Free Growing Up Twice by Rowan Coleman Page A

jobs at Sainsbury’s too. They’re really cool.’ I’m pleased about that. Ayla was very shy as a child and watching her gradually come out of her shell as she grows up has been a pleasure to see. Last year she had to move school as for no apparent reason she had become the target of some bullies. Despite her best efforts to face it out and numerous trips with her parents to see the head the problem continued. Ayla had had a terrible time. She lost weight, broke out in a rash and cried all the time, until her GP tried to prescribe her Prozac. The only solution it seemed was to move her to a new school. Shy and sensitive as she was with strangers, it took her a little bit of time to settle in to the new school so I was really pleased when she made new friends and managed to take her exams despite all the upset, ready to start back at the lower sixth.
    ‘How were your GCSEs? Selin said you did well.’ That’s it. I have been possessed by the ghost of my Auntie Marge, and she’s not even dead.
    ‘I got nine: four As and four Bs and a C for maths. Dad wants me to retake it.’ She looks over her shoulder and rolls her eyes at us.
    ‘Nine?’ Rosie chimes in. ‘How can you have nine? You must be a genius. That’s bloody millions. I only got four.’ She taps me on the shoulder. ‘How many did you get?’
    ‘I got five, but we did O-levels back then, it was different.’
    ‘Yeah, much harder for starters,’ Rosie says, and it’s my turn to look over my shoulder and roll my eyes at her, secretly thinking she is right. ‘Rosie, GCSEs are equally difficult and hard,’ I say out loud.
    ‘Yeah, and don’t forget Selin got nine O-levels and an A in maths, as my dad is always telling me,’ Ayla says lightly and without malice. Damn it, she’s right. Rosie and I were just lazy and preoccupied with clothes and boys. Selin wasn’t lazy, and she was preoccupied with clothes and boys
and
algebra. It’s a winning combination.
    We are led into the warm and bright sitting-room, which is covered in original seventies wallpaper that has just come back into fashion. Selin comes out of the kitchen to kiss us both. She has twisted her copious black hair into an unruly up-do and is wearing her favourite red silk shirt, and she looks gorgeous. Mrs Selin, elegant and curvaceous, follows, kisses us both on each cheek and offers us some Hula Hoops in a little glass dish. Then the baby of the family – the child that was a surprise after the surprise of Ayla – Hakam, who is just eleven, is pushed our way. After vigorous and physical prompting from his mother he comes and kisses us both and then looks as if he wants to vomit.
    ‘You wait,’ his mother says, ruffling his hair. ‘In a few years you won’t be able to wait to kiss beautiful women like these two and you’ll wish you got the chance more often.’ Everyone laughs; Selin digs Ayla in the ribs and they wink at each other. Hakam, who will one day be very handsome, goes a lovely deep rosy colour and sticks out his bottom lip. I think about Michael, briefly, who seven years ago might have been going that special kind of red-haired-person pink at being forced to kiss family friends. Seven years ago I had my second-ever job as the world’s worst PA to a very tolerant boss who used to do all his own typing because I couldn’t. I was seeing a philosophy student with a beard at the time; he was a lot of laughs.
    ‘You girls sit in here and have a glass of wine. Ayla, come and help me in the kitchen.’ Ayla sighs, rolls her eyes again and follows her mum to the kitchen. Hakam, seeing a temporary escape route, legs it up the stairs to his PlayStation. Poor kid. Being the youngest in a house regularly full of dominating women can’t be easy.
    ‘Dad’s gone out to fetch some wine,’ Selin smiles, as she throws herself in an armchair, swinging her legs over the arm. ‘So? To what do I owe this pleasure?’ She knows that something unusual has happened as we hardly ever