Page 123 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

clothes, or her hair. It was her heart. And with the turmoil of the last two and a half hours – the exact moment when she thought of Franz in relation to what she wanted – from that very moment on, she knew she had stopped being a child.
Rats!
It changed everything. Yet Clara had no idea how – or what – it had changed. But here she was – acting like some silly miss of timidity – too shy to go over and give her godfather a kiss hello?
And that one moment of hesitation cost Clara her escape. For the Prince had spied her slipping away and had complained to Mother Stahlbaum about the magic show and blamed that old man over there of scaring Clara. Just look at her, she was positively white. And it was true; the shock of all her emotions had turned Clara positively pale.
Then Mother Stahlbaum flushed roaringly red, for she had spied Drosselmeir. And Mother Stahlbaum knew that wherever Drosselmeir was, so was Franz. And Franz was the last person she wanted to see tonight – although with all the non-working clocks in the house, Drosselmeir came in a close second. This worked out very well for the Prince, because between him and Mother Stahlbaum, they were able to head off Clara.
But they reckoned, without knowing Clara’s new status as a freshly formed female.
Where she had been an obedient (well, maybe not so obedient) child before, Clara now refused to be bullied. And she flatly refused the next dance – or any dance for that matter. My heart belongs to someone else, she said to
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