Коралина / Coraline

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 round.

“Mmph,” said Coraline. “It's raining.”

“Yup,” said her father. “It's bucketing down[4 - It's bucketing down. – Льет, как из ведра].

“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 like 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, thirteen 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 doorframe.

The door swung open.

Her mother was right. The door didn't go anywhere. It opened onto 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.