Sonya bent and held Angelica’s hands. “Your Momma will tell you why you can’t stay at your same school, okay.” 

“Please Sonya.”

“Come on.” Sonya turned Angelica towards the bedroom door. “Let’s go show your Momma how pretty you are.”

“Sonya…”

“Stop it Angie. Let’s go downstairs.”

Downstairs, as soon as Bette heard them coming down, she dropped her half-eaten egg-sandwich on her plate. She quickly gulped down another sip of her coffee and barely swallowed before pushing her chair back with great excitement and standing.

“Are we ready?” 

Bette excitedly wiped at her mouth with her hand, her smile grew big and bright as she rushed to the foot of the stairs where she looked up at Angelica and saw Angelica looking so cute wearing her new uniform.

“Oh look at you!”  Bette smiled got even bigger with the look of her six year old and her excitement elicited a small clap. “Oh my goodness. Look at you.”

As they paused in front of Bette, Sonya secretly tried to use eye contact to give Bette the “heads up” and warned Bette as to Angelica’s mopey mood, but she failed as Bette focused on Angelica and beamed down at her little girl.

“You look so pretty Angel.”

“Hmhm.” Angelica mumbled, looking down at the floor.

And Bette’s eyes suddenly narrowed, confused by the sad look on Angelica’s face and the lack of excitement. She looked at Sonya for some kind of explanation as to what’s going on and the nanny only shrugged her shoulders and made a funny face, averting her eyes.

Bette looked back at Angelica. “Angel. What’s wrong?”

“I…” The tears echoed in Angelica’s voice. “I don’t wanna go Mom.”

“You don’t want to go? Angel. Come on. We’ve talked about this. Why not? It’s school. And it’s your first day.”

“But it’s a big school and they’re all big and…”

“No. They’re not all big Angelica. There’ll be a lot of kids your age there too. You’ll see. You’ll love it.”

Angelica was far from convinced. The thought of the big new school terrified her and her face continued to show just how doubtful she was of everything Bette was saying.

Bette looked up at Sonya again searching Sonya’s face for a sign as to what brought on Angelica’s new worry but Sonya made her infamous face of I have no idea as to what’s happening and I’m staying out of this.