Page 20 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

hustled them up and down the zillion-plus castle stairs until their buttons burst from their efforts to catch their breath. But Mother Ginger was not satisfied until, at last, Coffee brewed the royal drink and the pastry chefs had pulled the morning cakes from their ovens.
Then the three Tea maids crept up the stairs to deliver the morning tray to the very chamber where the Princess slept. They had the hardest, scariest job of all – for they must wake the Princess. And the Princess, like so many other spoiled children I know, was a great big G-R-U-M-P, Grump, in the morning. The only thing that saved the maids from a pillow-thumping was the fact they were so acrobatic that they could serve her bed tray with all manner of flips and feats, which actually came in quite handy. For they were quite short and her bed was quite tall, so standing on one another’s shoulders while carrying a tray was no problem at all.
On good days, the Princess laughed. On bad days, she yelled, as she demanded, “Nuts!” Then everyone would scramble to find Franz and make sure he was quick with the cracking.
Well, on this particular morning – because we are talking about this particular morning and not any of the other morning – on this particular morning, the Princess opened one eye, pulled the sheet over her head, and then pulled it back down and reached for her pillow.
With the agility born only from practice, the three little Teas flipped off one another’s shoulders into separate corners of the room and caught the flying cups and saucers and air-born cakes before rushing out of the room, down the stairs, and out the castle doors.
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