Coraline

Coraline.
    Miss Spink looked around cautiously, looking first over one shoulder and then over the other, peering into the mist as though someone might be listening.
    ‘ Men ,’ she whispered. Then she tugged the dogs to heel and waddled off back towards 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, lovey,’ said Miss Forcible. ‘Don’t get lost, now.’
    Coraline continued walking through the garden in the grey 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, hello,’ 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 steps.
    ‘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 bottom of his moustache 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 step, and started back up to his attic flat.
    Coraline went indoors. Her mother was working in her study. Her mother’s study smelt 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 round.
    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 down the steps. 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, loveys. It’s only Caroline. Come in, dear. Would you like a cup of tea?’
    The flat smelt of furniture polish and dogs.
    ‘Yes, please,’ said Coraline. Miss Spink led her into a dusty little room, which she called the parlour. On the walls were black and white photographs of pretty women, and theatre programmes in frames. Miss Forcible was sitting in one of the armchairs, knitting hard.
    Miss Spink poured Coraline a cup of tea in a little pink bone-china cup with a saucer, and gave