Page 69 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

coming her way. The only men for miles worked in the mills or tended sheep. And the only reader in the bunch was Franz, and he had waltzed away from her without a backward glance, leaving her to be a cog in her mother’s machinations.
She was right not to fix the clock, but then again, she did miss him.
After weeks of sneaking quick studies of the clock’s interiors – and Clara did have to sneak, because Mother Stahlbaum had put a ‘clock watch’ on Clara after the day she had found her in deep concentration with pieces of the parlor clock scattered about her on the rug – she was no further along than when she had started.
Since then, all the maids were quick to report any ‘clock-y’ tendencies that Clara might have had. And so, Clara was forced to run quick forays inside the Grandfather’s clock, while she hid from the maids as she searched for the loose bolt that was missing the tiny hexagonal nut she had found.
This seek-and-rescue mission of hers lasted such a very long time. In fact, it wasn’t until the morning of her coming-out party that Clara finally found – in the pendulum of all places –a tiny loose lever! She pushed the flapping bolt in tight, pulled the nut from her apron pocket, and from the other pocket pulled out a wrench. She quickly tightened the nut and gave the pendulum a tiny push and it began to sway back and forth with an even and comforting tick-tock.
The sound of the kitchen door creaking open warned Clara to make her escape. Clara had surreptitiously (that is, without anyone seeing her) slipped a nail into the hinges of that very door only last week to give her some sort of maid
55