In the middle of the night, she is awoken by a squeaking sound and looks down to see a mouse in her room.

That evening, Coraline is sent to bed early after complaining about the grimy-looking dinner her father prepared. Irritated, Coraline's mother tells her to let her finish her work. However, when they open the door, they see nothing but a solid brick wall. They find a black skeleton key in a kitchen drawer with a button end and find that it fits the keyhole perfectly. Noticing a keyhole and no other way to open it, Coraline begs her mother to help her. Coraline moves the mattress to find the outline of a small door behind the wallpaper. Finishing her notes, she discovers that her doll, which she'd left on a nearby table in the drawing room, has mysteriously moved beneath a mattress leaning against the wall.

Doll in hand, Coraline takes note of everything in their flat, including a painting of a sullen-looking boy in blue clothes above the fireplace. Coraline takes the doll and goes to see her father who tells her to explore the house and write down what she sees. Attached to the doll is a note from Wybie explaining that he found it in his grandmother's trunk and thought she would like it since it looks like her. Her mother gives Coraline a doll that looks just like her, telling her that it was left on their porch. Back at the house, as it starts to rain, Coraline attempts to gain the attention of her parents who are busy writing pieces for a gardening catalog (which Coraline finds absurdly ironic since her parents dislike handling dirt). He mounts his bike and informs Coraline that the stick she's holding is actually poison oak. He pets the cat and explains that he cares for it despite the fact that it's feral before he hears his grandmother calling to him. He shows Coraline the location of the old well, right under her feet, and admits surprise that his grandmother would allow a family with a kid to move in not even he is allowed near the Pink Palace, though he says he's not supposed to explain why. After she knocks him off his bike, he removes his helmet and introduces himself as Wybie - short for Wyborne - Lovat (voice: Robert Bailey Jr.), grandson of the owner of the Pink Palace. A bicyclist wearing a skull-painted helmet appears and circles Coraline. Coraline asks if it knows where the old well is before she is startled by an air horn. A black cat emerges from the woods and studies her on its perch. She lets it guide her along a trail beyond the house until she arrives at the top of the hill. While her parents assist the movers, Coraline goes exploring, taking a stick and using it as a dowsing rod. It is a rather dilapidated pink Victorian house divided into three flats, surrounded by forest and shaded by an almost constantly overcast sky. Coraline Jones (voice: Dakota Fanning), a girl of 11 or so, moves with her parents, Mel and Charlie (voices: Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman), from their house in Michigan to their new home at the Pink Palace Apartments in Oregon. The hands dismantle the doll, which is wearing a pink dress and has curly brown hair, and reassemble it into a new doll with blue hair, a yellow raincoat, and galoshes. As the credits appear, a pair of metallic hands with spindly fingers summons a doll from the dark abyss outside a window.The synopsis below may give away important plot points.

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