| Wish Upon a Shooting Star | SBI Coraline AU | written by Lav |

06- In which the old ladies in the apartment down the stairs read tea leaves

          Tommy slept through most of the day, only waking up at 3pm, when Dream began banging on his door. "Tomathy! Im going out today. Don't go outside the house unless you want to get the shit knocked out of you." He laughed afterwards, and walked away from his room.

           Tommy assumed this was just Dream's sick sort of humor. Of course he finds humor in beating the shit out of Tommy. Even half asleep, Tommy wasn't shocked by this.

            He laid in his bed until Dream left and he felt awake enough to get up. When stood up and looked out the small window in his room, he saw it was raining.

            Any person in their right mind wouldn't go outside when it was raining, and definitely not when they were told to not go out unless they wanted the shit knocked out of them. But Tommy was not in his right mind, and quite frankly, he stopped caring much about getting his shit knocked out of him some years ago.

            Therefore, he decided he would introduce himself to the neighbors. Just after he went outside he noticed two other apartments. One with stairs leading up to an apartment and one leading down to another.

            He could see through a window of the upstairs apartment a blue man talking to some mice. This weirded Tommy out, (somehow more than the button eyed people he met) and he decided he would go to the downstairs apartment.

            Stepping down the stairs, he noticed there was a metal knocker on the door. It had theater masks on it, and seemed to be exceptionally rusted. Tommy reached out, grabbed the knocker and knocked three times.

            He glanced down to see a welcome mat under his feet which read, "no whistling in the house". How weird.

           He jumped when three small black dogs began barking loudly and jumping on the door from the inside.

             The door swung open to reveal an old lady with pink hair, some pretty makeup and a robe on, using a rolling walker. The dogs immediately ran out the door and began jumping on Tommy. He didn't mind this and began petting the dogs while introducing himself.

             "I'm Tomathy, call me Tommy though. I moved into the apartment upstairs."

             "Hello, Im Ms. Spink. Would you like to come in?" she said with a smile. Tommy nodded a yes and proceeded into the house. As Tommy walked in Ms.Spink shouted to another room; "Miriam, put the kettle on!"

           He assumed Miriam was the other old lady she lived with.  Ms Spink went through a curtain to another room, when Tommy noticed a drawing or poster on the wall with two girls and the names Spink and Forcible. Maybe the two when they were younger?

            He shrugged before following Ms Spink to the next room. It was a quite big, with wooden support beams in different corners of the room. On the far back wall, were shelves. And in front of that, a couch, two armchairs and a coffee table.

            The three dogs ran ahead of Tommy and Ms Spink and onto the couch to sit down. A taller old woman, also dressed in a robe came out from the doorway of the kitchen, she looked at Ms Spink before her eyes landed on Tommy. "April, I think you're being followed." She said as she pulled out some glasses.

             "Its the new neighbor, Miriam. He'll be having the oolong tea"

              "No, I don't know, Im sure he'll prefer jasmine."

              "No. Oolong."

              "Oh, jasmine it is then!"

            Ms Spink sighed before walking over to the couch. She shooed the dogs off, and Tommy went to sit down when he looked up.