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Harper Audio presents Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, performed by the author.
Fairy tales are more than true.
Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but
because they tell us that dragons can be beaten, GK Chesterton.
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Chapter one.
Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.
It was a very old house.
It had an attic under the roof, and a cellar under the ground, and
an overgrown garden with huge old trees in it.
Coraline's family didn't own all of the house, it was too big for that.
Instead they owned part of it.
There were other people who lived in the old house.
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline's on the ground floor.
They were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of
aging Highland Terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock.
Once upon a time, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible had been actresses,
as Miss Spink told Coraline the first time she met her.
You see, Caroline, Ms Spink said, getting Coraline's name wrong,
both myself and Miss Forcible were famous actresses in our time.
We trod the boards, lovey.
Don't let Hamish eat the fruit cake or he'll be up all night with his tummy.
It's Coraline, not Caroline, Coraline, said Coraline.
In the flat above Coraline's,
under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big mustache.
He told Coraline that he was training a mouse circus.
He wouldn't let anyone see it.
One day, little Caroline, when they're all ready,
everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of my mouse circus.
You ask me why you cannot see it now, is that what you ask me?
No, said Coraline quietly.
I asked you not to call me Caroline, it's Coraline.
The reason you cannot see the mouse circus, said the man upstairs,
is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.
Also, they refuse to play the songs I have written for them.
All the songs I have written for the mice to play go oompah, oompah.
But the white mice will only play toodle oodle, like that.
I am thinking of trying them on different types of cheese.
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 rose bushes.
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
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 small knot hole 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 would sit on walls and
tree stumps and watch her.
But would slip 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 around.
Mm, said Coraline, it's raining.
Yep, 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 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, 13 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 door frame.
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 on to 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 door frame.
You didn't lock it, said Caroline.
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 Gruyere cheese, he admitted.
Coraline sighed, then she went to the freezer and
got out some microwave french fries and a microwave mini pizza.
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 [SOUND].
She sat up in bed.
Something went [SOUND].
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 in, 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.
Coraline 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 on to 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.
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Their voices were high and whispering and slightly whiny.
They made Coraline feel uncomfortable.
And then Coraline dreamed a few commercials.
And after that, she dreamed of nothing at all.