Coraline - Violet Baudelaire

04. Welcome To Hell

The Bad Beginning 

***

Coraline hadn't noticed her hands were shaking. She quickly shoved them in the pockets of her trousers to make them stop. It only partially worked.

"It's okay, Sunny, he's gone," Violet soothed her baby sister, bouncing the little girl on her hip.

"He's horrible," Klaus said, "did you see the tattoo on his ankle?"

Violet shook her head, "a tattoo is just a decorative pigment on skin."

"Though if I were to get a tattoo it would be much more colorful and artistic than that," Coraline interjected. She had always drawn temporary tattoos on herself. Part of her wanted to ink her skin permanently when she was older, but she doubted she ever would. Coraline had never liked needles of any type, not after waking up from the incident when she was eleven. 

"It's not a sign of a wicked person," Coraline snapped back to attention as Violet finished her statement.

"Unless it's on a wicked person," Klaus retorted, going to sit on the singular bed provided for the four, his shoulders slumping in defeat. Violet sat beside him, Sunny on her lap and Coraline at her other side.

"How could our parents put us here?" Klaus demanded to know.

Coraline frowned. She had been wondering the same thing. There was no way the kind, attentive, devoted Beatrice and Bertrand would arrange for them to live with Count Olaf. Coraline's own neglectful mother and father, sure, this was the sort of thing they would only half think through before arranging. But the Baudelaire parents weren't like that. So why were they here?

"It's just a mistake," Violet soothed her brother, though Coraline could see the way stress sat upon her furrowed brow, "it'll all get sorted out."

"Mother used to say that home is where you hang your hats," Klaus remarked, "but we don't have any hats. Just rocks." 

His voice shook. He sounded on the verge of breaking down in tears.

"You aren't hat people anyway," Coraline offered up weakly. They looked at her, unamused. It hadn't been very comforting, but then again, emotions were never her strong suit, with the exception of anger. She sighed, "sorry, that wasn't helpful."

"It's okay," Klaus mumbled.

Violet seemed to sense the tense atmosphere, "Klaus, have you read any books about how people make homes in difficult places?"

"There's a home in the Pacific Islands suspended upon ropes above an active volcano."

Coraline's eyes widened, "that's metal."

"How do they manage?" Violet inquired.

"They own very little," Klaus answered, "in case it erupts."

"Then we're already one step ahead," Violet said, "we own nothing."

"Unless one of you has become very attached to that pile of rocks, all of a sudden," Coraline quipped. This time, she did receive little half laughs and grunts of amusement.