Page 167 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

lovely white neck. And in the dim recesses of his mind, he remembered the words his mama said, “When you’re alone, bite her on the neck.” Which Reggie attempted to do.
But before his fangs broke her skin, Clara felt his intention. After all, she’d been worried all night about her neck, around Reggie. And her other shoe was already in her hand. So she swung out and she swung around – and blindly swatted at the “feeling” more than the mouse.
But she connected.
And she connected hard. All that momentum and fear had put a lot of centrifugal force into her arm with the apex of energy in her fist, which tightly gripped her shoe. And like a baseball bat bashing down on a beach ball – both hand and shoe sunk into Reggie’s swollen head. For those of you who know anything about science and anything about theories, you’ll know that “any action results in an opposite and equal reaction,” which immediately happened, in this case.
Reggie was knocked up the stairs and into the clock. (If we were making bad jokes, we’d say Clara really clocked him one. But we won’t.) Reggie’s poor swollen head shrunk to the size of a dime and disappeared between his shoulders. Or so it seemed. And as he skidded into the clock, he knocked down 9 of the 10 fleeing Ratties, who were so scared that they scooped him up and fled down the tunnel, carrying Reggie’s pitiful headless body over their heads.
And if you’re feeling sorry for Reggie, who went from being bullied to being a bully, you should stop and take a look at Clara. She’s in shock. She’s feeling far, far worse than anyone who has set a trap for a mouse for the first time, only to discover the brutality of a mousetrap.
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