#msmabelpines

which had gone over about as well as you could imagine, as coraline had been guaranteed that she was no more special ( but perhaps more sanctimonious ) than the rest of the incoming student body.

and so it came to pass —— coraline jones forfeited every moment to herself, henceforth and forevermore. ( she brings little. most of what’s important is in her head, she thinks, and thinks again. says goodbye to her parents until mid-semester break. throws her life into the back of her long-hooded cadillac and    d r aaaaaaaaaaa g s   it out here. )

enter, stage right. her room is somewhat spacious, and thus far… uninhabited. there’s a glimmer of hope that passes idly by coraline as she unpacks that maybe administration screwed up! maybe she will get the whole room to herself after all! 

but she was here drastically early.

coraline fills her meager closet, her drawers, and unceremoniously dumps everything else on the desk. she reaches for a jacket —— thinks better of herself. it’s getting to be a little past noon, and if she hauls ass and high-tails it, she might make it out of the room before her roommate even shows UP —————

          Carefully placing the cloth wrapped shoes on his desk, he once again checked over the faded text from the book Pathe had sent him, silently mouthing the pronunciation of the incantation to ensure he could say it without stumbling over the harsh consonants and potentially sending him somewhere other than his intended destination.

          With a quick glance at his watch to ensure that Mabel would not be released from her lesson any time soon, knowing that her ridicule of his borderline obsession with the Helskór was to mask her concern. Journeying to the Land of the Dead was no joke and there was a risk that he might not be able to return. But the benefits they would both reap if he was successful, well they almost cancelled out the cost of failure. Almost. Unwrapping the shoes, wrinkling his nose at the dull style of the shoes. If he hadn't been able to feel the sheer power radiating off them he would have been convinced he'd been duped. 

          Slipping the shoes onto his feet, he shivered as a wave of cold air seemed to surround him, pulling the air from his lungs in a visible cloud. Sucking in a painful breath he began to intone the incantation.

          "O gudinne Hel jeg ydmykt be inngangen til domenet ditt."

          Just as the last syllables prepared to leave his lips, a piercing knife of cold air got lodged in his throat, mangling them. The last thing he saw before a painful lurching sensation pulled him away from his reality was his sister bursting through the door, a furious expression on her face. He didn't have time to wonder if she was mad at him before everything went black.

  To Mabel,

  I remember the last time I wrote you a letter. I don't remember exactly what I wrote in it, but I remember it was real morbid. And in hindsight, super awkward. Not awkward as in, 'Coraline's really bad at writing letters'. More as in 'awkward long goodbye that never really came about'. 'Cause even though I'm gone, I'm not as gone as I thought I was gonna be.   Stop me now. I'm just enjoying writing with smelly gel pens.

  Oh well. At least I got to see the other side of summer, right?

  So basically now, I'm back at school. Not MY school, obviously, because that could be potentially problematic. Nope -- I landed myself in some snooty institution just out of Portland, and after nearly two weeks, I can safely say that I'll be certifiably insane by the end of the semester. Maybe sooner. 

  Where do I even start? There was that one horror of a roommate I told you about, but thankfully I managed to get rid of her. Now I have someone else, and I guess she's okay. I never really see her during the day and at night she just listens to lame musicals, so I'm pretty sure she's gotta be the phantom of the dorm or something (if that's the case, I am SO down for a little ghostbusting action!!). She told me today that she hated my music, and I told her to get lost and I haven't seen her since six-thirty. It's eleven-thirty now.

  I haven't exactly made any friends besides, because everyone here's sooooo boooooorrrrrriiiing. But I am in a few teams: soccer, la crosse, hockey. Just until track and field starts up in the spring. I'm thinking I might even join the swim squad because this school has a swimming pool (!!!!!), but until then, I just fill the gaps in with drama club.    I know, I know -- SO lame, right? But it's actually kinda fun when the club isn't being weird and pretentious, and besides -- I got the Ashland crash course in Shakespeare, so I may as well use it.    The people are kinda nice, too. They think I'm "cool and alternative, if not a little common". 

  Must be the fact that I've hit someone nearly EVERY DAY so far. Gotta break 'em in to my regime somehow, right?

  But yeah. Theater's probably the only half-decent class besides English, and that's only 'cause I'm good at it. Can you BELIEVE they force people to learn French here? Why can't they be like every other school and just teach Spanish? Actually... scratch that. Spanish is painful, but I'm pretty sure the Devil is fluent in French.   But whatever. I'm just biding my time until I'm an official high schooler and I can take Latin. Maybe then I'll actually be able to read that dumb book properly (don't even ask me why the teach a DEAD language as well, though. Maybe this is Hell and they're conditioning us to inherit the inner circle of their weird cult).

  The school itself is creepy as it is. I keep getting lost because every hallway leads to another, and soon enough you've gone down so many hallways  and up and down so many staircases that you may as well be in a whole other dimension . Not like I'm complaining though, because at this rate, I swear I'll never run out of cool new places to discover. I swear, if I could just spend the rest of my days here wandering 'round with a flashlight and a backpack full of food, I'd actually be okay with it. 

  It has all your main luxuries and amenities: old pictures with eyes that follow you, locked doors, open doors, musty cellars, nooks and crannies. There're classrooms in the next building, three floors per gender of dorms (did I mention it was co-ed? Yep! It's totally co-ed. Thank you,patron god of soccer squads!!), mess halls, common rooms per grade, club rooms... whatever else. The library is ENORMOUS and I'm banking on some pretty rare books being on there, when I find the time to look through it.    For all its inhabitants are dumb as all hell, the place is kind cool.

  Shame that they force us into full uniform. Well... they TRY.

  More than anything, though, I guess I'm curious about how boring life is back in Cali. I haven;t exactly had much time to call or text like I said I would, and I guess I'm feeling kinda bad for that. I keep wondering what everyone's doing, how everyone's getting on... Norman's still in Gravity Falls, but I haven't talked to him yet. I don't know if he'll want to after the ordeal I put him through over summer. Then there's Wybie, who I'm pretty sure has gone crazy in his own right. And you and Dipper, whose life outside the Falls I know very little about.   I think you're the most normal person I know, but somehow I don't see your day-to-day resembling NORMAL.

  I should probably wrap this up before I burn through any more paper. But I shoved a couple of photos and crap inside the envelope, along with some notes and trinkets and my very first detention slip of the semester. Treasure it always.

  Stay cool. Write back. Or don't.

     -- Coraline