Page 114 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

Drosselmeir was wise enough to know that there were times and places, ways and means, when a pressing need, an urgent necessity, or even an overwhelming desire could not be filled on command. And as life-shattering as it was that his living, breathing nephew was now a solid, wooden Nutcracker – and that a land of innocents was being ravished and eaten at that very moment on the other side of the clock – all the cares and concerns that weighed heavy on his shoulders would have to wait – while the women dressed for the party.
Making a scene, he had realized, would only get him thrown out.
Deciding that a meeting with Clara before the party was nigh to impossible, Drosselmeir had found a niche on the staircase, behind several elaborately-carved nut trees, and had carefully hidden the Nutcracker. If he couldn’t see Clara, then he wanted to double-check the lock on the clock. It wouldn’t do to introduce magic mice into a very un-magical house. It would be almost as bad as introducing mice into a land of sweets! And Drosselmeir already had enough guilt hounding his dreams for a lifetime, for having piped the children through the clock, in the first place.
And then, as he had made his way to the back stairs, Drosselmeir had stopped, for that was where he had encountered the boys making a mess of the table and had stopped them from attacking the Nutcracker.
This brings us back to Clara, who had been trying to make her escape during the uproar over Prince R.R.
Drosselmeir, with the Nutcracker once more safely in his arms, trudged and nudged his way through the guests who were flowing like the tide to the Stahlbaums and their
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