There were certain things Coraline hated about Ashland, Oregon. She hated the dreary weather, the poison oak (you'd be surprised about how much of it there is in the Pink Palace garden alone), and the boring town.

But the thing that Coraline hated to do most had nothing to do with the town itself. Hanging out with Wybie? That she could handle. Listening to Miss Spink and Miss Forcible predict her future and argue over who was right? That was a cakewalk compared to this.

Going shopping with her mother had to be illegal. Somewhere.

Unfortunately, her family had decided to go to town that day. Charlie Jones had an appointment with the editor of both his and his wife's catalogs, and it had been said that only one of the two needed to be there. Coraline wished her mother would have gone, because at least her dad would take her somewhere fun, somewhere better than this place. The department store in Ashland had a fancy name that Coraline couldn't remember, and it smelled of perfume that made her want to sneeze her brains out. Old women were trying on clothes made for people half their age, and, what's worse, Coraline was forced to watch as she sat on the bench near the fitting rooms.

Coraline gave a loud, dramatic moan and let herself fall back so that her limp body covered the entirety on the bench.

"Coraline," Mel Jones called from inside one of the dressing rooms, "we're almost done here, can you be quiet for one second?"

And Coraline obeyed, waiting one second before moaning once more.

"Coraline," Coraline had never realized how threatening her name could sound, "you're being ridiculous."

"This store is ridiculous. None of this stuff even looks like clothes, they look like," Coraline searched for the right word, "ugly pieces of fabric that wish they were clothes."

Mel let out a sigh of frustration, but didn't reply.

"When Israel was in Egypt land…" Coraline began to sing despairingly, "let my people go…"

"Coraline…"

"Oppressed so hard they could not stand…" Coraline continued as though she hadn't heard, "let my people go…"

"Coraline, that's enough."

But Coraline didn't believe that. If it really had been enough, they would have gone home by now. She sat up, getting off the bench whilst tossing a "I'm gonna go look at some stuff" over her shoulder. Maybe she could buy something. Reaching in her pocket, she scowled. She looked around, seeing if there was anything she could buy with a quarter and some chapstick.

While she was looking around, she forgot the most important rule of walking in a public place: look where you're going. Coraline was rather rudely reminded of that rule when she bumped into someone.

"Sorry--" she turned around, and her eyes widened, "Wybie?"

"Jonesy?" Wybie Lovat, Coraline's best friend, was looking at her, surprised. He straightened up, his common slouch ignored for only a moment.

"What are you doing here?" Coraline asked.

"Grandma needed…something, I don't know, I wasn't listening, and she doesn't trust me in the house alone."

"You mean after the noodle incident?" Coraline bit her lip to keep from laughing.

"Okay first of all, no one can prove that was my fault," Wybie said indignantly, then looked around as though to see if his grandmother was listening, "and secondly, I hate this store, get me out of here."

"Oh, I think you fit in just fine here." Coraline smirked.

"No, you see, it's disrupting my boyishness, shut up," he added as Coraline opened her mouth to interrupt, "and I think the perfume is making me dizzy." At that, he held his head for a moment, slouching again, "yep, definitely making me dizzy."

"Then let's go, before we both die a smelly, flowery death." Coraline was only too happy to leave. She didn't tell her mother where she was going, of course. She'd probably be in that fitting room for hours anyway.

Leaving the store had not been easy, though. They'd to go through the actual perfume department.

"How many times are they going to spray us with eye burning, suffocating demon liquids before they figure out that we don't like it?" Coraline groaned as she and Wybie sat on a bus bench, trying to figure out what it was they would do next.

"I think it's part of their training," Wybie offered, "they must be immune to it now."

"Lucky them."

After a moment of silence and watching cars go by, Wybie and Coraline discovered that they were still very, very bored.

"You got any money, Wybie?" Coraline finally asked, taking her ever present 'exploring hat' and fiddling with it absently.

"I got five bucks." He replied, then added, "but I'm not buying you anything."

"What makes you think I'd want you to buy me anything?"

"You always do, Jonesy. And you owe me," Wybie began counting on his fingers, "twenty bucks."

"I do not owe you twenty dollars," Coraline huffed, "maybe six."

"Six, plus twenty percent interest." Wybie smirked.

"Twenty percent interest? What are you, a loan shark?" Coraline punched him the arm, as she often did.

"If I were a loan shark, you'd be sleeping with the fishes by now." Wybie grabbed the hood of his jacket and pulled it far over his head so it covered the top half of his face, "you got three days, Jonesy. Three days."

"Three days?" Coraline gasped in mock fright, then got and idea. Craning her neck so her blue hair swept forward and covered her face, she held up her hands like a zombie and moaned, "more like seven days…"

One look at each other was all it took to get them to laugh boisterously at how silly they were. Bad horror movie references aside, at least they were finally having fun.

"All right, maybe I could spend some money on ice cream," Wybie finally said, "after all, ice cream is one of life's necessities…"

"I knew you'd see the light, Lovat," Coraline giggled.

"But since it's my money, I choose what flavor."

"I suppose that's fair," Coraline conceded. She whacked him in the arm playfully, as she often did, "just don't get anything gross."

"You know what? Just for that, maybe I will." Wybie broke into a run across the street, and Coraline pursued him quickly.

"Ew! You little punk! Come back here!"

"You run like a girl!"

What the tow had failed to notice was that Mel Jones and Mrs. Lovat had been watching from the store entrance, and were now trying to stop laughing. Those two were such goofballs.