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ONE MONTH LATER
CORALINE became a pro at sneaking out of the bedroom window to meet up with her secret friend. It was a daunting task at first: Coraline lived on the second floor of her large house, and there was no way to just jump down from her window without actually killing herself in the process. Outside her window was a ledge. To the right of that, a vine-covered ladder was nailed in place. Jacob once thought it made the house look more "homey." Coraline wondered if – had her parents stayed together – he ever thought his daughter would use this weak ladder to escape her room in the dead of night. Probably not.
She began to realize that Michael had the ability to win over anyone he met. He sometimes visited Coraline's board game club when he knew Miriam would be out of the house and got along well with her friends. Even Greg ended up slightly warming up to him. Coraline also made it her duty to show him some of the most important things to a teenager's experience. It seemed that Miriam deprived him of that, seeing as all he had on him for a cell phone was a silver Motorola flip phone from 2005. He didn't even know what Netflix was until Coraline asked him if he watched Stranger Things.
The one person that he had yet to win over was Coraline's own mother. She guessed that was a given since Francesca Avery had yet to speak to him, and Coraline wasn't going to let that happen anytime soon. Despite her frequent absence from the big, brick home, Francesca was smart – smarter than her daughter apparently thought. She knew what was going on from the tiny cracks Coraline left in her window, and noticing that their Netflix membership now had another account attached to it named, Beast Head.
Coraline wasn't as slick as she thought she was.
On a rainy, Sunday afternoon, Francesca walked into her daughter's room while putting on her favorite gold hoops. Jacob Avery had got them for her for their three-month anniversary years ago. Coraline was curled up on her bed, flipping through the never-ending TV guide with her remote that needed new batteries badly. Francesca knocked on her daughter's open bedroom door, leaning against it in her work heels.
Coraline looked over, taking in her mother's work uniform. She hardly saw her in anything else nowadays. "I thought you weren't working today."
"The hotel asked me to come in," Francesca replied. "Someone called out. Can't say no to some extra money on my paycheck."
The daughter snorted, but decided not to respond. She hit the remote against her hand a couple times and hoped that would stop the lagging. It didn't.
Francesca took a step inside, crossing her arms over her chest. "What are doing today while I'm gone?"
"I don't know," Coraline shrugged. "I'll probably do some homework."
The mother's eyes narrowed. "Really?" She snarled, causing Coraline to look over. "Or are you going to sneak out of your window to visit the Satanist house down the street?"
