Coraline had watched all the videos. She was bored with her toys, and she’d read all her books.
She turned on the television. She went from channel to channel to channel, but there was nothing on but men in suits talking about the stock market, and talk shows. Eventually, she found something to watch: it was the last half of a natural history program about something called protective coloration. She watched animals, birds, and insects which disguised themselves as leaves or twigs or other animals to escape from things that could hurt them. She enjoyed it, but it ended too soon and was followed by a program about a cake factory.
It was time to talk to her father.
Coraline’s father was home. Both of her parents worked, doing things on computers, which meant that they were home a lot of the time. Each of them had their own study.
“Hello Coraline,” he said when she came in, without turning round.
“Mmph,” said Coraline. “It’s raining.”
“Yup,” said her father. “It’s bucketing down.”
“No,” said Coraline. “It’s just raining. Can I go outside?”
“What does your mother say?”
“She says you’re not going out in weather like that, Coraline Jones.”
“Then, no.”
“But I want to carry on exploring.”
“Then explore the flat,” suggested her father. “Look—here’s a piece of paper and a pen. Count all the doors and windows. List everything blue. Mount an expedition to discover the hot water tank. And leave me alone to work.”
“Can I go into the drawing room?” The drawing room was where the Joneses kept the expensive (and uncomfortable) furniture Coraline’s grandmother had left them when she died. Coraline wasn’t allowed in there. Nobody went in there. It was only for best.
“If you don’t make a mess. And you don’t touch anything.”
Coraline considered this carefully, then she took the paper and pen and went off to explore the inside of the flat.
She discovered the hot water tank (it was in a cupboard in the kitchen).
She counted everything blue (153).
She counted the windows (21).
She counted the doors (14).
Of the doors that she found, thirteen opened and closed. The other—the big, carved, brown wooden door at the far corner of the drawing room—was locked.
She said to her mother, “Where does that door go?”
“Nowhere, dear.”
“It has to go somewhere.”
Her mother shook her head. “Look,” she told Coraline.
She reached up and took a string of keys from the top of the kitchen doorframe. She sorted through them carefully, and selected the oldest, biggest, blackest, rustiest key. They went into the drawing room. She unlocked the door with the key.
The door swung open.
Her mother was right. The door didn’t go anywhere. It opened onto a brick wall.
“When this place was just one house,” said Coraline’s mother, “that door went somewhere. When they turned the house into flats, they simply bricked it up. The other side is the empty flat on the other side of the house, the one that’s still for sale.”
She shut the door and put the string of keys back on top of the kitchen doorframe.
“You didn’t lock it,” said Coraline.
Her mother shrugged. “Why should I lock it?” she asked. “It doesn’t go anywhere.”
Coraline didn’t say anything.
It was nearly dark outside now, and the rain was still coming down, pattering against the windows and blurring the lights of the cars in the street outside.
Coraline’s father stopped working and made them all dinner.
Coraline was disgusted. “Daddy,” she said, “you’ve made a recipe again.”
“It’s leek and potato stew with a tarragon garnish and melted Gruyère cheese,” he admitted.
Coraline sighed. Then she went to the freezer and got out some microwave chips and a microwave minipizza.
“You know I don’t like recipes,” she told her father, while her dinner went around and around and the little red numbers on the microwave oven counted down to zero.
“If you tried it, maybe you’d like it,” said Coraline’s father, but she shook her head.
That night, Coraline lay awake in her bed. The rain had stopped, and she was almost asleep when something went t-t-t-t-t-t. She sat up in bed.
Something went kreeee…
…aaaak
Coraline got out of bed and looked down the hall, but saw nothing strange. She walked down the hall. From her parents’ bedroom came a low snoring—that was her father—and an occasional sleeping mutter—that was her mother.
Coraline wondered if she’d dreamed it, whatever it was.
Something moved.
It was little more than a shadow, and it scuttled down the darkened hall fast, like a little patch of night.
She hoped it wasn’t a spider. Spiders made Coraline intensely uncomfortable.
The black shape went into the drawing room, and Coraline followed it a little nervously.