Coraline

I think it may have saved my life, and saved some other people’s deaths.’

The house had flattened out even more. It no longer looked like a photograph – more like a drawing, a crude, charcoal scribble of a house drawn on grey paper.

‘Oh good,’ he said. He put the computer to sleep, stood up, and then, for no reason at all, he picked Coraline up, which he had not done for such a long time, not since he had started pointing out to her she was much too old to be carried, and he carried her into the kitchen.

She stopped talking. ‘There’s a but, isn’t there?’ said Coraline. ‘I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.’

The light that came through the picture window was daylight, real golden late-afternoon daylight,

Coraline slept uneasily that night, waking from time to time to plot and plan and ponder, then falling back into sleep, never quite certain where her pondering ended and the dream began, one ear always open for the sound of something scratching at her windowpane or at her bedroom door.

Just stay there for a few moments longer, she thought at it, wondering if it could hear her. I’ll get us both home. I said I would. I promise. She felt the cat relax ever-so-slightly in her arms.

And then, in the way of dreams, the picnic had ended and they were playing in the meadow, running and shouting and tossing a glittering ball from one to another. Coraline knew it was a dream then, because none of them ever got tired or winded or out of breath.

‘Small world,’ said Coraline. ‘It’s big enough for her,’ said the cat. ‘Spiders’ webs only have to be large enough to catch flies.’