Neil Gaiman Young Readers' Collection Page 6

  Coraline didn’t think there really was a mouse circus. She thought the old man was probably making it up.

  The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring.

  She explored the garden. It was a big garden: at the very back was an old tennis court, but no one in the house played tennis and the fence around the court had holes in it and the net had mostly rotted away; there was an old rose garden, filled with stunted, flyblown rosebushes; there was a rockery that was all rocks; there was a fairy ring, made of squidgy brown toadstools which smelled dreadful if you accidentally trod on them.

  There was also a well. On the first day Coraline’s family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it. So Coraline set off to explore for it, so that she knew where it was, to keep away from it properly.

  She found it on the third day, in an overgrown meadow beside the tennis court, behind a clump of trees—a low brick circle almost hidden in the high grass. The well had been covered up by wooden boards, to stop anyone falling in. There was a small knothole in one of the boards, and Coraline spent an afternoon dropping pebbles and acorns through the hole and waiting, and counting, until she heard the plop as they hit the water far below.

  Coraline also explored for animals. She found a hedgehog, and a snakeskin (but no snake), and a rock that looked just like a frog, and a toad that looked just like a rock.

  There was also a haughty black cat, who sat on walls and tree stumps and watched her but slipped away if ever she went over to try to play with it.

  That was how she spent her first two weeks in the house—exploring the garden and the grounds.

  Her mother made her come back inside for dinner and for lunch. And Coraline had to make sure she dressed up warm before she went out, for it was a very cold summer that year; but go out she did, exploring, every day until the day it rained, when Coraline had to stay inside.

  “What should I do?” asked Coraline.

  “Read a book,” said her mother. “Watch a video. Play with your toys. Go and pester Miss Spink or Miss Forcible, or the crazy old man upstairs.”

  “No,” said Coraline. “I don’t want to do those things. I want to explore.”

  “I don’t really mind what you do,” said Coraline’s mother, “as long as you don’t make a mess.”

  Coraline went over to the window and watched the rain come down. It wasn’t the kind of rain you could go out in—it was the other kind, the kind that threw itself down from the sky and splashed where it landed. It was rain that meant business, and currently its business was turning the garden into a muddy, wet soup.

  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.

  The room was dark. The only light came from the hall, and Coraline, who was standing in the doorway, cast a huge and distorted shadow onto the drawing room carpet—she looked like a thin giant woman.

  C
oraline was just wondering whether or not she ought to turn on the lights when she saw the black shape edge slowly out from beneath the sofa. It paused, and then dashed silently across the carpet toward the farthest corner of the room.

  There was no furniture in that corner of the room.

  Coraline turned on the light.

  There was nothing in the corner. Nothing but the old door that opened onto the brick wall.

  She was sure that her mother had shut the door, but now it was ever so slightly open. Just a crack. Coraline went over to it and looked in. There was nothing there—just a wall, built of red bricks.

  Coraline closed the old wooden door, turned out the light, and went to bed.

  She dreamed of black shapes that slid from place to place, avoiding the light, until they were all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red eyes and sharp yellow teeth.

  They started to sing,

  We are small but we are many

  We are many we are small

  We were here before you rose

  We will be here when you fall.

  Their voices were high and whispering and slightly whiney. They made Coraline feel uncomfortable.

  Then Coraline dreamed a few commercials, and after that she dreamed of nothing at all.

  II.

  THE NEXT DAY IT HAD stopped raining, but a thick white fog had lowered over the house.

  “I’m going for a walk,” said Coraline.

  “Don’t go too far,” said her mother. “And dress up warmly.”

  Coraline put on her blue coat with a hood, her red scarf, and her yellow Wellington boots.

  She went out.

  Miss Spink was walking her dogs. “Hello, Caroline,” said Miss Spink. “Rotten weather.”

  “Yes,” said Coraline.

  “I played Portia once,” said Miss Spink. “Miss Forcible talks about her Ophelia, but it was my Portia they came to see. When we trod the boards.”

  Miss Spink was bundled up in pullovers and cardigans, so she seemed more small and circular than ever. She looked like a large, fluffy egg. She wore thick glasses that made her eyes seem huge.

  “They used to send flowers to my dressing room. They did,” she said.

  “Who did?” asked Coraline.

  Miss Spink looked around cautiously, looking over first one shoulder and then over the other, peering into the mists as though someone might be listening.

  “Men,” she whispered. Then she tugged the dogs to heel and waddled off back toward the house.

  Coraline continued her walk.

  She was three quarters of the way around the house when she saw Miss Forcible, standing at the door to the flat she shared with Miss Spink.

  “Have you seen Miss Spink, Caroline?”

  Coraline told her that she had, and that Miss Spink was out walking the dogs.

  “I do hope she doesn’t get lost—it’ll bring on her shingles if she does, you’ll see,” said Miss Forcible. “You’d have to be an explorer to find your way around in this fog.”

  “I’m an explorer,” said Coraline.

  “Of course you are, luvvy,” said Miss Forcible. “Don’t get lost, now.”

  Coraline continued walking through the gardens in the gray mist. She always kept in sight of the house. After about ten minutes of walking she found herself back where she had started.

  The hair over her eyes was limp and wet, and her face felt damp.

  “Ahoy! Caroline!” called the crazy old man upstairs.

  “Oh, hullo,” said Coraline.

  She could hardly see the old man through the mist.

  He walked down the steps on the outside of the house that led up past Coraline’s front door to the door of his flat. He walked down very slowly. Coraline waited at the bottom of the stairs.

  “The mice do not like the mist,” he told her. “It makes their whiskers droop.”

  “I don’t like the mist much, either,” admitted Coraline.

  The old man leaned down, so close that the bottoms of his mustache tickled Coraline’s ear. “The mice have a message for you,” he whispered.

  Coraline didn’t know what to say.

  “The message is this. Don’t go through the door.” He paused. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  “No,” said Coraline.

  The old man shrugged. “They are funny, the mice. They get things wrong. They got your name wrong, you know. They kept saying Coraline. Not Caroline. Not Caroline at all.”

  He picked up a milk bottle from the bottom of the stairs and started back up to his attic flat.

  Coraline went indoors. Her mother was working in her study. Her mother’s study smelled of flowers.

  “What shall I do?” asked Coraline.

  “When do you go back to school?” asked her mother.

  “Next week,” said Coraline.

  “Hmph,” said her mother. “I suppose I shall have to get you new school clothes. Remind me, dear, or else I’ll forget,” and she went back to typing things on the computer screen.

  “What shall I do?” repeated Coraline.

  “Draw something,” Her mother passed her a sheet of paper and a ballpoint pen.

  Coraline tried drawing the mist. After ten minutes of drawing she still had a white sheet of paper with

  written on it in one corner in slightly wiggly letters. She grunted and passed it to her mother.

  “Mm. Very modern, dear,” said Coraline’s mother.

  Coraline crept into the drawing room and tried to open the old door in the corner. It was locked once more. She supposed her mother must have locked it again. She shrugged.

  Coraline went to see her father.

  He had his back to the door as he typed. “Go away,” he said cheerfully as she walked in.

  “I’m bored,” she said.

  “Learn how to tap-dance,” he suggested, without turning around.

  Coraline shook her head. “Why don’t you play with me?” she asked.

  “Busy,” he said. “Working,” he added. He still hadn’t turned around to look at her. “Why don’t you go and bother Miss Spink and Miss Forcible?”

  Coraline put on her coat and pulled up her hood and went out of the house. She went downstairs. She rang the door of Miss Spink and Miss Forcible’s flat. Coraline could hear a frenzied woofing as the Scottie dogs ran out into the hall. After a while Miss Spink opened the door.

  “Oh, it’s you, Caroline,” she said. “Angus, Hamish, Bruce, down now, luvvies. It’s only Caroline. Come in, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  The flat smelled of furniture polish and dogs.

  “Yes, please,” said Coraline. Miss Spink led her into a dusty little room, which she called the parlor. On the walls were black-and-white photographs of pretty women, and theater programs in frames. Miss Forcible was sitting in one of the armchairs, knitting hard.

  They poured Coraline a cup of tea in a little pink bone china cup, with a saucer. They gave her a dry Garibaldi biscuit to go with it.

  Miss Forcible looked at Miss Spink, picked up her knitting, and took a deep breath. “Anyway, April. As I was saying: you still have to admit, there’s life in the old dog yet.”

  “Miriam, dear, neither of us is as young as we were.”

  “Madame Arcati,” replied Miss Forcible. “The nurse in Romeo. Lady Bracknell. Character parts. They can’t retire you from the stage.”

  “Now, Miriam, we agreed,” said Miss Spink. Coraline wondered if they’d forgotten she was there. They weren’t making much sense; she decided they were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses but which can go on forever, if both parties are willing.

  She sipped her tea.

  “I’ll read the leaves, if you want,” said Miss Spink to Coraline.

  “Sorry?” said Coraline.

  “The tea leaves, dear. I’ll read your future.”

  Coraline passed Miss Spink her cup. Miss Spin
k peered shortsightedly at the black tea leaves in the bottom. She pursed her lips.

  “You know, Caroline,” she said, after a while, “you are in terrible danger.”

  Miss Forcible snorted, and put down her knitting. “Don’t be silly, April. Stop scaring the girl. Your eyes are going. Pass me that cup, child.”

  Coraline carried the cup over to Miss Forcible. Miss Forcible looked into it carefully, shook her head, and looked into it again.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “You were right, April. She is in danger.”

  “See, Miriam,” said Miss Spink triumphantly. “My eyes are as good as they ever were….”

  “What am I in danger from?” asked Coraline.

  Misses Spink and Forcible stared at her blankly. “It didn’t say,” said Miss Spink. “Tea leaves aren’t reliable for that kind of thing. Not really. They’re good for general, but not for specifics.”

  “What should I do then?” asked Coraline, who was slightly alarmed by this.

  “Don’t wear green in your dressing room,” suggested Miss Spink.

  “Or mention the Scottish play,” added Miss Forcible.

  Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense. She sometimes wondered who they thought they were talking to.

  “And be very, very careful,” said Miss Spink. She got up from the armchair and went over to the fireplace. On the mantelpiece was a small jar, and Miss Spink took off the top of the jar and began to pull things out of it. There was a tiny china duck, a thimble, a strange little brass coin, two paper clips and a stone with a hole in it.

  She passed Coraline the stone with a hole in it.

  “What’s it for?” asked Coraline. The hole went all the way through the middle of the stone. She held it up to the window and looked through it.

  “It might help,” said Miss Spink. “They’re good for bad things, sometimes.”

  Coraline put on her coat, said good-bye to Misses Spink and Forcible and to the dogs, and went outside.

  The mist hung like blindness around the house. She walked slowly to the stairs up to her family’s flat, and then stopped and looked around.

  In the mist, it was a ghost-world. In danger? thought Coraline to herself. It sounded exciting. It didn’t sound like a bad thing. Not really.