whistle as Ibou placed the ball on the center spot. He kicked it to his teammate, who dribbled it.