Page 193 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

thought when she saw Franz, too, was moving away and pointing at her. How rude! Pirlipat thought. He’s far uglier than I am!
Pirlipat was entertaining rude thoughts of her own and would have made it all the way to mean thoughts – if the heavy breathing from behind her, and a dollop of snow down her neck had not switched her thoughts far away from Franz – and into the immediate knowledge that she had a seething and sopping sovereign, breathing down her neck.
Turning with utmost caution and sinking to her knees in the slush and snow, the Troll bowed low, fearing to look up, as she asked with absolute submission, “Yes, your Majesty?”
Mean and nasty, is bad. Mean and nasty waking up, is worse. Mean and nasty, waking up from a fall, flat-faced into a snowdrift, is the worst-est of all! That’s when mean and nasty – goes awfully, awfully bad.
The Mouse Queen looked awfully, awfully bad as she towered over the Troll – and worse still when she raised Krakatuk. At her command, her entire Rattie escort (the ones she hadn’t already thumped into mechanical-mouse oblivion) rallied to her side. And at the thrust of Krakatuk toward the Nutcracker and Clara, the rat-wave crashed down, around, and on the two!
There was the normal amount of run-and-jump-and chase that happens when two are mobbed by twenty – meaning the Nutcracker thrashed a lot. And it took a bit of mouse- power to grab his arms and legs, while staying out of reach of those out-of-proportion jaws. Clara was harder to catch. She slipped and skid and made it to Pirlipat. But
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