Page 23 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

The Piper and The Piped
If your education so far has included many fairy tales, then you will know the story of “The Pied Piper of Hamelin.” But if your readings have not included the tale, here it is in a nutshell. The village of Hamelin was overrun with mice. The people hired a Piper to get rid of the mice. He did. But they refused to pay him, so he, out of spite, piped away all the children. And the poor children were lost forever.
The story is a strong warning to all children to remind their parents to pay their bills!
Did you ever wonder about the mice in that story? Think how ticked off and upset they were to be booted out of the warm kitchens and the sweet spots they had gnawed for weeks to get in to! And I can tell you from personal experience – you do not want to mess with a hungry rodent. They become, rather, shall we say – unreasonable?
After Drosselmeir had played a magical tune to lure all the mice through the grandfather clock, and into a Land of
9