LITMIR.BIZ

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her the day before, the stone with the hole in it.

      “If you want to stay,” said her other father, “there's only one little thing we'll have to do, so you can stay here for ever and always.”

      They went into the kitchen. On a china plate on the kitchen table was a spool of black cotton, and a long silver needle, and, beside them, two large black buttons.

      “I don't think so,” said Coraline.

      “Oh, but we want you to,” said her other mother. “We want you to stay. And it's just a little thing.”

      “It won't hurt,” said her other father.

      Coraline knew that when grown-ups told you something wouldn't hurt it almost always did. She shook her head.

      Her other mother smiled brightly and the hair on her head drifted like plants under the sea. “We only want what's best for you,” she said.

      She put her hand on Coraline's shoulder. Coraline backed away.

      “I'm going now,” said Coraline. She put her hands in her pockets. Her fingers closed around the stone with the hole in it.

      Her other mother's hand scuttled off Coraline's shoulder like a frightened spider.

      “If that's what you want,” she said.

      “Yes,” said Coraline.

      “We'll see you soon, though,” said her other father. “When you come back.”

      “Um,” said Coraline.

      “And then we'll all be together as one big happy family,” said her other mother. “For ever and always.”

      Coraline backed away. She turned and hurried into the drawing room and pulled open the door in the corner. There was no brick wall there now—just darkness, a night-black underground darkness that seemed as if things in it might be moving.

      Coraline hesitated. She turned back. Her other mother and her other father were walking toward her, holding hands. They were looking at her with their black button eyes. Or at least she thought they were looking at her. She couldn't be sure.

      Her other mother reached out her free hand and beckoned, gently, with one white finger. Her pale lips mouthed, “Come back soon,” although she said nothing aloud.

      Coraline took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness, where strange voices whispered and distant winds howled. She became certain that there was something in the dark behind her: something very old and very slow. Her heart beat so hard and so loudly she was scared it would burst out of her chest. She closed her eyes against the dark.

      Eventually she bumped into something, and opened her eyes, startled. She had bumped into an armchair, in her drawing room.

      The open doorway behind her was blocked by rough red bricks.

      She was home.

      V

      Coraline locked the door of the drawing room with the cold black key.

      She went back into the kitchen and climbed onto a chair. She tried to put the bunch of keys back on top of the doorframe again. She tried four or five times before she was forced to accept that she just wasn't big enough, and she put them down on the counter next to the door.

      Her mother still hadn't returned from her shopping expedition.

      Coraline went to the freezer and took out the spare loaf of frozen bread in the bottom compartment. She made herself some toast, with jam and peanut butter. She drank a glass of water.

      She waited for her parents to come back.

      When it began to get dark, Coraline microwaved herself a frozen pizza.

      Then Coraline watched television. She wondered why grown-ups gave themselves all the good programs, with all the shouting and running around in.

      After a while she started yawning. Then she undressed, brushed her teeth, and put herself to bed.

      In the morning she went into her parents' room, but their bed hadn't been slept in, and they weren't around. She ate canned spaghetti for breakfast.

      For lunch she had a block of cooking chocolate and an apple. The apple was yellow and slightly shriveled, but it tasted sweet and good.

      For tea she went down to see Misses Spink and Forcible. She had three digestive biscuits, a glass of limeade, and a cup of weak tea. The limeade was very interesting. It didn't taste anything like limes. It tasted bright green and vaguely chemical. Coraline liked it enormously. She wished they had it at home.

      “How are your dear mother and father?” asked Miss Spink.

      “Missing,” said Coraline. “I haven't seen either of them since yesterday. I'm on my own. I think I've probably become a single child family[8].”

      “Tell your mother that we found the Glasgow Empire press clippings we were telling her about. She seemed very interested when Miriam mentioned them to her.”

      “She's vanished under mysterious circumstances,” said Coraline, “and I believe my father has as well.”

      “I'm afraid we'll be out all day tomorrow, Caroline, luvvy,” said Miss Forcible. “We'll be staying over with April's niece in Royal Tunbridge Wells.”

      They showed Coraline a photographic album, with photographs of Miss Spink's niece in it, and then Coraline went home.

      She opened her money box and walked down to the supermarket. She bought two large bottles of limeade, a chocolate cake, and a new bag of apples, and went back home and ate them for dinner.

      She cleaned her teeth, and went into her father's office. She woke up his computer and wrote a story.

CORALINE'S STORY

      THERE WAS A GIRL HER NAME WAS APPLE. SHE USED TO DANCE A LOT. SHE DANCED AND DANCED UNTIL HER FEET TURND INTO SOSSAJES THE END.

      She printed out the story and turned off the computer. Then she drew a picture of the little girl dancing underneath the words on the paper.

      She ran herself a bath with too much bubble bath in it, and the bubbles ran over the side and went all over the floor. She dried herself, and the floor as best she could, and went to bed.

      Coraline woke up in the night. She went into her parents' bedroom, but the bed was made and empty. The glowing green numbers on the digital clock glowed 3:12 A.M.

      All alone, in the middle of the night, Coraline began to cry. There was no other sound in the empty flat.

      She climbed into her parents' bed, and, after a while, she went to sleep.

      Coraline was woken by cold paws batting her face. She opened her eyes. Big green eyes stared back at her. It was the cat.

      “Hullo,” said Coraline. “How did you get in?”

      The cat didn't say anything. Coraline got out of bed. She was wearing a long T-shirt and pajama bottoms. “Have you come to tell me something?”

      The cat yawned, which made its eyes flash green.

      “Do you know where Mummy and Daddy are?”

      The cat blinked at her, slowly.

      “Is that a yes?”

      The cat blinked again. Coraline decided that that was indeed a yes. “Will you take me to them?”

      The cat stared at her. Then it walked out into the hall. She followed it. It walked the length of the corridor and stopped down at the very end, where a full-length mirror hung. The mirror had been, a long time before, the inside of a wardrobe door. It had been hanging there on the wall when they moved in, and, although Coraline's mother had spoken occasionally of replacing it with something newer, she never had.

      Coraline turned on the light in the hall.

      The mirror showed the corridor behind her; that was only to be expected. But reflected in the mirror were her parents. They stood awkwardly in the reflection of the hall. They seemed sad and alone.

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