Charlie called for the kids and puppies to come down for dinner after a while longer. As they entered the kitchen, Charlie was complaining about his computer shutting off on him when he was working on his chapters for the catalog.
"Charlie, I told you to get a laptop," Mel scolded.
"They're giving them away now?" Charlie teased, "My computer's fine, just a dang power outage from the storm."
Hearing about the power outage and remembering earlier that day, Shaggy, Scooby, Courage and Coraline gasped slightly and looked at each other. Then they whistled nervously and walked to their seats.
"I can't believe you didn't backup the files!" Mel snapped, "Actually I can."
Charlie then took out whatever it was that he cooked for supper, and he set it on the table. He sighed, "The spellchecker's gone screwing too, maybe I have a virus."
"I think dinner might have a virus," Coraline stated, as she looked at whatever her Dad made… He then started to sing a song.
He sang very out of tune as he plopped mounds of steaming gelatinous multicolored SOMETHING onto the kids and puppies' plates.
Coraline groaned in disgust as she pushed the plate of food (if that's what they call it) away and Shaggy, Scooby and Courage followed this. The yellow wiggly within the plates almost seemed to move of it's own accord, begging someone to put it out of it's misery. They didn't even WANTto think about how it might taste.
They're weren't very picky, and neither was Courage, (in fact both Shaggy and Scooby would both eat anything,) but when it came to Charlie's cooking, it was best to refuse.
"Why don't YOU ever cook, Mom?" Coraline asked sulkily, slumping forward onto her arms.
"Coraline, we've been through this before. You're dad cooks, I clean, and YOU stay out of the way," Mel said.
"And my friends...?" Coraline asked not wanting to exclude her friends.
"Them too. They play with you as you four stay out of the way," Mel said.
"Yeah I bet that didn't hurt them or me," Coraline muttered.
Shaggy, Scooby and Courage looked at each other frowning, not knowing what to do or say.
Mel lifted her hand up, and said, "I swear I'll go food shopping soon as we finish the catalog, she pushed pushed the kids and puppies' plates back and said, "Try some of the chard. You four need a vegetable."
Coraline lifted some of the green stuff on her fork, "It looks more like SLIME to me," she dropped her fork, and it stuck upright in the quivering mass of slime.
"Well," Charlie said smiling, "It's slime or bedtime, fusspot. Now what's it gonna be?"
Shaggy, Scooby Courage and Coraline looked at each other, then at the Coraline-doll. It was sitting on a chair in between them, propped up on several thick books, "Think they're trying to poison us?" Coraline asked the doll, she reached behind it and made it nod.
Shaggy, Scooby and Courage all nodded as well.
Coraline then took the doll upstairs, and headed off to bed. Shaggy, Scooby and Courage looked at the 'slime' again.
The trio's noses nearly fell off from the smell coming from it. It smelt like Eustace's socks dipped in raw sewage...
They've concluded that they weren't going to eat this either. Bedtime was the better option indeed.
"Um, I think we're going to bed too," Courage choked out as he pinched his nose shut.
"Alright boys, the guest room where you'll be staying is right next to Coraline's room. You will find your stuff unpacked and already in the guest drawers," Mel said.
"Like, thanks Mel," Shaggy nodded.
The kids and puppies were in the bathroom brushing their teeth. Coraline was already in her orange flannel pajamas while Shaggy was in his green ones.
Shaggy frowned at her doll look-alike. What did it mean? "Why do you even have the doll? You don't like them," he said to Coraline before gargling some mouthwash.
"It looks just like me," Coraline replied.
"Reah, exactly like you. Rit's not like everyday you find a dollthat looks just like you," Scooby whimpered out.
"Look, just respect my decision about keeping the doll. Jeez,"Coraline said before turning on her heel and walking off to her bedroom.
But Shaggy, Scooby and Courage couldn't shake the uneasy feeling, was it odd that a doll that looked like Coraline that happened to be found by Wybie, when he only met her yesterday?
The trio all carefully went into the guest room they're staying in. They have gotten into their beds, but were not quite sleepy, all they can do is stare at the ceiling all thinking about the events of today.
"Like dudes," Shaggy spoke, breaking the silence, "What do you think that doll means."
"I don't know Shaggy," Courage replied to his human best friend, "But let's worry about that in the morning and try to get some sleep."
Scooby had heard what Shaggy and Courage were talking about and thought about that creepy doll. He frowned thinking what the doll meant. After a few minutes, his eyelids grew heavy and he sink into sleep.
Black shapes slid from paste to paste, avoiding the light, until they're all gathered together under the moon. Little black shapes with little red and sharp yellow teeth
They started to sing.
We are small but we are many
We are many we are small
We were here before you rose
We will be here when you fall.
"Roooooo!" Scooby yelled and woke up in a cold sweat, clutching his throat, as he blinked in the darkness of the bedroom. He slowly lowered his paws.
Rit was only a bad dream.
Scooby sighed and turned his gaze to see Shaggy and Courage both who were still asleep and not woken up by his screaming. Rood, I didn't wake them up.
Despite the calming scenery all around him, his heart still thumped from a horrible nightmare. He tried to remember it. All he knew was that he'd heard creepy voices whispering into his ear.
And then his memory went BLACK.
Sweat stains soaked his side of the bed, fear gripped him along with that terrifying voices he heard in his dream. It took him a moment to calm his breathing and come back to reality.
RI'm okay…it was only a dream…nothing to be afraid of.
Scooby tried to focus on his surroundings and wake up fully. He then saw some weird looking mice running through the house and into Coraline's room.
Surprised, Scooby quietly called to his best friends, "Ruys! Rake up!"
Slowly Shaggy and Courage roused and saw Scooby wide awake and pointing at the cracked door.
"Like, what is it Scoob?" Shaggy asked.
"RI saw some mice going into Coraline's room," Scooby explained.
Courage's eyes filled with fear, one of his phobias was mice, "MICE!?"
"Shh! Little pink dude calm down, I'm sure it's just little mouse just looking for food," Shaggy assured the little cowardly pink beagle puppy.
Regardless, the trio in to see Coraline awake and looking under bed at one of the mice.
"Like, what are those?" Shaggy asked.
"I don't know…let's follow them!" Coraline said ecstatically.
"Ohhh!" Courage whined, he really didn't want to follow mice in the middle of the dead of a night.
The four then ran down the stairs and into the room where they found the little door. The mouse was about to go behind the door supposedly bricked up.
"We gotcha now!" Coraline exclaimed excitedly.
The four opened the door to find not the mouse trapped by a bricked up wall, but a bright blue tunnel with many mixtures of colors. The tunnel went on for quite a while. They could see the mouse running down the tunnel, and they could see a small door at the end of it.
Coraline gasped, "Whoa."
Mysterious wind blew their hair back.
"Rhat?" Scooby, flabbergasted, he half expected bricks to be behind the door, but instead there was a blue and pink pathway to another door.
Coraline crawled into the tunnel, but Courage stopped her for a second.
"Wait!" Courage exclaimed, his nerves getting the better of him, pulling Coraline's arm to stop her from going through the tunnel.
"What?" Coraline asked.
"I have a bad feeling about this, or my name isn't Mrs. Cauldron, and it's not," Courage replied.
"Come on Courage! Who knows what's on the other side of that tunnel?!" Coraline said.
"Coraline, like, I'm with the little Courage guy on this one, First a doll that looks like you and now a tunnel through a door that was bricked up? That just has strange written all over it," Shaggy frowned anxiously.
"Reah, I think we should just stay here. Ror all we know, it could be a trap," Scooby agreed, with a frown.
"Don't be such worry warts. It looks amazing! I think we should go through and check it out," Coraline said, and she crawled further into the tunnel.
Shaggy, Scooby and Courage looked at Coraline who was heading into the tunnel, and then the three looked back out the doorway where they could easily ditch their friend and go right to their room.
The three looked back at Coraline, and back out the doorway. Back and forth their heads turned between Coraline who was their friend and the doorway that they wanted so badly to run through back to their room and try to fall asleep. The cowardly trio finally made their decision.
"Rugh," Scooby groaned, "Rell SOMEONE'S gotta watch out for her."
Shaggy gulped, "Like, I can't believe we're doing this, come on little puppy dude."
"I know, I'm not gonna like this," Courage replied with a anxious frown.
Slowly Shaggy, Scooby and Courage crawled inside, the tunnel's surface was soft and springy and yielded to their touch, but it was solid, like a rope net at a playground. Children never doubted that the net would hold them, even though it sank under their weight.
They all moved through the tunnel slowly, looking at the colors as they flickered softly around the three and on them. When the trio looked down as they crawled, even the bottom of the tunnel was lit by vivid colors.
Coraline helped Shaggy, Scooby and Courage out of the tunnel and onto their feet and paws. They looked around, and the room was the exact room as before.
"Like, how'd we get back here?" Shaggy questioned, furrowing his eyebrow.
"Reels like we've crawled in a circle," Scooby said, his eyes widened with confusion.
"Weird..." Courage responded, with a shrug.
The four looked around and then up at the picture of the boy above the fireplace. And they could see differences, such as the blue boy in the portrait from earlier. Instead of him being upset and his ice cream cone was on the ground, he was happy and licking the ice cream cone.
They then heard humming and smelled something really delicious. Shaggy and Scooby felt their stomachs growl, and the two remembered that they passed on dinner that night.
Coraline sniffed the air and her face lit up, "Mmm, something smells GOOD."
"Like yeah, I could use a bite," Shaggy agreed with a grin, "What about you Scoob?"
"Reah," Scooby giggled.
Courage rolled his eyes at the duo, but then again, he was hungry too, he didn't eat any dinner tonight either.
Noticing light coming from the doorway, the four headed toward the kitchen. The humming resolved itself into a haunting melody sung on 'la.'
Mel Jones was standing by the stove, her back to the kids and puppies, wearing her customary high-necked white sweater and black pants. She was the one singing. Several pots were steaming on the stove. The trio could see a sliver of moon surrounded by darkness through the window, so they knew it wasn't morning.
"Mom?" Coraline said in amazement, "What are you DOING here in the middle of the night?"
Mel turned around to face her daughter, the first thing Shaggy, Scooby and Courage noticed was that Mel's hair was straight at the ends, like Coraline's hair, not frizzy like usual. But the third thing pretty much banished that thought from their minds.
Mel did not have eyes. In their place shone black buttons.
Shaggy, Scooby and Courage gasped at the sight, what were they looking at?
Mel smiled, "You're just in time for supper, dear."