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

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring. She thought the old man was probably making it up. I am thinking of trying them on different types of cheese.'Ĭoraline didn't think there really was a mouse circus. But the white mice will only play toodle oodle, like that. All the songs I have written for the mice to play go oompah oompah. Also, they refuse to play the songs I have written for them. 'The reason you cannot see the Mouse Circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed. 'No,' said Coraline quietly, 'I asked you not to call me Caroline. 'One day, little Caroline, when they are all ready, everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of my mouse circus. He told Coraline that he was training a mouse circus. In the flat above Coralines, under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big moustache. Oh, don't let Hamish eat the fruit cake, or he'll be up all night with his tummy.' 'You see, Caroline,' Miss Spink said, getting Coraline's name wrong, 'Both myself and Miss Forcible were famous actresses, in our time. Once upon a time Miss Spink and Miss Forcible had been actresses, as Miss Spink told Coraline the first time she met her. They were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock.

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coralines, on the ground floor. There were other people who lived in the old 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.Ĭoraline's family didn't own all of the house, it was too big for that. Fairy Tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beatenĬoraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.

Coraline online free