Page 163 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

A Wooden Place, A Wooden Face
Inside the curio cabinet, a curious change was culminating. Franz could hear Clara whispering his name and for the first time since he’d bit the Magic Nut, Krakatuk, and been whacked on the floor by the Mouse Queen and turned into a wooden Nutcracker, Franz felt warm – and the warmth crept into his arms and spread into his legs.
From the very moment, he’d been turned from boy to toy, and even though he was nothing but a block of wood and stiffer that stiff could ever be, and even though Franz was locked deep inside a wooden place, behind a wooden face, Franz had seen everything – Drosselmeir’s headlong rush through the clock tunnel, the boys searching, searching, searching to find the Nutcracker, the shock of Clara holding him at last but not recognizing him, and the final plunge off the balcony to the marble floor, below.
Even though the crash had broken his jaw and hurt beyond belief, it did two things for Franz. And both things brought Franz hope. First, the pain told Franz he was still human, even if he was cursed and made of wood. The second, the broken jaw, got him back into Clara’s arms, which he
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