As a little girl, everyone said I looked like my mum. They said I had her gap-tooth and her dark skin. That we moved and sounded alike. It made my mum so happy. She used to call me her ‘twinny’. But everything changed when I turned 15.

My mum became mad at me all the time. She stopped laughing and gisting with me. Nothing I did was good enough. If I washed the dishes, she’d find a leftover stain. If I tidied the house, she’d fish out a spot I’d missed. Life became very hard. I often cried myself to sleep.

Then my mum stopped me from hanging out with my friends. She said they were no good for me. I tried to tell her they were cool. But she yelled and yelled.

Soon my friends stopped coming over. I no longer returned their visits and messages. So they moved on without me. I had no one to talk to anymore. Not even my own mum. I felt so lonely.

One weekend, my mum’s best friend Aunty Queenie came to visit. I’d always liked her because she was nice. When my mum stepped out to get something, Aunty Queenie asked me if I was okay. I nodded at first. I didn’t want anything to reach my mum’s ears. But there was something about Aunty Queenie’s eyes that said I could trust her. So I told her everything.

Aunty Queenie told me to cheer up. She explained that my mum was going through a lot. Her salary hadn’t been paid for months. To make things worse, our landlord was threatening to throw us out.
Aunty Queenie assured me that my mum still loved me very much. That I was growing up so fast, and my mum just didn’t know how to cope. She begged me to give my mum another chance. I agreed.


I started doing my chores more diligently. Over time, my mum stopped complaining. Instead, she started praising me for being hard-working. She even allowed me to plait her hair when I asked – just like I did as a little girl.

Bit by bit, we started talking again. She confessed that she thought I’d abandoned her for my friends. I apologised for making her feel bad. I told her no one would ever take her place in my life. Then she hugged me and apologised too.

Now, things have picked up for my mum. They’ve paid her salary and our landlord has stopped bugging her. As for me, my friends are back in my life, which isn’t bad at all. However, when I’m in trouble, I go straight to my mum. She’ll always be my ‘twinny’ no matter what.

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