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Коралина / Coraline
Коралина / Coraline
I started this for Holly
I finished it for Maddy
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
—G. K. Chesterton
© Neil Gaiman, 2002
© ООО "Издательство АСТ", 2019
I
Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the 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.
Coraline's family didn't own all of the house—it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it.
There were other people who lived in the old house.
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline's, on the ground floor. They were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing Highland terriers[1] who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. Once upon a time Miss Spink and Miss Forcible had been actresses, as Miss Spink told Coraline the first time she met her.
“You see, Caroline,” Miss Spink said, getting Coraline's name wrong, “both myself and Miss Forcible were famous actresses, in our time. We trod the boards[2], luvvy. Oh, don't let Hamish eat the fruitcake, or he'll be up all night with his tummy.”
“It's Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline,” said Coraline.
In the flat above Coraline's, under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big mustache. He told Coraline that he was training a mouse circus. He wouldn't let anyone see it.
“One day, little Caroline, when they are all ready, everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of my mouse circus. You ask me why you cannot see it now. Is that what you asked me?”
“No,” said Coraline quietly, “I asked you not to call me Caroline. It's Coraline.”