Delphie stared at her. “Madame Za-Za – the person who gave them to me – said they were special. She must have meant they were magic.” Delphie’s eyes widened and she looked around wonderingly. “So this is all real. It’s not a dream.” She remembered something the Sugar Plum Fairy had just said. “You said the shoes work when there’s a problem.”
Sugar nodded. “Yes, and we have a very big problem right now. The people in Enchantia usually live happily together and dance all day. But not any more.” Her blue eyes welled up with tears. “Evil King Rat has stopped everyone from dancing.”
“King Rat?” Delphie echoed, thinking back to the villain of the ballet she’d been reading about before she went to bed.
Sugar nodded sadly. “He hates dancing. He’s captured the Nutcracker and turned him into a wooden toy. Without the magic of the Nutcracker no one in Enchantia can dance – all the toys have become lifeless, the sweets have become just sweets again and the snowflakes have frozen. I can’t dance either. Look at this!” She stood up and with a graceful lift of her arms, she rose on to her pointes but she only managed to dance three steps forwards before she wobbled over.
“The magic of the dance has gone. The only way to stop King Rat is to free the Nutcracker and bring him back to life again but King Rat is keeping him prisoner in his castle and everyone’s too scared to go there.”
Delphie thought how awful it would be not to be able to dance. “I’ll help you,” she said eagerly.
“It could be very dangerous,” Sugar warned. “The castle is guarded by King Rat’s army of mice. They’re big and carry swords and are very fierce.”
“I don’t care,” said Delphie bravely. “I want to help you free the Nutcracker!”
“Oh, thank you!” Sugar grabbed Delphie’s hands. “Thank you so much!”
“So, how do we get to the castle?” Delphie asked.
Sugar smiled. “By magic of course!”
Sugar pulled a silver wand out of a pocket in her tutu and waved it in the air. Purple sparks flew out and swirled round them in a haze. Delphie felt herself pirouetting round three times in the air before she landed on her feet and the sparkles cleared.
Delphie gasped. They were no longer on the stage but standing in a wood with fallen branches and leaves beneath their feet. The air smelt horrid – of rotten fruit and old food.
“That’s King Rat’s castle,” whispered Sugar pointing through the trees. Delphie could see a dark shape looming ahead of them, its stone turrets silhouetted against the sky.
Two mice, a bit taller than Delphie, were guarding the big wooden door that led into the castle. They were standing on their back legs and had swords slung through leather belts. Their eyes were beady and their snouts were long.
“What’s that horrid smell?” Delphie whispered back.
“King Rat gets his mice to bring great piles of rubbish here so he can rummage around in it and eat it to his heart’s content. He loves it.”
Sugar waved her wand. There was a tinkle of music and two sugar-coated plums appeared in her hand. “These should help take the smell away. Put one in your pocket.” She handed one to Delphie.
Delphie breathed in a wave of sweetness – icing sugar, candyfloss, fresh plums and peaches. “That’s much better!” She slipped the sugarplum into her pocket and looked around. “How are we going to get into the castle to rescue the Nutcracker?”
“I don’t know,” said Sugar. “I can use my magic to travel around Enchantia, but I can’t use it to get inside King Rat’s castle. His powers are much stronger than mine.”
Delphie crept forward to the edge of the trees. How were they going to get in?
Suddenly both mice sniffed the air.
“Sugarplums!” said the mouse on the left who was tall and thin with very pointed teeth. “I smell sugarplums!”
“Me too,” said the other mouse, who was smaller and fatter with tiny eyes.
They scented the air. “It smells like they’re this way!” said the thin mouse, starting to walk away from the castle and towards the trees where Delphie and Sugar were hiding.
“They’re coming over here!” Delphie whispered in alarm.
Sugar looked dismayed. “I forgot that all of King Rat’s mice love sugarplums! I’d better magic us away!”
But Delphie had noticed something. With the mice walking away from the castle, the door was unguarded. An idea popped into her mind. If they could just get the mice into the trees and properly away from the door…
“Wait!” she hissed as Sugar lifted her wand. “This could be our chance to get into the castle! Can you get me some more sugarplums – and fast!”
“It’s too dangerous!” said Sugar as the mice approached the trees.
“Please!” Delphie begged.
Sugar hesitated and then pointed her wand at the ground. With a faint tinkle, a pile of sugarplums appeared.
Delphie picked up as many as she could. “Quick! Let’s make a trail leading away from the castle!”
Sugar grabbed the remaining plums and they hurried through the trees. They placed one of the plums near the entrance to the wood and then another and then another, all leading down the hill away from the castle. Delphie glanced round. Already she could hear the mice crashing through the woods! Sugar put the last plum where the wood ended in a steep bank that led into a shallow but fast-flowing stream.
Delphie suddenly had an idea of how to get the mice really out of the way. “If only we had some string.”
“How about some ballet ribbon!” Sugar waved her wand and a big roll of pink ribbon appeared in her hand. “What do you want it for?”
“To hopefully get two mice very wet!” grinned Delphie.
She raced to the bank and tied one end of the ribbon round a tree on the left side and the other end round a tree on the right side. Then she smiled and grabbed Sugar’s hand. “Come on! They mustn’t see us.”
She pulled Sugar back to the edge of the woods where there was a big bramble bush to hide behind, just as the smaller mouse burst into sight.
“I found the sugarplum!” he exclaimed, snatching it up.
The tall one appeared just behind him. “There’s another!” he cried, pouncing on the pale fruit. “And look! There’s more of them!”
Peeping out from behind the bush, Delphie and Sugar