Coraline scratched and tickled the soft fur on its belly, and the cat purred contentedly. When it had had enough it rolled over on to its front once more and walked back towards the tennis court, like a tiny patch of midnight in the midday sun.
Coraline went back to the house.
Mr Bobo was waiting for her in the driveway. He clapped her on the shoulder.
'The mice tell me that all is good,' he said. 'They say that you are our saviour, Caroline.'
'It's Coraline, Mister Bobo,' said Coraline. 'Not Caroline. Coraline.'
'Coraline,' said Mr Bobo, repeating her name to himself with wonderment and respect. 'Very good, Coraline. The mice say that I must tell you that as soon as they are ready to perform in public, you will come up to watch them as the first audience of all. They will play tumpty umpty and toodle oodle, and they will dance and do a thousand tricks. That is what they say.'
'I would like that very much,' said Coraline. 'When they're ready.'
She knocked at Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's door. Miss Spink let her in and Coraline went into their parlour. She put her box of dolls down on the floor. Then she put her hand into her pocket and pulled out the stone with the hole in it.
'Here you go,' she said. 'I don't need it any more. I'm very grateful. I think it may have saved my life, and saved some other people's deaths.'
She gave them both tight hugs, although her arms barely stretched around Miss Spink, and Miss Forcible smelled like the raw garlic she had been cutting. Then Coraline picked up her box of dolls and went out.
'What an extraordinary child,' said Miss Spink. No one had hugged her like that since she had retired from the theatre.
That night Coraline lay in bed, all bathed, teeth cleaned, with her eyes open, staring up at the ceiling.
It was warm enough that, now the hand was gone, she had opened her bedroom window wide. She had insisted to her father that the curtains not be entirely closed.
Her new school clothes were laid out carefully on her chair for her to put on when she woke.
Normally, on the night before the first day of term, Coraline was apprehensive and nervous. But, she realised, there was nothing left about school that could scare her any more.
She fancied she could hear sweet music on the night air: the kind of music that can only be played on the tiniest silver trombones and trumpets and bassoons, on piccolos and tubas so delicate and small that their keys could only be pressed by the tiny pink fingers of white mice.
Coraline imagined that she was back again in her dream, with the two girls and the boy under the oak tree in the meadow, and she smiled.
As the first stars came out Coraline finally allowed herself to drift into sleep, while the gentle upstairs music of the mouse circus spilled out on to the warm evening air, telling the world that the summer was almost over.
