Coraline

by Neil Gaiman

“It’s Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline,” said Coraline.

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.

“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.

“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.”

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

“Cats don’t talk at home.” “No?” said the cat. “No,” said Coraline. The cat leaped smoothly from the wall to the grass near Coraline’s feet. It stared up at her. “Well, you’re the expert on these things,” said the cat dryly. “After all, what would I know? I’m only a cat.”

“We . . . we could be friends, you know,” said Coraline. “We could be rare specimens of an exotic breed of African dancing elephants,” said the cat. “But we’re not. At least,” it added cattily, after darting a brief look at Coraline, “I’m

“Cats don’t have names,” it said. “No?” said Coraline. “No,” said the cat. “Now, you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.”

“Now Coraline,” said Miss Spink, “what’s your name?” “Coraline,” said Coraline. “And we don’t know each other, do we?”

He said that he wasn’t scared when he was standing there and the wasps were stinging him and hurting him and he was watching me run away. Because he knew he had to give me enough time to run, or the wasps would have come after both of us.”

“It wasn’t brave because he wasn’t scared: it was the only thing he could do. But going back again to get his glasses, when he knew the wasps were there, when he was really scared. That was brave.” She took her first step down the dark corridor. She could smell dust and damp and mustiness. The cat padded along beside her. “And why was that?” asked the cat, although it sounded barely interested. “Because,” she said, “when you’re scared but you still do it anyway, that’s brave.”

“Calling cats,” it confided, “tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.”

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

She picked up and examined a silver charm bracelet from which hung tiny animal charms that chased each other around the perimeter of the bracelet, the fox never catching the rabbit, the bear never gaining on the fox.

It was true: the other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother’s button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing.

Coraline sighed. “You really don’t understand, do you?” she said. “I don’t want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted? Just like that, and it didn’t mean anything. What then?”

If she’d known his name was Mr. Bobo she would have said it every chance she got. How often do you get to say a name like “Mr. Bobo” aloud?

A decade before, I had begun to write the story of Coraline, who was small for her age, and would find herself in darkest danger. By the time I finished writing, Coraline had seen what lay behind mirrors, and had a close call with a bad hand, and had come face-to-face with her other mother; she had rescued her true parents from a fate worse than death and triumphed against overwhelming odds. It was a story, I learned when people began to read it, that children experienced as an adventure, but which gave adults nightmares. It’s the strangest book I’ve written, it took the longest time to write, and it’s the book I’m proudest of.