Happy Easter Monday!Longest one-shot so far. Break out the champagne! =P
Breakfast.
"Raining...again." Coraline sighed, as she looked outside her window, pulling her sweater down over her head, settling nicely at her hips. "And it's a Saturday!" Moaning over the loss of what she was sure was going to be a perfect weekend, she went downstairs to breakfast.
"Morning Coraline," said her mother, typing away on her laptop again.
"It's raining." She told her factually.
Coraline's mother looked outside, though she needn't have: the house was one-hundred-and-fifty years old; you could hear the rain tapping at the windows and walls. "Mmm." She said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Cereal's in the cupboard."
Coraline breathed a sigh of relief. Dad wasn't making breakfast. He liked to try making things for breakfast like quiche with spinach, pickled eggs with sauerkraut, and other crazy ideas.
But upon opening the cupboard, Coraline found the cereal box to have a mysteriously chewed open end. Pulling it out, a handful of the last Cheerios fell from the bottom and covered the floor.
"Coraline, look at what the mess you made!" Coraline's mother exclaimed, scooting out from the dining table and coming to view it. Coraline, however, was busy inspecting the chewed opening, and for a fleeting moment, thought it might have been made by the Other Mother's rats...
Mrs. Jones took the box from Coraline and examined the opening for herself. "Hmph. Seems like this rat problem is growing. I'll have to bully your father into fixing up the walls somehow." She glanced down at her daughter, and the cheerios scattered across the floor. "In the meantime, help me clean this up."
Coraline obediently fetched the broom and pan, stocked neatly away in one of the cupboards, and she held the dust pan as her mom efficiently swept all of the cereal into it. "What am I gonna have for breakfast, then?" Coraline asked, her mind still on the cheerios box and rats.
"I don't know. What do you feel like?" Her mother asked.
Taking all of the cheerios and dumping them into the garbage can, she replied, "Can I make pancakes?"
Mrs. Jones shook her head. "Too messy. Too much work."
"I can make them myself!" Coraline insisted. "Doesn't Dad have a cookbook?"
"Yes, though he hardly ever uses it." She replied, sitting back down. "He stows it in one of the cupboards, I believe." And her keyboard tapping resumed.
Grabbing a chair, Coraline checked four cupboards before she found it, in the back of a particularly dusty area. Flipping it open, Coraline found a whole section devoted to breakfast foods, and so she started there. She noticed a few recipes that indicated her dad was not the only crazy chef out there, before she found on page 34: "Pancakes". She also spotted something called "German pancakes" on the page next to it, but decided that plain pancakes were safer.
Placing the book down carefully, Coraline asked, "Do we have any flour?"
"Yes, it's in the bottom-right hand drawer next to the sink."
Taking the measuring spoons down from their hook, Coraline dumped two full cups into a mixing bowl that she had found alongside the flour. She fetched the eggs, milk, and butter from the refrigerator herself, but did not know what baking powder was, so she asked her mother again.
"Probably around the flour too. I'm not sure if we even have any... it would explain why your father's food doesn't rise."
Coraline smiled but said nothing, and instead looked around for the baking powder. When she didn't find it, she told her mom.
Coraline's mother looked up from her computer. "Are you sure?"
"I looked around the flour cupboard, and I didn't see anything..."
"Hmmm..." Coraline's mother said, standing up. Coraline hadn't started mixing the ingredients yet; she was probably waiting on the baking powder to begin. "Why don't you run down to Miss Spink and Forcible's and ask them to see if they have any."
Even though it took longer to get her yellow swampers and coat on than to actually get the baking powder, Coraline did as she was told, and was back in two minutes flat.
In the kitchen, in a strange sense of deja-vu, was her mother, wo had gotten out the frying pan and flicked a slab of butter onto it, where it began to melt and sizzle.
"M..mom?" Coraline said nervously, hoping and praying that she did not have button eyes, or even that it was all just a dream...
"Do you have that baking powder, Coraline?" Her mother said, turning around, and Coraline gasped before she realized that there were no buttons.
"Yeah," Coraline replied, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Well, hurry up and measure it so I can cook you some pancakes. I need to get back to work soon."
Coraline measured the baking powder and tentatively placed it into the mixing bowl, and she stirred it up. She continued to look at her mother, wondering why she was helping her make breakfast. Coraline supposed that her mother didn't want her to get burned, or something of that sort.
When she was satisfied that the lumps were all gone (the recipe had required it) she handed the bowl to hermother, who poured it into the pan.
Coraline felt like she was five again, and that she was sitting on the counter in their old apartment like she used to, and her mother was making her food, just like she always did. And even though Coraline was too old to sit on the counter, she grabbed a stool and sat on it while her mother worked the frying pan.
"Could you get two plates?" Her mother asked after a minute or two, and Coraline fetched the plates and the syrup, which she always kept for emergency recipes.
Coraline's mother flopped the pancake onto the plate less-than-gracefully, but Coraline said "Thank you," just the same, smiling.
"You're welcome," Her mother replied, before pouring more of the mixture into the pan.
"Can I eat outside?" Coraline asked.
"I suppose. Just be careful with your plate, I don't want it cracked. If you want more pancakes, just come back in. Looks like you only made enough for three or four."
Coraline grabbed the syrup, her plate and fork, and hugged her mother awkwardly aroudn the waist before she headed outside. Mrs. Jones shook her head at her daughter and smiled, before resuming cooking the pancakes.
Coraline took her breakfast outside, where it was drizzling softly. Sitting down on their fortunately dry porch steps, Coraline poured her syrup and cut herself a piece.
She caught something black whiz past in her peripheral vision, and turned to see the cat next to her, a dead mouse in it's mouth. Coraline's stomach squirmed, and she swallowed her bit of pancake, dead in her mouth.
"Is that...?" she didn't say it, but the message was still clear: Is that the Other Mother's?
The cat shook its head gently once, before bounding away again to enjoy its own breakfast.
For her own part, Coraline continued to eat her pancake, savoring the taste of her mother's cooking, even if it was just plain pancakes with syrup. And as she stepped inside to ask her mother for another helping, she felt that today was turning out to be better than she thought it would.
