Коралина / Coraline

“You see, Caroline,” Miss Spink said, getting Coralineʼs name wrong, “both myself and Miss Forcible were famous actresses, in our time. We trod the boards[2 - to tread the boards – играть на сцене], luvvy. Oh, donʼt let Hamish eat the fruitcake, or heʼll be up all night with his tummy.”

“Itʼs Coraline. Not Caroline. Coraline,” said Coraline.

In the flat above CoralineКјs, under the roof, was a crazy old man with a big mustache. He told Coraline that he was training a mouse circus.

He wouldnКјt let anyone see it.

“One day, little Caroline, when they are all ready, everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of my mouse circus. You ask me why you cannot see it now. Is that what you asked me?”

“No,” said Coraline quietly, “I asked you not to call me Caroline. Itʼs Coraline.”

“The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,” said the man upstairs, “is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed. Also, they refuse to play the songs I have written for them.

All the songs I have written for the mice to play go oompah oompah. But the white mice will only play toodle oodle, like that. I am thinking of trying them on different types of cheese.”

Coraline didnКјt think there really was a mouse circus. She thought the old man was probably making it up.

The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring.

She explored the garden. It was a big garden: at the very back was an old tennis court, but no one in the house played tennis and the fence around the court had holes in it and the net had mostly rotted away; there was an old rose garden, filled with stunted, flyblown rosebushes; there was a rockery that was all rocks; there was a fairy ring[3 - fairy ring – «Ведьмин круг» (равномерно разросшаяся грибница, образующая на поверхности круг из грибов)], made of squidgy brown toadstools which smelled dreadful if you accidentally trod on them.

There was also a well.

On the first day CoralineКјs family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it. So Coraline set off to explore for it, so that she knew where it was, to keep away from it properly.

She found it on the third day, in an overgrown meadow beside the tennis court, behind a clump of trees—a low brick circle almost hidden in the high grass.