Chapter Text
There was a girl moving into the Pink Palace.
Wybie was more than shocked. His grandma rarely rented the apartments to anyone, and never to anyone with children. Wybie figured that she would never let him become friends with the girl, but he was certainly going to try. He had never understood his grandma’s insistence that he never go near the house. It seemed stupid to him, but he almost always listened to her words because of the look in her eyes she would get when she talked about the house. It was a look of sadness, and maybe a little anger. However, there wasn’t anyone Wybie really wanted to befriend at the Pink Palace anyways. There were no kids his age, just kooky Mr. Bobinsky and even kookier Miss Spink and Miss Forcible.
His own house, isolated in the deep woods except for the Pink Palace, left the boy in desperate need of a friend. So when he saw the large moving truck outside, and a little girl hopping out of the car behind it, he decided to go against his grandma’s wishes and meet the girl, who he found to be named Coraline.
Over the next day, Wybie spied on Coraline. That sounded totally creepy and weird, but he just wanted to see what she was like. He didn’t find out much though, just that the girl had blue hair and constantly wore a yellow raincoat to protect herself from the cold Oregon rain. She also seemed a bit lonely, Wybie observed. Just like him.
He hadn’t meant to scare her when they met.
It was less than a day later, and Wybie was outside on his bike when he saw her, carrying an oddly-shaped stick and running to the woods. He followed a bit behind, thinking about what he would say to her.
Wybie had just been about to lose her when she stopped in a small clearing. The well. Wybie knew about the well, the dark, seemingly never-ending pit in which he often dropped small rocks into to hear the faint splash, but he didn’t know how Coraline knew about the well.
Coraline stopped in the ring of small mushrooms that circled the well, looking around the clearing. Wybie chose that moment to make his entrance. Revving his bike, he drove forward, accidentally knocking Coraline back as she screamed. Wybie winced behind his mask. He was never good at first impressions. He figured he should have maybe at least taken his mask off before greeting his neighbor.
It took a minute to calm down after that. Wybie could tell that he had pissed Coraline off. But she eventually got over the scare enough to talk to him. She told him that she was looking for the well, and the stick she held had led her to the clearing.
“Coraline,” Wybie said, “the well is right here.”
Wybie blew the dust off the old well, and was happy that Coraline was at least sticking around so he could show it to her. The two kids spent a bit of time throwing rocks down the well, listening for the splashes until Wybie heard a faint voice calling his name.
“Wybie! Come home!” his Grandma shouted from out of the woods.
“I think your Grandma’s calling for you, why-were-you-born,” Coraline said, frowning at him. She looked towards the voice, shooing Wybie along. “You should get going.”
Wybie, no longer able to ignore his grandmother, sighed before collecting his bike. “Oh, shoot,” he said. “Catch ya later, Coraline.”
Coraline continued to make fun of his name until he eventually drove off, leaving the girl behind in the woods. And although Coraline was short-tempered, had a crude sense of humor, and ridiculed Wybie most of the time they had hung out, Wybie knew that he would stand by her through anything because he had finally found a friend.