- Coraline's mother (real mother, yay!) wakes her up and tells her it's almost time for dinner.
- She asks Coraline what happened to her pajamas and her knee, which is scraped. (What? Doesn't she remember? She was stuck in a snow globe for crying out loud!)
- Coraline says she fell. Yeah, that's it... she fell. Nothing else.
- She goes to her room to get changed and clean up, and she pulls three marbles, an empty snow globe, and a black key out of her pocket.
- She ties some string around the black key to make a necklace and puts it on under her shirt.
- All decked out in her key-jewelry (pretty trendy, C!), Coraline then goes to see her dad and gives him a big hug. She even eats the pizza he made for dinner, which – to be honest – isn't very good.
- Coraline goes to bed, still wearing the key around her neck, and she keeps the three marbles under her pillow.
- While sleeping, Coraline dreams a very strange dream. Here's how it goes down:
- She is outside having a very nice picnic with three other children. No big deal.
- There's a boy wearing red knee-breeches, a girl in a brown dress and bonnet, and another girl with blonde hair and fairy wings. Still sounds okay to us. And hey, everyone's having a great time.
- After they're done playing, the children all return to their picnic and eat ice cream. The fairy girl opts out and eats flowers instead. Kind of gross, but it's a dream, so we'll let it slide.
- Coraline, feeling relaxed, says she's glad it's all over.
- Hasn't she ever heard of jinxing yourself? Well, if not, she's about to learn the hard way.
- After she says that, the other kids get sort of quiet and Coraline realizes that the danger isn't totally over yet.
- Her friends can't tell her exactly what is going on, but they do give her some pretty bad news: the beldam, the other mother, isn't done yet. Coraline has to be careful.
- Then they all move on to the afterlife. The end. (The end of the dream, that is.)
- When Coraline wakes up early the next morning, she feels like something is moving and she hears the noises to match.
- She investigates, of course, and discovers that it's – wait for it – the other mother's right hand. Just her hand!
- That creepy, dismembered right hand is after the black key. She just knows it.
- The hand (so weird, we know!) scurries out of the house.