Page 113 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

A Miss is as Good as a Mile
Drosselmeir had not been idle during his wait for Clara. He’d had plenty of things to do – staying out of Mother Stahlbaum’s sight being one of them. And since Mother Stahlbaum had been with Clara most of the night (except for her frequent charges down the back stairs to check that the hired help were earning their wages, and the regular staff was not quaffing the eggnog and sampling the pastries), Drosselmeir had had little chance to actually make contact with Clara. In fact, the non-likelihood of his being able to even SEE Clara before the party, had been made quite clear when he had attempted to go up the staircase to her room. He was met by such a flourish of aprons and flicking of hands and rising of eyebrows and tut-tutting of tongues from the army of maids wearing a rut in the carpet between Clara’s bedroom and the sewing room, that he was forced to retreat.
Drosselmeir had backed down the stairs, thinking how a man might be willing to face a charging buffalo or to rush into a raging fire, long before a man would ever find the courage to push through a bevy of females preparing for a party. And by a man, he meant himself. Besides,
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