The last two classes went by agonizingly slowly. The bus ride home was pure torture. Coraline had almost forgotten how much she hated school buses, but all of that hatred was brought abruptly back as the overcrowded, too-warm, armpit-smelling, noisy sardine can rattled down the suburban streets, throwing everyone on board at the ceiling every time it drove over anything larger than a pebble. By the time she arrived at home, Coraline was in a worse mood than before, if that was humanly possible.
She slammed open the front door and was met by a pleasant surprise. Instead of the labyrinth of furniture and boxes that had greeted her yesterday, the foyer was empty and looked, in fact, quite welcoming.
Coraline walked in, dropping her backpack on the floor as usual, and shut the door behind her. "Mom? Dad? I'm home. And wow, have you guys been busy."
Coraline's father shuffled out of the living room in his old slippers. "Coraline! We've been hard at work all day, now it's your turn."
"Your furniture and all the boxes with your things in them are up in your room," her mother called from the living room.
Coraline perked up at the mention of furniture. "My bed too?"
"Yes, although your bedding is still packed away somewhere. Could you go and unpack and make your bed, and then call us for help if you want to move any of the furniture?"
"Mo-om! I'm fourteen years old, I can move my own furniture!"
Coraline's mother remained unmoved. "I don't want you hurting yourself and running up some huge hospital bill for us. Give a shout if you want something moved."
Coraline grumbled as she picked up her backpack and started toward the stairs, pausing only to give her father a hug. "Thanks."
…
Her room looked significantly less large and creepy when she walked in and saw her four-poster bed, the little dresser beside it, and her bookshelves standing against the opposite wall. But the boxes her mother had mentioned were quite definitely missing.
Coraline stood in the middle of the room, pondering, for a few seconds, before she became aware of a noise just on the edge of hearing. It sounded like faint guffaws, coming from a radio with the sound turned almost to zero and tuned slightly off-station, it echoed eerily, and it was coming from the general vicinity of the ceiling.
Dreading what she was about to see, Coraline shut her eyes and took a deep breath, balling her hands into fists. Then, before she could chicken out, she opened her eyes and looked up.
The tall closet-boxes containing all of her wardrobe that wasn't packed into her suitcase, the boxes of curtains and decorations and things she needed, and, scariest of all, boxes upon boxes of books were all hovering gently near the ceiling, slowly orbiting the ceiling lamp.
The ghostly laughter got louder.
Coraline opened her mouth, prepared to scream bloody murder, and then stopped. She was sick of being made a fool of in her own home. She was sick of not understanding things, she was sick of being in the dark, she was sick of not knowing what was going on, and she had had it with this stupid, juvenile, annoying, ridiculous ghost!
"Put those back!" she barked.
The boxes stopped circling, and the laughter cut off, leaving a slightly puzzled silence.
"I'm serious," Coraline threatened empty air. "Put those down right now, or I'll -" She stopped, unsure of what she could do to a ghost.
There was another moment of silence, and then the boxes all fell. This time, Coraline really did scream, and ran around frantically dodging the heavy boxes of books. A wardrobe box caught her from behind, and she fell on her face, pinned under two years' worth of clothes.
"This is so not fair," Coraline groaned, trying to push herself up on her elbows. She stopped, though, and stared in amazement as a little man appeared out of nowhere, hovering in midair a few feet in front of her.
He wasn't exactly what she'd expected from her first ghost. He wasn't wearing a white sheet, or rattling chains, or even a moldy black-and-white striped suit. He was just a little man in overalls and a knit hat, someone she wouldn't even have looked twice at on the street had he not been translucent, glowing faintly, and hovering.
As Coraline stared, he raised his arms and wiggled his fingers like a small child attempting to scare someone, and said, in a voice that despite the spooky echo sounded like it belonged in a Warner Brothers cartoon, "Beware! For I am the Box Ghost!"
"The…what?" Coraline asked, stupidly.
"The Box Ghost! Master of all things corrugated, cardboard, and square!" He flew up to Coraline until they were nearly nose-to-nose, then happily shouted, "Beware!" and, abruptly, vanished.
Coraline stared, dumbfounded, at the place where he'd been for a moment, and then remembered herself. "Oh, no you don't!" she shouted, scrambling out from under the box and looking around frantically. Echoing laughter bounced around the room, but there was no way to tell where it was coming from, and –
Coraline smacked herself in the forehead. "I am so dumb." Smiling, she unhooked her necklace and held the stone with the hole in it up to her eye. Instantly, everything faded to shades of grey – except for the little man in overalls and a knit hat, who was illuminated in a bright, almost slimy-looking sort of green, and who was blowing a raspberry at her.
"Gotcha," Coraline said excitedly. The look of dawning horror on the ghost's face was wonderful. What was not so wonderful was the way he then turned and flew out through the wall.
Coraline ran to her window just in time to see the faint green shape start down the alley. From downstairs, her mother shouted, "Coraline Jones, I told you to call us if you wanted to move your furniture!"