Page 85 - Nuts to You - The Nutcracker Retold

Disappointment Comes In All Shapes and Sizes
Clara was bucking herself up to implement the newly inspired Plan B – the “You can’t make me budge from my room!” type of plan. What? Are you criticizing her escape techniques? Are you any better? Ha! I know what you’re thinking. You’re lying there in the comfort of your bed, gloating because you know how disastrous playing the donkey can be.
Sigh. You’re right. Grown-ups always have a way of popping the protesting poppet from their hide-away – or worse yet, ignoring the self-proclaimed sit-in and letting their child molt and die of hunger, while they enjoy pizza and go out bowling. It’s one of those “can’t win no matter what you do” sort of plans.
But Clara didn’t know this yet. After all, she’d been the good child. Well, excepting the countless clocks that sat in all their un-working splendor around the Stahlbaum mansion. Or the pilfered pieces of whatever it might be that she and Franz had needed to build their latest contraption in the attic. No one, except Drosselmeir, knew she had a
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