Page 27 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

scrambled off the Nut and clung to his mummy’s back and that was all it took.
Down they fell! It was a mouse mess! Tails and whiskers and claws and paws in a jumbled mound at the base of the tree.
And up from that pile came the hand of the Mouse Queen holding the Nut. She grew taller and taller, until she was head and shoulders above the rest. This gave her the advantage she needed – as all the mice wanted a bite of that Nut. She held the Nut high over her head, but couldn’t stop the really-hungry, really-mean-and-mangy mice, who climbed on top of each other in a roiling, toiling boil from which every once-in-a-while, a mouse would burst out to snap at the Nut.
Do you have any idea how wide a mouse can open its mouth? Would you believe that their whole mouth unhinges and their jaws open from their backs to their chests? It is pretty scary. If you believe it. Anyway, that’s what these mice did, and when they clamped their wide- open jaws down on the Nut, they broke every one of their teeth – one mouse, right after another mouse.
(Unfortunately for them, they were very slow learners.)
But the Mouse Queen kept growing, and pretty soon, she was taller by twice than all the other mice. And that’s the only reason the whole clan doesn’t wear dentures. She put a stop to all their nonsense with a quick crack on the head – with the Nut – to the next mouse. Now their jaws dropped to the ground, not in hunger, but in astonishment – because that unlucky mouse that was thumped on the head had gone ‘Poof!’ and turned into a wind-up toy mouse!
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