Page 159 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

And as Clara stared up at their ugly sneering faces, she thought she’d gag.
But once again, anger came to her rescue – and she screamed at them! And threw whatever books, candlesticks and knick-knacks that were at hand – the sort of things that one normally chucks at a mouse, and the sort of screams one normally screams when startled by a mouse – only ten times harder and ten times louder.
The Ratties went into immediate mouse-like defense mode and scattered to every nook and cranny possible, trying to slip into unseen-by-human-eyes mouse holes and into corners and under the furniture – the usual mousey bolt holes – but they were about six feet four inches too big, and there was a lot of upsetting of tables and bruising of snouts occurring in the general mayhem of escape. Clara lofted her last snow-globe at them, and as its resounding explosion and burst of water and snow sent the mice-at-heart scurrying farther away, she attacked the door to the curio cabinet in a desperate attempt to free the Nutcracker.
The lumps dealt by the usual-but-now-way-too-small bolt holes, and felt by the now-way-too-big-but-still-mouse-at- heart Ratties finally knocked some sense into the overgrown thugs. They regrouped and turned on Clara. In a slow and steady march, they surrounded her, cut off every hope of escape, and began a horrid and horrifying chant. It was in rat language, so Clara really couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it scared her way more than her nightmares had ever done!
The chant took up a rhythm, and Clara could feel it sucking at her like the clock’s black void in her nightmare. The more the Ratties chanted, the less air she could breathe in. Then the Ratties opened-up a gauntlet line that led up the
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