Page 16 of The Nutcracker

“Oh no,” Curtis chuckled. “Here’s where the fun begins. Remember… think clearly, act fast, work with the machine.”

At that moment there came a ticking sound from the spoon holding the nut. I noticed then that the handle of the spoon was connected to a spring mechanism.

Curtis whispered, “And three, two, one…”

Suddenly the spring gave, flinging the spoon into an upright position and catapulting the nut across the room where it flew through a small hoop and hit a big red button.

As soon as it did, a bell sounded as though I’d just won first prize at a carnival.

At the same time, cogs and cranks began spinning everywhere.

A whistle began to sound on the left while a series of lights began to flash all around.

Simultaneously, three small doors popped opened in the wall just below the big red button.

Through the door on the left a little toy truck emerged and turned onto a downward-sloping track that took it speeding along the left wall.

Through the door on the right appeared half a dozen chestnuts which rolled, one after the other, down a spiral metal chute.

While through the door in the middle there appeared a tin monkey clashing a set of cymbals and strutting out onto a short ledge, heading straight for the sheer drop to the floor.

I moved to catch the monkey, but as I did Curtis said, “Uh-uh. Work with the machine. Think clearly. Act fast. Everything is connected.”

I looked around. I saw a series of five small switches to my left, each with a picture carved on it.

A wheel.

A train.

A plane.

A flame.

A bridge.

I’m not sure whether it was my rational brain or my gut instinct which kicked in first, but I reached quickly for the switch with the plane on it and flicked it.

I heard a whir of spinning gears above and looked up to see a hatch open in the ceiling,

A spinning mobile with a small model bi-plane descended from above. It swung wide, and just as the cymbal-clashing monkey fell off the ledge the bi-plane swooped beneath it. The monkey plonked into the pilot seat with uncanny precision.

“Yes!” I couldn’t help but cheer myself on, impressed with my own quick thinking.

But that was just the beginning.

While the monkey in the bi-plane circled the room, I glanced back at the chestnuts. By now they had reached to the bottom of the spiral chute and began hurtling down a rollercoaster track that dipped and swirled along the right wall. I looked ahead on the rollercoaster and saw a large gap in the tracks. If I didn’t bridge it the chestnuts would fall and roll across the floor.

I glanced to the left and saw the toy truck was heading down its track straight for a wall of wooden blocks obstructing its path.

I saw a toy hammer above the blockade with a latch holding it in place.

I jumped over to my left and flicked the latch with my finger as the truck barreled toward the blockade. The little hammer swung low, knocking the wooden blocks out of the way and clearing the path for the truck to pass just in time.

I spun around and looked at the chestnuts. I saw a model ferris wheel below the gap in the rollercoaster track. I ducked just in time to avoid being swooped on by the monkey in the bi-plane and dived for the switch with the picture of the wheel on it.

The ferris wheel began to turn.

Above it the chestnuts rolled off the rollercoaster track and one by one fell into the little carriages on the ferris wheel. As each carriage reached the bottom of the ferris wheel, they tipped up, emptying the chestnuts into a small metal skillet beside the ferris wheel.