Then he stands for a very long time and stares uncomfortably at the wurse. It lies splayed across the hall, covering the floor almost in its entirety. The Monster looks like he’s about to hyperventilate. He disappears into the bathroom and comes back and starts carefully arranging towels in a tight ring around the wurse while taking extreme care not to touch any part of it. Then he goes back to the bathroom and scrubs his hands so hard under the tap that the basin vibrates.
When he comes back he’s got a little bottle of antibacterial alcogel. Elsa recognizes it, because she had to rub that sort of stuff into her hands every time she was visiting Granny at the hospital. She peers into the bathroom through the gap under The Monster’s armpit when he reaches out. There are more bottles of alcogel in there than she could imagine there would be in Mum’s entire hospital.
The Monster looks infinitely vexed. He puts down the bottle and smears his fingers with alcogel, as if they were covered in a layer of extra skin that he had to try to rub off. Then he demonstratively holds up his two palms, each the size of a flatbed dolly, and nods firmly at Elsa.
Elsa holds up her own palms, which are more tennis ball–size. He pours alcogel on them and does his best not to look too disgusted. She quickly rubs the alcogel into her skin and wipes off the excess on her trouser legs. The Monster looks a little as if he’s about to roll himself up in a blanket and start yelling and crying. To compensate, he pours more alcogel on his own hands and rubs, rubs, rubs. Then he notices that Elsa has knocked one of his boots out of position in relation to the other. He bends down and adjusts the boot. Then more alcogel.
Elsa tilts her head and looks at him.
“Do you have compulsive thoughts?” says Elsa.
The Monster doesn’t answer. Only rubs his hands together, as if trying to get a fire started.
“I’ve read about it on Wikipedia.”
The Monster’s chest heaves up and down, taking frustrated breaths. He disappears into the bathroom and she hears the sound of gushing water again.
“My dad is sort of slightly compulsive as well!” Elsa calls out behind him, adding quickly, “But, God, not like you. You’re properly barmy!”
Only afterwards does she realize it sounded like an insult. That was not at all how she meant it. She just didn’t mean to compare Dad’s amateurish compulsive behavior with The Monster’s obviously professional obsessions.
The Monster returns to see the wurse nibbling at her backpack, where it clearly believes there are some Daim bars. The Monster looks as if he’s trying to go to a happier place inside his head. And there they stand, all three of them: a wurse, a child, and a monster with a need for cleanliness and order that clearly is not at all well suited to the company of wurses and children.
On the other side of the door, the police and Animal Control have just broken into a flat where there’s a lethal hound, only to discover the telling absence of said hound.
Elsa looks at the wurse. Looks at The Monster.
“Why do you have the key to . . . that . . . flat?” she asks The Monster.
The Monster seems to start breathing more heavily.
“You left letter. From Granny. In envelope,” he replies at long last, deep-throated.
Elsa tilts her head the other way.
“Did Granny write that you should take care of it?”
The Monster nods reluctantly.
“Wrote ‘protect the castle.’?”
Elsa nods. Their eyes meet fleetingly. The Monster looks a great deal as one does when wishing that people would just go home and filthify their own halls. Elsa looks at the wurse.
“Why does it howl so much at night?”
The wurse doesn’t look as if it greatly appreciates being spoken of in the third person singular. That is, if it counts as a third person; the wurse seems unsure about the grammatical rules of the case. The Monster is getting tired of all the questions.
“Has grief,” he says in a low voice towards the wurse, rubbing his hands together although there is nothing left to rub in.
“Grief about what?” asks Elsa.
The Monster’s gaze is fixed on his palms.
“Grief about your grandmother.”
Elsa looks at the wurse. The wurse looks at her with black, sad eyes. Later, when she thinks about it, Elsa assumes this is when she really, really starts liking it a lot. She looks at The Monster again.
“Why did my granny send you a letter?”