"No, no, no, you have to go along the bridge!"
"That doesn't make any sense! There's monster trucks barrelling down that bridge at speeds that will kill me! Why can't I go under the bridge? It'd be so much less stupid."
Tucker let out a frustrated sigh. "That's just the way the game works. You have to outmaneuver the trucks or they kill you. That's how you get to the next level."
"Well, then, why can't I outmaneuver them by going underneath?"
"Am I interrupting something?"
Coraline and Tucker both spun around to face Danny, leaving Coraline's character to die for the fourth time. "No," they both said, in unison, and Coraline felt her face getting hot again.
"So was Sam at the poetry thing?" she asked quickly, hoping to shift the focus away from herself. Unfortunately, it worked a little too well.
"No, she wasn't. And she's not at the park, or the Nasty Burger, or anywhere else we hang out. Have you guys tried calling her?"
Tucker waved his cell phone in response. "Twice. And texted her about once a minute. Wherever she is, she's not answering."
"That's not good." Danny glanced around the room, as if the walls would suddenly explain everything. "Where did you find the door?"
"Huh?" Coraline asked stupidly, before realising the question was aimed at her. "It was in the spare room in our apartment. It was just little, and somebody'd papered over it."
"So it'd be hidden?"
"I guess so. It wasn't really hidden in my apartment, though. More like forgotten." She snapped her fingers. "And there'll be a key. But there's only one. The other mother can duplicate everything else, but she can't make a key to let somebody into her world. And you can't get in or out without a key."
"So we have to find the key?"
"Yeah." And then something horrible occurred to her. "If Sam didn't take it in with her."
"What happens if she did?" Tucker asked, slowly, as if he didn't really want an answer.
Coraline took a deep breath. "I don't know. But I hope we don't have to find out."
...
"Are you sure this is going to work?"
Danny rolled his eyes. "I can turn invisible and walk through walls. They're not going to catch me."
"Yeah, relax," Tucker laughed. "Nothing's going to go wrong."
"I wish you hadn't said that," Coraline muttered, quietly enough that neither of the boys could hear her. It wasn't like she was above a little rule-breaking, but sneaking into someone else's house, even when it was a matter of life or death, was a little farther than she'd usually go. And while it whiffed of fairy-tale logic, she was irrationally sure that saying "nothing's going to go wrong" was just an open invitation for things to go wrong.
She wasn't wrong. A few short seconds after Danny disappeared through Sam's closed window (Coraline wasn't sure she was going to get used to that), she took a step backwards and an unexpected garden gnome caught her foot, bringing her crashing down into a collection of ornamental flowerpots.
The light over the front door flicked on, and a very irritated-looking man with a hairdo that looked like it had been made out of yellow plastic and a blue and yellow argyle sweater-vest opened the door and stared disapprovingly down at them. "What is the meaning of - oh, it's you. Who's this? And where's that Fenton kid? Aren't you attached at the hip?"
Coraline couldn't really believe that Sam was in any way related to this guy. She disliked him on the spot, and the look he was giving her (and especially her hair) wasn't helping matters. Still, when you're sneaking around someone's house and wind up being caught by them with your knee in their begonias is not the time to start making enemies. So Coraline plastered on her best talking-to-adults smile and picked herself up, brushing off her jeans. "Nothing broke!"
Sam's father ignored her, turning to Tucker. "My daughter isn't with you, is she?"
"No, sir! Actually we were…just…coming to ask if you knew where she was," Tucker babbled, and Coraline couldn't help but be impressed that he'd managed to come up with a halfway-decent excuse on the spot.
Sam's father raised an eyebrow. "We both know that Samantha snuck out to spend time with you. If I go upstairs right now, will she be back in her bedroom?"
Coraline's brain ground to a squealing halt.
"Uh. She snuck out?" Tucker tried, with a huge, ingratiating smile. "Wow, that is the most surprising thing I've heard all night! Did you know that Sam snuck out?" he asked Coraline, who quickly shook her head.
"Nice try." Sam's father crossed his arms. "If you see her before I do, you can tell Samantha that she is grounded for a week."
"Yes, sir," Tucker nodded, and they both hurried out of the yard before any more questions could be asked.
" 'Nothing's going to go wrong', huh?"
"Oh, shut up," Tucker grumbled.
…
The wait at the end of the street was almost unbearable. Coraline, hugging her arms, wished she'd brought a jacket. "Is he ever coming out?" she grumbled, in an undertone.
"Hey," Danny's voice said, from somewhere near her ear, and Coraline shrieked and jumped out of the way before realising what was going on.
"Don't DO that!"
"Sorry," Danny said, fading back into visibility and not sounding very sorry at all.
"Did you find the door?" Tucker asked, and Danny shook his head.
"If it's in there, it's really well-hidden." He turned back to Coraline, who did her best to look like she hadn't just jumped ten feet. "You wouldn't happen to know anything helpful that you just forgot about until now, do you?"
"I told you everything I know," Coraline answered, trying not to snap. "The other mother lures kids through a door into this other reality where everything's perfect. And you need the key to get in or out."
"So how do we get the key?"
"I don't know! And if the door's not -" She stopped, a memory shuffling embarrassedly to the forefront of her mind. "It's a game."
"What?"
"It's a game! She loves games, so I challenged her to a – I don't know, a scavenger hunt, with the key as a prize. And I won. So if this is a rematch…"
"Then the key is still the prize? Wait, but then how are you supposed to -"
"That's the game," Coraline interrupted Tucker, feeling more and more confident of her conclusion with every passing moment. "So we won't find the door in there. That'd make it too easy."
"Oh yeah. Way too easy." Danny shook his head disbelievingly. Coraline frowned.
"Hey, chill, dude. We've got this." Tucker grinned. "You are, after all, talking to the undisputed masters of gaming. Solving puzzles? Piece of cake."