Note from LuluCalliope: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter! You all rock! By the way, I have decided that it would be too confusing to have a child with the nickname Bel, so Belmiele is known as the "junior" of the family. I know it's corny…but try working with me here. Ha, ha, ha…anyway, here's more family drama!

Chapter Two: Rude

Breakfast was a silent affair in the Beldam-Jones Household. The family of seven (eight, if you included the baby in Coraline's stomach) ate in the dining room. The seating arrangements were normal: Coraline at the head of the table, Bel opposite her, three children on her right, two on her left. The only thing that she wasn't accustomed to was seeing her oldest daughter glare at her. Back in the real world, Coraline had received these stares from her mother on many occasions. But having them directed at her from her daughter was a new experience. All of the other children were oddly quiet, too. They picked at their food and occasionally looked up to glance at either Dre or their parents.

"Everyone's been so quiet today," Bel remarked, watching his family eat. He still found regular food disgusting, but he liked watching his family eat. He got to spend more time with them this way.

"We're just thinking about the new baby," Pan told him, and Coraline and Bel exchanged a small smile. But Dre scowled, and her mother noticed.

"Is something wrong, honey?" She asked gently after a while.

Dre scowled. "Isn't it a little late to be having another baby?" She wondered aloud, surprising everyone with her matter-of-fact manner.

"Deirdre Mel, that is very impolite," her father scolded. "You never ask adults questions like that."

"Why?" She asked stubbornly.

"You just don't!" He stuttered, not sure of how to answer it himself.

"In answer to your question…" Coraline stood up and walked over to the other side of the table. She stood behind Bel and placed her hands on his shoulders. They looked picture perfect together. "Daddy isn't getting any younger, and I'm not as old as you think. I can still have a child or two if I want to."

"Whatever," Dre grumbled, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "I'm going outside," she announced.

"Don't forget to wear a sweater," Coraline reminded her as she stormed out.

"You're not the boss of me!" She called back before the front door slammed. Coraline sighed.

"Hey, who wants to play a game?" She asked the remaining children.

"I do!" Elva cried, clapping her hands together eagerly.

"Well, there's only one rule: you don't stop until this table is cleared and all of the dishes are in the dishwasher." Junior and his youngest sister groaned, but Bon just shrugged and got to work. It only took him about two minutes—having inherited some of his father's "gifts" really helped out. All of his other siblings had the powers to, but they weren't as quick to control them as he was.

"Can we go play outside, too?" Pan asked hopefully.

"Get dressed first," Bel said, and the children ran upstairs. Dre was still wearing a nightgown when she wandered outside.

"I honestly don't know where she gets it," Coraline complained.

"Gets what, dearest? She reminds me so much of you did when you were her age," Bel commented, and Coraline smiled at him.

"There is something that I wanted to do today," she told him.

"What?"

"I'll show you once we're alone," she hinted, and Bel grinned…

Outside, Dre ran through the garden, stepping on all of the flowers that were in her path. She was still cranky about not being allowed into the real world, and she was still unsure of how to feel about yet another baby. Her siblings were good friends, but she didn't want for them to be her only friends. She wished that her mom could understand that. Her father certainly didn't…to him, the tiny door between their worlds was a mouse trap, and the "evil parents" that they lured to them were food. But nothing could leave their world. He was so protective of her and the rest of the family.

Dre looked around the garden. Her rampage had destroyed plenty of plants, and she felt slightly satisfied with her handiwork. She knew that her brothers and sisters would be joining her soon, and she had to make the most of the time she had left to herself. She left the garden and walked around the house, just looking at everything. Downstairs there was a theater. Her father sometimes put on plays and magic shows for the little kids, but Elva and Coraline were the only ones who seemed to enjoy them nowadays. Everyone else was learning to make magic of their own. Most of the house was where she lived, and she thought that she knew everything about it…but what was in the apartment upstairs? Coraline and Bel called it "the attic", but they never said what was in it, only that the children shouldn't go up there. "I don't even go up there," Coraline once admitted to Dre and the twins. She had been pregnant with Pan at the time.

And Dre had never been up there because she had never wanted to upset her mother. But…after seeing how happy Coraline had been over breakfast, how easily she had refused her daughter freedom between worlds…Dre wanted to hurt her by disobeying her orders. What better way to do that than by satisfying the curiosity that nagged her for as long as she lived? Smiling to herself, Dre closed her eyes and transformed. Her body slouched over and she sprouted four more legs. If she was going to do this, she had to do it quietly. And she found that she could move with much more stealth in the form of a spider.

Once transformed, she scurried up the walls of the house, paying attention to her shadow, which she made sure wasn't casting any odd shapes through the windows. She moved quickly and silently, and she reached her destination in no time. She stood outside of the attic room, eyeing the door warily. She banished all final doubts from her mind, and yanked the door open. It creaked loudly, and Dre froze, sure that somebody would have heard her. After a few minutes, she was sure that she hadn't been discovered. She wandered inside, looking around cautiously. Nothing was in here…at least, nothing that she could see. No light shone through the windows, and what did didn't help her vision. She could sense movement around her, but she, oddly enough, wasn't afraid of it. Her father had assured her on many occasions that she wouldn't be hurt, not as long as he was around. And she believed him. Why should she doubt him now?

Oh, yes…she was in the one room that he had told her not to enter under any circumstances. She was beginning to have second thoughts about that. She decided that now would be the best time to go…but was this whole exploration for nothing? Dre groped around her surroundings, trying to find something exciting, something of interest to show the others. And she felt something thick and leathery: a book. She snatched it in her hands, and immediately realized that it had been stacked on top of another book. She grabbed that one, too, and felt something firm and hard touch her shoulder. She jumped about a foot in the air.

"Thief, thief, give it back, you thief!" Two high-pitched voices screamed in her ears, and Dre panicked, dashing towards the door. Glowing red eyes seemed to stare at her from all directions, and she heard the fluttering of wings above her. Was the house bat-infested? She came to a stop as her path was blocked by an oddly shaped figure. She paused in her steps, panting.

"You shouldn't have disobeyed Mother," the figure scolded, and Dre really lost it. Was this some sort of weird security system that her parents had invented specifically for her and her siblings? The figure stepped closer, practically drooling, and Dre charged towards it. The figure, startled, leapt out of the way, and Dre made her escape, slamming the door to the attic, not caring if anyone heard the resulting bang of wood hitting wood.

She leaned against the door, gasping for air. She closed her eyes and morphed back into her regular human form. Then she gathered her wits and looked at the books she held. The good news was that she had escaped with them, her parents hadn't heard her, and that the only damage done to her personally was a small cut on her left knee. The bad news was that she didn't have enough time to get more items from the forbidden room.

Be that as it may, it was still enough.

"Oh, look, you cut your knee!" Coraline fussed later that evening, looking at Dre's wound. They were all in the family room, sitting in front of the fireplace. The boys were engaged in a staring contest, Pan was reading a book, and Elva was playing with a music box that she had received from her father for her previous birthday. Coraline and Bel had been sewing, making outfits for the next addition to their growing family, and they had seen Dre's knee.

"I was running through the garden and fell down," she lied, mentally smacking herself for not trying to hide her injury. She had been staring at the roaring fire, watching the colorful flames dance together, thinking about the two books that were hidden under her mattress upstairs. "I'm okay," she added when her mom opened her mouth to say something else.

"What's upstairs?" Elva suddenly asked, and her parents exchanged a glance and Dre stiffened. How could Elva have possibly known about her expedition to the attic?

Bel coughed. "Why do you want to know, sweetie?"

"I heard something moving up there," she answered innocently. "Was it a mouse?"

"Yes, yes it was," Coraline said firmly. "But don't go up there. Mice are gross, and I don't want them in the house."

"Who wants to hear a story?" Dre asked, deciding to change the subject. The other children perked up and followed their sister upstairs to her bedroom. Once in there, she closed the door and locked it.

"Dad said that we aren't allowed to lock the doors," Bon reminded her.

"Well, if it bothers him so much, he can use his magic and unlock the doors," she scoffed. "Besides, he's not here right now. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?" She winked at them, and then grinned.

"I still can't believe you went into the real world," Bon muttered. "And you didn't take us!"

"Do you want to go?" She asked sweetly. She wasn't one who was big on doing nice things for her brothers and sisters, but she knew that it would be best if they were in on the secret. That way they could cover for her if she got in trouble. And if she was going to be punished, she was going to take them with her.

"Yes!" The others chanted, and Dre nodded.

"Loman and I agreed to meet in there tomorrow afternoon," she announced. "We'll all go into the tunnel and you can meet him in there. But I'll take you only if you promise me that you can keep another secret."

"Another secret," Bon echoed in disbelief.

"What is it?" Junior asked excitedly.

Dre walked over to her bed, slipped her hand under the mattress, and pulled out the two books she had stolen earlier. They were nearly identical except for the covers: one was blue, the other was black. "Guess where I got these?"

"I don't know, where?" Elva said eagerly.

"The attic," she responded triumphantly, and her siblings gasped.

"Mom and Dad said that we—"

"What they don't know won't hurt them," she reminded Bon. "And if you do tell them, you'll get in trouble, too."

"Why didn't you take me with you?" Pan pouted. "I've wanted to go in there for-EVER."

"I know, I'm sorry," her older sister apologized. "It was a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing. But seriously," she paused. "DO NOT GO IN THERE. It's full of…I don't know."

"Full of monsters?" Elva asked in horror.

"More or less," Dre nodded, and Elva resolved to never, ever, under any circumstances, forget what her sister had told her.

"What's in the books?" Pan wondered.

"I haven't looked at them yet," Dre admitted. "We can look at them tomorrow with Loman. I think that our secrets should become his secrets." The others nodded in agreement before retiring to their respective rooms. Dre fell asleep shortly afterwards, but woke up many times during the night on top of her lumpy mattress.

She never once noticed a pair of haunting blue-green eyes staring in at her through the window.

Review, please! :)