Coraline waved him goodbye. They went to the department store to buy the school clothes.

Her mother ignored her; she was talking to the shop assistant. They were talking about which kind of pullover to get for Coraline, and were agreeing that the best thing to do would be to get one that was embarrassingly large and baggy, in the hope that one day she might grow into it.

Coraline saw some Day-glo green gloves she liked a lot. Her mother refused to get them for her, preferring instead to buy white socks, navy-blue school underpants, four grey blouses, and a dark grey skirt.

"But Mum, everybody at school's got grey blouses and everything. NobodyÕs got green gloves. I could be the only one."

Coraline wandered off, and looked at a display of Wellington boots shaped like frogs and ducks and rabbits. Then she wandered back.

The next day the sun shone, and Coraline's mother took her into the nearest large town to buy clothes for school. They dropped her father off at the railway station. He was going into London for the day to see some people.

"Not unless you can walk through bricks, dear."

In the car on the way back home, Coraline said, "What's in the empty flat?"

"Yes, dear. Now, I think you could do with some more hairclips, don't you?"

Coraline didn't say anything.

They got home around lunchtime. The sun was shining, although the day was cold. Coraline's mother looked in the fridge, and found a sad little tomato and a piece of cheese with green stuff growing on it. There was only a crust in the bread bin.

"I was kidnapped by aliens," said Coraline. "They came down from outer space with ray guns, but I fooled them by wearing a wig and laughing in a foreign accent, and I escaped."

"I don't know. Nothing, I expect. It probably looks like our flat before we moved in. Empty rooms."

"Do you think you could get into it from our flat?"

"I'd better dash down to the shops and get some fishfingers or something," said her mother. "Do you want to come?"

"Well, let's say half a dozen, to be on the safe side," said her mother.

"No."

"Coraline? Oh, there you are. Where on earth were you?"

"Oh."

She flipped through a book her mother was reading about native people in a distant country; how every day they would take pieces of white silk and draw on them in wax, then dip the silks in dye, then draw on them more in wax and dye them some more, then boil the wax out in hot water, and then, finally, throw the now-beautiful cloths on a fire and burn them to ashes.

Coraline was bored.

"Suit yourself," said her mother, and left. Then she came back and got her purse and car keys and went out again.

It seemed particularly pointless to Coraline, but she hoped that the people enjoyed it. She was still bored, and her mother wasn't yet home.

"No," said Coraline.

Coraline got a chair and pushed it over to the kitchen door. She climbed on to the chair, and reached up. She clambered down, and got a broom from the broom cupboard. She climbed back on the chair again, and reached up with the broom.

Chink. She climbed down from the chair and picked up the keys. She smiled triumphantly. Then she leaned the broom against the wall and went into the drawing room.

Then Coraline put her hand on the doorknob and turned it; and, finally, she opened the door.

The family did not use the drawing room. They had inherited the furniture from Coraline's grandmother, along with a wooden coffee table, a side table, a heavy glass ashtray and the oil painting of a bowl of fruit. Coraline could never work out why anyone would want to paint a bowl of fruit. Other than that, the room was empty: there were no knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, no statues or clocks; nothing that made it feel comfortable or lived-in.

It opened on to a dark hallway. The bricks had gone, as if they'd never been there. There was a cold, musty smell coming through the open doorway: it smelled like something very old and very slow.

The old black key felt colder than any of the others. She pushed it into the keyhole. It turned smoothly, with a satisfying clunk.

Coraline stopped and listened. She knew she was doing something wrong, and she was trying to listen for her mother coming back, but she heard nothing.

Coraline walked down the corridor uneasily. There was something very familiar about it.

The carpet beneath her feet was the same carpet they had in their flat. The wallpaper was the same wallpaper they had. The picture hanging in the hall was the same that they had hanging in their hallway at home.

Coraline went through the door.

She shook her head, confused.

She knew where she was: she was in her own home. She hadn't left.

The picture they had in their own hallway showed a boy in old-fashioned clothes staring at some bubbles. But now the expression on his face was different -- he was looking at the bubbles as if he was planning to do something very nasty indeed to them. And there was something peculiar about his eyes.

She stared at the picture hanging on the wall: no, it wasn't exactly the same.

She almost had it when somebody said, "Coraline?" It sounded like her mother.

She wondered what the empty flat would be like -- if that was where the corridor led.

Coraline stared at his eyes, trying to work out what exactly was different.

Coraline went down the hall, to where her father's study was. She opened the door. There was a man in there, sitting at the keyboard, with his back to her.

The man turned round. His eyes were buttons -- big and black and shiny.

"Coraline?" the woman said. "Is that you?"

"Well, go on." said the woman.

Coraline went into the kitchen, where the voice had come from. A woman stood in the kitchen with her back to Coraline. She looked a little like Coraline's mother. Only É

And then she turned round. Her eyes were big black buttons.

Only her skin was white as paper.

"Lunchtime, Coraline," said the woman.

"I'm your other mother," said the woman. "Go and tell your other father that lunch is ready." She opened the door of the oven.

Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark-red fingernails were curved and sharp.

Only she was taller and thinner.

Suddenly Coraline realised how hungry she was. It smelled wonderful.

"Who are you?" asked Coraline.

"Hello," said Coraline. "I-I mean, she said to say that lunch is ready."

Coraline shovelled the food into her mouth. It tasted wonderful.

"Hello, Coraline," he said. "I'm starving."

He got up and went with her into the kitchen.

"We've been waiting for you for a long time," said Coraline's other father.

They sat at the kitchen table and Coraline's other mother brought them lunch. A huge, golden-brown roasted chicken, fried potatoes, tiny green peas.

"Yes," said the other mother. "It wasn't the same here without you. But we knew you'd arrive one day, and then we could be a proper family. Would you like some more chicken?"

"For me?"

She took some more chicken.

It was the best chicken that Coraline had ever eaten. Her mother sometimes made chicken, but it was always out of packets, or frozen, and was very dry, and it never tasted of anything. When Coraline's father cooked chicken he bought real chicken, but he did strange things to it, like stewing it in wine, or stuffing it with prunes, or baking it in pastry, and Coraline would always refuse to touch it on principle.

"I didn't know I had another mother," said Coraline cautiously.

"The rats?"

"Of course you do. Everyone does," said the other mother, her black-button eyes gleaming. "After lunch I thought you might like to play in your room with the rats."

Coraline had never seen a rat, except on television. She was quite looking forward to it. This was turning out to be a very interesting day after all.

After lunch her other parents did the washing-up, and Coraline went down the hall to her other bedroom.

It was different from her bedroom at home. For a start it was painted in an off-putting shade of green and a peculiar shade of pink.

"From upstairs."

Coraline decided that she wouldn't want to have to sleep in there; but that the colour scheme was an awful lot more interesting than the one in her own bedroom.

There were all sorts of remarkable things in there she'd never seen before: wind-up angels that fluttered around the bedroom like startled sparrows; books with pictures that writhed and crawled and shimmered; little dinosaur skulls that chattered their teeth as she passed. A whole toybox filled with wonderful toys.

This is more like it, thought Coraline. She looked out of the window.

Something black scurried across the floor and vanished under the bed.

"Well," asked Coraline, "what do you do?"

The rats formed a circle.

Outside, the view was the same one she saw from her own bedroom: trees, fields and, beyond them, on the horizon, distant purple hills.

"Can you talk?" she asked.

The rats began to sing, in high, whispery voices,

They came out from under the bed, blinking their eyes in the light. They had short, soot-black fur, little red eyes, pink paws like tiny hands, and pink, hairless tails like long, smooth worms.

Coraline got down on her knees and looked under the bed. Fifty little red eyes stared back at her.

"Hello," said Coraline. "Are you the rats?"

Then they began to climb on top of each other, carefully but swiftly, until they had formed a pyramid with the largest rat at the top.

The largest, blackest of the rats shook its head. It had an unpleasant sort of smile, Coraline thought.

We have teeth and we have tails We have tails, we have eyes We were here before you fell you will be here when we rise.

Then the pyramid fell apart, and the rats scampered, fast and black, towards the door.

The other crazy old man upstairs was standing in the doorway, holding a tall black hat in his hands. The rats scampered up him, burrowing into his pockets, into his shirt, up his trouser-legs, down his neck.

"Hello, Coraline," said the other old man upstairs. "I heard you were here. It is time for the rats to have their dinner. But you can come up with me, if you like, and watch them feed."

In seconds the only evidence that the rats were there at all were the restless lumps under the man's clothes, forever sliding from place to place across him; and there was still the largest rat, who stared down, with glittering red eyes, at Coraline from the man's head.

The old man put his hat on, and the last rat was gone.

It wasn't a pretty song. Coraline was sure she'd heard it before, or something like it, although she was unable to remember exactly where.

The largest rat climbed on to the old man's shoulders, swung up on the long grey moustache, past the big black-button eyes, and on to the top of the man's head.

Her other parents stood in the kitchen doorway as she walked down the corridor, smiling identical smiles, and waving slowly.

"Have a nice time outside," said her other mother.

There was something hungry in the old man's button eyes that made Coraline feel uncomfortable. "No, thank you," she said. "I'm going outside to explore."

The old man nodded, very slowly. Coraline could hear the rats whispering to each other, although she couldn't tell what they were saying.

She was not certain that she wanted to know what they were saying.

Coraline walked outside, and down the steps.

"We'll just wait here for you to come back," said her other father.

When Coraline got to the front door, she turned back and looked at them. They were still watching her, and waving, and smiling.