Page 189 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

troll’s (or rather Princess-under-a-curse’s) throne – and she was exhausted.
So, poor Princess Pirlipat (who was really upset by all the changes around her!) poor Princess Pirlipat trudged and nudged and grudged every inch, as she dragged the heavy sled with the even-heavier Mouse Queen through the snow. “How did this ever come to be?” Pirlipat moaned, as she yanked the sled over a snowdrift, nearly upsetting, but not awakening, the snoring Mouse Queen. “How could I, a royal Princess, end up a ... a ... a common laborer!”
For even though the proof was visible to her very eyes, Pirlipat could not bear the thought of being ugly, let alone a troll. So she focused on something else. She had always been the apple of her Mama Stahlbaum’s eye, her daddy’s baby, and a proper Princess ruling the Land of Sweets. She blamed Drosselmeir for bringing the mice to the Land of Sweets. She blamed Franz for being turned into an ugly toy and not saving her. In fact, she blamed anyone and everyone, except herself.
Pirlipat felt she was a victim and that everyone had conspired against her. You could say she had been blindsided – but only because she was blind as a bat when it came to what mattered.
So, here was the Princess Troll, crying so hard she couldn’t see anything in front of her, dragging an extremely large mouse through the blinding snow.
And here were Franz and Clara – for Clara had caught up with him – and now their heads were huddled together, while Franz told the story as far as he knew it, but with no answers about the snow. Here they were, shuffling through the snow, toward the Castle, and hoping to find
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