As the tale begins, Coraline Jones and her parents move into an old Queen Anne style house that has been subdivided into four flats. The other tenants include Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two elderly women retired from the stage, and the Crazy Old Man Upstairs (later, he is revealed to be named Mr. Bobo), who is training a jumping mouse circus.
During a rainy day she discovers a locked door in the drawing room, which has been bricked up. As she goes to visit her neighbors, the Crazy Old Man Upstairs relates to her a message from the mice: do not go through the door. At tea with Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, Miss Spink spies danger in Coraline’s future after reading her tea leaves, and bequeaths to her a seeing stone for protection.
Despite these warnings, Coraline decides to unlock the door when she is home by herself and finds the brick wall behind the door gone. In its place is a long passageway, which leads to a flat identical to the one she just left, inhabited by her Other Mother and Other Father; replicas of her real parents with button eyes. In this “Other World”, Coraline finds everything to be better than her reality: her toy box is filled with animate toys that can move and fly, the Other Miss Spink and Miss Forcible forever perform a cabaret show in their flat. She even finds the mangy Black Cat that wandered around the house in the real world can talk, however she learns he is not of the Other World and has come to warn Coraline of the imminent danger, but Coraline pays it no heed.
The Other Mother offers Coraline a chance to stay in the Other World forever…if Coraline will allow buttons to be sewn into her eyes. Coraline is horrified and dashes back through the door to go home, much to the disappointment of the Other Mother. Upon her return to her apartment, Coraline finds that her real parents are missing, they do not return the next day, and after the cat wakes her and takes her to the mirror, she sees her parents signal her by writing "Help Us," with this she deduces that the Other Mother has kidnapped them. Though frightened of returning, Coraline goes back to the Other World to rescue her parents and confronts the Other Mother. The Other Mother tries to convince Coraline to stay, but Coraline refuses, and is locked behind a mirror as punishment.
In the darkness, she meets three ghost children, each from a different era, who let the Beldam (the Other Mother) sew buttons in their eyes. They tell her how she eventually grew bored of them, ate their bodies, and cast their spirits aside. The ghost children implore Coraline to avoid their fate, and to help find their souls so that they can leave the Other World and pass on.
After the Other Mother releases Coraline from the mirror, she returns back to the real world to get supplies to aid her in her search for the ghost children's souls and her parents. She goes to Mrs. Spink and Forcible's flat,where she obtains help from them. As she is going into the door to the other world,Coraline is prompted by the Cat to challenge the Other Mother, as, “her kind of thing loves games and challenges.” Coraline proposes a game in which she must find the ghost children’s souls and her parents, which lay hidden throughout the Other World. If Coraline wins, she, her parents, and the ghost children may go free. If not, Coraline will let the Other Mother sew the buttons into her eyes.
Coraline goes through the Other World, and overcomes all the Other Mother’s obstacles, using her wits and Miss Spink’s seeing stone to locate the ghost children’s souls and her parents. At the close of the game, the ghost children warn her that even if Coraline wins, the Other Mother will not let them go. Having deduced that her parents are imprisoned in the snow globe on the mantle, Coraline tricks the Other Mother by saying that her parents are behind the door in the drawing room. As the Other Mother opens the door, Coraline grabs the snow globe, throws the cat at the Other Mother, and escapes to the real world with the key. In doing so, she forces the door shut on the other mother's hand, severing it. Back in her home, Coraline finds her parents safe and sound.
That night, Coraline has a dream in which she meets the three children before they move on to the afterlife. They warn her that her task is still not done: the other mother's severed hand is still in Coraline's world, attempting to steal the key that opens the door that connects the two worlds. Coraline goes to an old well in the woods by her house, luring the Other Mother’s hand there with the key, and casts both down the bottomless well. Coraline returns home, victorious, and prepares to go about the ordinary life she has come to accept and love.
p/s: Tengok banyak kali pon xjemu2..ase mcm duk alam jew tu bilew tngok citer ni..hehe
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