Coraline Jones (
doorkey) wrote in
entrancelogs2016-11-03 02:39 pm
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[Open] What an extraordinary child...
Who: Coraline Jones & OPEN TO ANYBODY!
Where: The Grounds, Your Bedroom Door, The Halls, The Dining Room
When: Early November
Rating: PG
Summary: Being a mansion busybody, and sampling sounds for spooktunes
The Story: (But first, mood music...)
Out and About
The grounds feel extra chilly these days, air crisp with all the pleasantries of autumn, and the forest edges along with some of the garden is shedding crunchy leaves this way and that. There's a distantly smokey smell too, that's impossible to pinpoint the exact source of, but it pleases Miss Jones immensely.
She wanders the grounds with a sense of open-minded purpose, wearing a slouchy wool cap and a cozy sweater underneath her bright yellow coat. It's not quite cold enough for snazzy gloves, which is just as well- easier to carry a handheld tape recorder, pointing it at scattered leaf piles just before giving them a hearty kick with her wellington boots. Coraline walks hard along the cobblestone pathways too, trying to put a little more deliberate weight in her footsteps, occasionally bouncing from foot to foot rhythmically as if playing on invisible hopscotch boards.
She bothers the vendors for a bit, knocking on empty turtleshells and strings of pretty glass beads, bowls of jangly trickets, poking about at their wares with absolutely no real intentions of buying or bartering. Once the faceless merchants have realized this, and she's had quite enough of their cold shouldering, Coraline moves on quickly, finding a branch with some leaves still attached (not poison oak!) to run along the fences, making a glorious racket. On the review playback, it's not quite as satisfying as she'd hoped. Maybe she should have thought to arm herself with fancier microphones.
Soon she spots someone else out here, probably minding their own business, or lost in their own thoughts, and hurries over wth the branch dragging behind her on the grass.
" 'Scuse me?" The girl pipes, waving mid-approach. "Hi there, uh... Are you busy, right now? Would you mind, um... holding this up for me, for just a second?" Turning the branch around so the leafy ends are facing her sound recorder, she smiles hopefully and makes a flimsy, demonstrating gesture. "Yeah. Give it a good rustle?"
Door to Door
There's an eerie sounding disturbance in the hall, off and on during the day. Maybe you've just been too tired or preoccupied to investigate it's source. But that's okay. The sound machine's about to come to you!
(Knock-Knock-Knock.)
Yep, that's the sound of smallish knuckles on your bedroom door. Did you perhaps forget to put the No Solicitations or Please Do No Disturb sign on the door handle today? Or is a mild distraction a most welcome visitor, right now?
This one might be a little impatient, piping up before you can quite make your way to the door, or yell at the drop-in to go away
"Hello?" Sounds precociously girlish, and not with any particular panic. Like there might be a wagon of Girl Scout Cookies involved? And there's the knock again, repeating. "Is anyone home?"
No cookies in the wagon, alas, though it's rigged with some kind of dated recording equiptment, wedged in alongside a tangle of wires hauled out of her closet, along with one too many odds-and-ends noisemakers. In front of it stands Coraline Jones, a blue-haired girl in a silvery soft sweater that's a couple of sizes too big and stripey neon leggings.
Hallway Sound Effects
Sounds like someone with far too much free time on their hands has raided the music room's percussion and hand-instrument cabinets.
And it sounds like that someone has assigned you a few of them, and has been innocuously tailing you for as long as you can bear to dismiss your shuffling footsteps accompanied by the rattle of maracas, or every turn of your head punctuated by slide whistle. She follows at just enough of a distance to duck into an open doorway or lean up against the wall beside a mirror, examining a chip in her clipped painted nails.
But Coraline's harmless mischief can probably only continue on for so long, before she's called out for being a general nuisance. Or until she can get one of her victims to crack a smile.
Wish to Table
It's on the later side of suppertime, and Coraline has just managed to snag herself a seat in the dining room, staring down at her plate with the usual sigh of indecision. Pepperoni Pizza sounds like a great idea, but she's already had that three times this week, and that annoying naggy voice in her conscience that sounds like her well-meaning father is reminding her of food groups and variety.
She heaves a sigh, and quietly grumbles 'Okay, Dad' under her breath.
"Hmmm..." She strums her fingers on the fancy tablecloth and peeks up and down the long table for some inspiration. "What do I want, what do I- Oh! A...Chicken Pot Pie?" Coraline requests, remembering a microwaved one that she used to help herself to on nights when her father made stuff like Creamed Kale with Goat Cheese, or Seafood Paella. "With no mushy peas, please." She adds, before the magic can complete it's thing. "Ooh, and extra crusty crust!"
Yum. That's perfect, and perfectly sized for her appetite with room for dessert, too.
But after a second marveling sniff of the air, her face pulls a grimace of disgust. Gross. Where is that coming from?
Her attention goes scurrying a few places down in curious horror as she stabs a fork into her pot pie, steam rising from the pierced crust.
"What are you eating?!" Coraline exclaims, eyes wide with revulsion.
"That looks, um..." (Gosh, don't be completely rude, Coraline. Even if that smell is turning your stomach) "...Different?"
Where: The Grounds, Your Bedroom Door, The Halls, The Dining Room
When: Early November
Rating: PG
Summary: Being a mansion busybody, and sampling sounds for spooktunes
The Story: (But first, mood music...)
Out and About
The grounds feel extra chilly these days, air crisp with all the pleasantries of autumn, and the forest edges along with some of the garden is shedding crunchy leaves this way and that. There's a distantly smokey smell too, that's impossible to pinpoint the exact source of, but it pleases Miss Jones immensely.
She wanders the grounds with a sense of open-minded purpose, wearing a slouchy wool cap and a cozy sweater underneath her bright yellow coat. It's not quite cold enough for snazzy gloves, which is just as well- easier to carry a handheld tape recorder, pointing it at scattered leaf piles just before giving them a hearty kick with her wellington boots. Coraline walks hard along the cobblestone pathways too, trying to put a little more deliberate weight in her footsteps, occasionally bouncing from foot to foot rhythmically as if playing on invisible hopscotch boards.
She bothers the vendors for a bit, knocking on empty turtleshells and strings of pretty glass beads, bowls of jangly trickets, poking about at their wares with absolutely no real intentions of buying or bartering. Once the faceless merchants have realized this, and she's had quite enough of their cold shouldering, Coraline moves on quickly, finding a branch with some leaves still attached (not poison oak!) to run along the fences, making a glorious racket. On the review playback, it's not quite as satisfying as she'd hoped. Maybe she should have thought to arm herself with fancier microphones.
Soon she spots someone else out here, probably minding their own business, or lost in their own thoughts, and hurries over wth the branch dragging behind her on the grass.
" 'Scuse me?" The girl pipes, waving mid-approach. "Hi there, uh... Are you busy, right now? Would you mind, um... holding this up for me, for just a second?" Turning the branch around so the leafy ends are facing her sound recorder, she smiles hopefully and makes a flimsy, demonstrating gesture. "Yeah. Give it a good rustle?"
Door to Door
There's an eerie sounding disturbance in the hall, off and on during the day. Maybe you've just been too tired or preoccupied to investigate it's source. But that's okay. The sound machine's about to come to you!
(Knock-Knock-Knock.)
Yep, that's the sound of smallish knuckles on your bedroom door. Did you perhaps forget to put the No Solicitations or Please Do No Disturb sign on the door handle today? Or is a mild distraction a most welcome visitor, right now?
This one might be a little impatient, piping up before you can quite make your way to the door, or yell at the drop-in to go away
"Hello?" Sounds precociously girlish, and not with any particular panic. Like there might be a wagon of Girl Scout Cookies involved? And there's the knock again, repeating. "Is anyone home?"
No cookies in the wagon, alas, though it's rigged with some kind of dated recording equiptment, wedged in alongside a tangle of wires hauled out of her closet, along with one too many odds-and-ends noisemakers. In front of it stands Coraline Jones, a blue-haired girl in a silvery soft sweater that's a couple of sizes too big and stripey neon leggings.
Hallway Sound Effects
Sounds like someone with far too much free time on their hands has raided the music room's percussion and hand-instrument cabinets.
And it sounds like that someone has assigned you a few of them, and has been innocuously tailing you for as long as you can bear to dismiss your shuffling footsteps accompanied by the rattle of maracas, or every turn of your head punctuated by slide whistle. She follows at just enough of a distance to duck into an open doorway or lean up against the wall beside a mirror, examining a chip in her clipped painted nails.
But Coraline's harmless mischief can probably only continue on for so long, before she's called out for being a general nuisance. Or until she can get one of her victims to crack a smile.
Wish to Table
It's on the later side of suppertime, and Coraline has just managed to snag herself a seat in the dining room, staring down at her plate with the usual sigh of indecision. Pepperoni Pizza sounds like a great idea, but she's already had that three times this week, and that annoying naggy voice in her conscience that sounds like her well-meaning father is reminding her of food groups and variety.
She heaves a sigh, and quietly grumbles 'Okay, Dad' under her breath.
"Hmmm..." She strums her fingers on the fancy tablecloth and peeks up and down the long table for some inspiration. "What do I want, what do I- Oh! A...Chicken Pot Pie?" Coraline requests, remembering a microwaved one that she used to help herself to on nights when her father made stuff like Creamed Kale with Goat Cheese, or Seafood Paella. "With no mushy peas, please." She adds, before the magic can complete it's thing. "Ooh, and extra crusty crust!"
Yum. That's perfect, and perfectly sized for her appetite with room for dessert, too.
But after a second marveling sniff of the air, her face pulls a grimace of disgust. Gross. Where is that coming from?
Her attention goes scurrying a few places down in curious horror as she stabs a fork into her pot pie, steam rising from the pierced crust.
"What are you eating?!" Coraline exclaims, eyes wide with revulsion.
"That looks, um..." (Gosh, don't be completely rude, Coraline. Even if that smell is turning your stomach) "...Different?"
no subject
Coraline is basically giving him a chance to be his normal self, and he's absolutely delighted. Dustin thinks, with other people like the blue haired girl, this place won't be so bad at all.
"A very important experiment. You wanna make funny noises, right?" He gestures emphatically to the kazoo. "What would a bicycle in the hallways soundlike, instead of just my footsteps?" And, more importantly, "I could put a playing card or something in the spokes so it'll be double the fun."
no subject
She indicates the kazoo, and the maracas in her satchel. "I found these in the music room."
Dustin's idea does sound like a load of fun, though. Especially while there doesn't seem to be any responsible adults in the near vicinity, to keep them from riding bikes through the halls.
"Oh!" The girl nods with delight, perking excitedly up onto the toes of her boots as soon as Dustin mentions the playing cards. "One year at Christmas, my dad helped me put jinglebells on my bike spokes? With bread bag ties."
no subject
It's okay, Coraline. All Dustin does is ride his bike around the halls when he's bored. He's gotten weird looks, but no one's said anything about it yet. The way he sees it, it's totally fair game. Coralin's smile is met with one of his own and he realizes, suddenly, if they keep one-upping each other on grins it's going to absolutely split his face in half.
"I've never done that before. We could make a giant sound making machine, you could record it and maybe that ghost guy will find something to work with? Also think of how funny it'll be if we run into someone."
no subject
Hmm. The prospects of a big jangling one-man-band bicycle sound like an excellent afternoon-waster, so Coraline immediately sets her imagination to work, paing back and forth across the hallway with a low-key shuka-shaka of the maracas to keep her excitable energy steady.
"There are finger cymbals too, the kinds with elastic straps, in the music room! And it definitely needs some squeaky-horns... we can attach a whole bunch of wacky-contraption stuff, make it colorful too."
no subject
"I'm gonna grab my bike from one of the closets, and then--maybe we can rendezvous here and then just make everything explode with how cool this is gonna be? Or do you wanna go together? I figure you can just ride on the back, like my friend Eleven does with Mike. We could probably annoy some adults, too. That's always fun."
no subject
But there's a fierce sort of longing to remember the feeling- she hasn't been on one in quite a long time now.
"Sure..." she nods- and imagines Dustin must have pegs of some sort, since she's never seen a bike seat big enough for two. "As long as that won't be too annoying for you, or anything?"
And annoying adults? Hah, sometimes Coraline feels like she manages that just by existing
"Oh, I don't think that part'll be a problem. So where you wanna meet me with the bike? At the music room?"
no subject
He's about to turn around and head to grab his bike when he realizes something--that coraline said she thought she was annoying him. That in and of itself strikes Dustin as weird. More than weird--he's never really asked that sort of stuff before. Never had a need to. If people thought he was being annoying, they'd make it pretty clear and Dustin thinks he would, too.
"You're like, my first friend here. Why do you think you're annoying me? This is the greatest idea in the history of ideas."
no subject
It'll be fun to do that, for a change. Drive some people a little crazy... harmlessly, really. Musical racket isn't too cruel, after all.
She made a smaller, flustering noise when Dustin seemed bewildered by her apprehension, sheepishly tugging at the sleeves of her sweater. "It's just that... Well nevermind, it's- Not all boys are nice about... um, y'know, sharing their bikes with girls?"
Coraline rolls her eyes, 'cause she knows that probably sounds a bit stupid, but they're around that sort of age now where the dividing lines start getting drawn seriously between boys and girls and when it's still okay to goof off together.
"I am?" She blinks. Dustin got here ... not all that long ago, but surely she can't be the first neat person he's run into? Either way, Coraline's flattered enough to turn just a little bit pink in the ears, beaming harder. "Well lets be great friends then, okay?" She pockets her kazoo and holds up her hand for a high-five.
no subject
He stares at Coraline when she starts talking about stuff like how she's a girl and he's a boy and they're going to have to share a bike. It's in the back of his mind but Dustin thinks it's fine--it's not like they're like Eleven and Mike. Ew. Then again, Mike hadn't seen how googoo he went over Eleven. It was pretty gross. No, Dustin and Coraline are their own people and he will absolutely not fall the Mike Wheeler route.
Dustin smacks Coraline's hand as hard as he can--mostly because it's funny--and puts his best game face on.
"Great friends. Meeting in 15 minutes in the music room--be there or be banished from the great friend ladder for all eternity."
no subject
He high-fives like he means it. So hard that she has to shake her hand out, muttering a quiet 'yeesh'. Guess spontaneous friendship could be intense.
"Got it! I'll be there first!" She announced, whirling around and dashing off- Even if Dustin would have a bit of advantage once he got his bike- Well, except stairwells tended to be a whole lot more cumbersome than riding down hallways.
Fifteen minutes.
Coraline changed directions abruptly, upon reaching the stairwell. Fifteen minutes was enough time to race down to the kitchens to grab a few noise-machine-making snacks.
Dustin will likely find her settled on the floor beside the percussion instrument cabinets, hauling out pretty much all of its contents. A snack bag of dried apple crisps, some string cheese, and a cinnamon-sugar sprinkled microwave popcorn still in the bag sits on top of the piano.
no subject
Hauling the bike up the stairs, however, is an ordeal. An ordeal complete with losing his balance and nearly tipping over: at one point his bike actually falls down the stairs, leaving him to stare at it forlornely and whisper 'shit' quietly to himself. By the time he arrives he's out of breath and his hat is on and slightly askew, having knocked it off during one of his near-falls. It's a rough world, but Dustin calls this a victory.
"Okay, I've got--" woah. hold on. That smell, is that--dear God this is the best ever. The popcorn scent hits his nostrils and he gets a smile on his face that's almost cartoonish, pushing the bike further into the room.
"You got snacks! Thanks." He may as well be saying it in the same tone one declares love. Instead, he plunks the bike away and moves towards her, grabbing a fistful of popcorn already.
"Okay, what first--holy shit, this is good."
no subject
"Well you sure looked like you had no problem pigging out on all that junk food, that day you first got here," She reasoned a bit sassily, teasing Dustin about his gluttonous tummyache just a little. Coraline may have even chosen partly healthy snacks out of consideration.
Her father's to blame, actuallly, for the cinnamon-sugar popcorn secret weapon in her arsenal. It's one of those few and far between from-a-magazine recipies that Coraline acutally hadn't found completely offensive, provided the microwave kettle corn wasn more sweet than buttery.
"So I figured I should bring something, so we don't starve while building the greatest music machine this mansion's ever heard? You like it? It's Cinnamon-Toast Munch."
Considering the assortment of finger cymbals, sandpaper blocks and strings of windchimes, Coraline plucks through the instruments. "Well, there's a horn in here that's meant for bikes... a bell too, and a couple of noisemakers that are leftover from New Years..."
no subject
Coraline's right, the popcorn is a nice halfway. He doesn't recognise the pun for anything, but he decides he's going to eat nothing but this for three days straight, and while Caroline talks he continues to munch away, mouth half-full as he speaks.
"I mhrrmhrph--" Maybe he should swallow first. There we go. "I think that's a great start, and once we fix it on, we have to go outside the box, too. Do you think you can use your hands while we ride? That opens up a million new possibilities."
no subject
But if all else fails, they can be one hell of a biking, kazooing duo, and sound like a clanking swarm of angry hornets.
Coraline reaches for one of the string cheese packets, stripping away pieces down the sides. "Or we could put together something like... a pinwheel that sticks up on the back, that makes noise as the world breezes by?"
no subject
"It has to be strong to sustain it, like a farm's windmill like in the Wizard of Oz. Oh, but it could make that squeaky noise, that grating--iiiiiiiiiieeeeee thing that it always does, right?"
He pulls out a weathervane, frowns, and chucks it back. Not quite.
"I bet you write nohands awesomely, by the way."
no subject
"It's been a while since I've seen that movie..." She admits, though she's pretty sure she's seen what he's talking about. Her father's gardening catalogues contain all kinds of decorative weathervanes, and some of them probably probably loud when rusty.
"Heh! Save that for once we actually do it." Heaving a roll of her eyes, she still has doubts about how skillfully she'll be able to stay on the back pegs of a moving bike without clinging on to the back of Dustin's shirt for dear life.
Still, even if she could theoretically only spare one hand... "What about a Xylophone?"
no subject
"Xylophone," he echoes, like Coraline has just come up with a cure for some strange and horrible disease, like malaria, or influence, or even chicken pox.
"Try to make it with a strap, so I can wear it on my back and you can play it. This is going to be perfect. Let's see--we have percussion, we've got kazoos, pinwheels... What else?"
no subject
Her mom would probably also point out something worse, like what if Dustin stopped short and she managed to poke her own eye out.
Coraline really didn't want to think that hard about potential injury.
"Um." She's quickly running out of wild ideas, spouting whatever pops into her head. "Could you attach a harmonica on your handlebars? Would a wind up music box be cheating?"
no subject
"I say we just do all of this, set it up, and go for a major test run. That way if it fails we can just try again--the scientific method. We just gotta figure out how to attach all of it."
no subject
To Coraline, it sounded less like scientific trial and error, more like recklessly giving it their best shot. She shrugged. Not like she had any better wacky ideas for today?
"Bread bag twisty ties." She repeated, because those earned her vote of confidence when it came to attaching stuff easily. "Or like the thingy that holds wires in a bundle? we can use those."
no subject
"I say this takes 20 minutes of prep time, max." It's a number he's pulled out of air much like what he's just done with the fastening items.
He immediately gets to work, too, and even shoves his hat off because he doesn't want it falling or getting in the way. "I bet you five bucks we can do this while riding down a staircase," he bets, waggling his eyebrows as he talks.
no subject
There are moments even adventurous Coraline is sensible enough to have some sense of self-preservation, and Dustin's plan has her a bit skeptical.
"Are you nuts?!"
Just a bit.
"And if I break half the bones in my body, Dustin, what good's five bucks gonna do me?" She demands, snatching up the plastic ties and starting on adding jangly attachments to the wheel spokes