You can't make me love you.

Mirrors,' she said, 'are never to be trusted.

Even the proudest spirit can be broken with love.

I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.

Spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies.

Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she met made any sense.

But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?

The sky had never seemed so sky; the world had never seemed so world.

There's a but, isn't there?" said Coraline. "I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.

Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.

I have no plans to love you," said Coraline. "No matter what. You can't make me love you.

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

She smiled at Coraline, as if it had been a very long time since she had smiled and she had almost, but not quite, forgotten how.

It won't hurt, said her other father. Coraline knew that when grown-ups told you something wouldn't hurt it almost always did. She shook her head.

On the first day Coraline's 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.

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