Page 183 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

A Wizard’s Duel
In every life, we all face a battle we must fight. Some battles are the nasty physical sort of fight, where noses are bloodied and pride is wounded. Others are verbal duels, where words, and tempers, carve scars into our very souls. Still worse are the internal battles, where you pit yourself against yourself, and neither one of you wins.
Drosselmeir had already beat himself up pretty badly for what had happened to Franz, and now he was faced with the poor children of Hamelin, (i.e., the Sweeties), being stuck in the snow. And he had already boxed himself silly over piping them into the Land of Sweets in the first place. And although it’s every child’s dream to be stuck in a veritable candy land, no adult would feel comfortable about letting children rot their teeth or turn their brains to mush. And that was certainly what was happening to the Sweeties. They were sweet, yes, but also incredibly silly, and growing sillier every day. And, thought Drosselmeir, as he surveyed all the Sweeties and Mother Ginger who had come out of hiding, so very happy to see him, here they are, stuck in a freezing wasteland, with no sugar daddy – just a mean mother mouse.
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