Free Making Wolf by Tade Thompson

said. “I could have sworn this conversation started out in Yoruba. Now it’s in gibberish.”
    “Weston does sarcasm!” She stopped writing and came back to me. “I take examinations for people in the universities. And some of the polytechnics. For money.”
    “You impersonate students in exams?”
    “Also for theses, essays and miscellaneous assignments, yes.”
    “Does it pay well?”
    “You have no idea. I’ve been living off this for a while.”
    “What courses do you specialize in?”
    “Anything at all.”
    “Examples?”
    “History, literature, physics, advanced math, philosophy, you name it, I’ve done it. I’ve done Premed twice.” She twisted around and looked into my eyes. “I know everything. I have a third eye, and it sees all.”
    She did know everything; she always had.
    “You have no ethical problems with that?”
    “Do you?”
    “I’m not sure.”
    “It’s Alcacia, Weston. It’s survival.”
    “I know. I’ve just never thought about it.”
    “It’s hard work. I have a lot of raw information in my head, and I can tell you about the October Revolution or the Treaty of Utrecht, or recite all the monologues of
King Lear
, but the difficult bit is toning it down, tailoring it to the academic level of the clients. I have to make it look hard. I have to add errors of grammar and syntax. It’s exhausting.” She turned back and continued jotting on the pad.
    “Do you ever miss the lack of recognition?”
    “In what sense?”
    “You’re doing a lot of academic work here, but others get the glory. You’re a ghost writer. Wouldn’t you rather have your own name on an essay or book or…I don’t know, win some prizes or the like? Isn’t this a kind of half-life?”
    “The last time I cared about shit like that was my first year of university. I started what I thought would be the first of many degrees. For my term paper I wrote an eight-thousand word essay titled “I, Rastafari” which was an examination of the sociocultural effects of the black African Diaspora on the adopted identity of the individual on the Caribbean Islands. It was brilliant. My professor said it was years ahead of what someone of my experience should be writing. He said I’d easily graduate with a first class. And then he stood up from behind his desk, dropped his trousers, and asked me to fellate him.”
    “What?”
    “Don’t be shocked, Weston. It’s really quite rampant, and nobody bats an eyelid at these things anymore. Even crusty old academics have to get obo somehow. I never liked formal education anyhow. Too prescriptive; too restrictive.”
    Nana had always complained about school when we were young. She read more than anyone I have known before or since, but nothing relevant to school work. When we first met she was reading an astrophysics textbook that she barely understood. She was twelve. I was thirteen and completely fucked up from my family being torn to bits and my mother’s recent death. I was the new boy at school since I had just moved to Aunt Blossom’s house. I remember sitting by myself at lunch for weeks. One day she came, sat next to me holding a book that strained her forearm muscles, and nudged me. “Are you retarded?” she asked. “People say you’re retarded is why you don’t talk to anyone.”
    And that is how we began to talk.
    Evening.
    The unholy ball of fire in the sky had retreated enough to the west that I didn’t feel scorched, sweaty, or scared. Brave, pioneer mosquitoes had started buzzing about, albeit slowly. Nana had made some eba, and we ate on the veranda.
    “It can be done,” said Nana. “Just takes cash.”
    “I have cash.”
    “Okay, but then there are still delays. You can’t just walk into the ministry and ask for a private detective license. There are forms to be filled, procedures to be performed, clearances to be cleared. You must be stamped, triplicated, filed. You must lose your head and get angry at least once. You must experience the