“Not until you tell me about the letter!”
The Monster looks like a very tired person being kept awake by someone thumping him at regular intervals, as hard as he can, with a pillowcase filled with yogurt. Or more or less, anyway. He looks up and frowns and evaluates Elsa, as if trying to work out how far he could fling her.
“Wrote ‘protect castle,’?” he repeats.
Elsa steps closer to show him that she’s not afraid of him. Or to show herself.
“And what else?”
He hunches up inside his hood and starts walking off through the snow.
“Protect you. Protect Elsa.”
Then he disappears in the darkness and is gone. He disappears a lot, Elsa will learn in due course. He’s surprisingly good at it for someone so large.
Elsa hears muted panting from the other side of the yard and turns around. George comes jogging towards the house. She knows it’s George because he’s wearing shorts over his leggings and the greenest jacket in the world. He doesn’t see her and the wurse, because he’s too busy bouncing up and down from a bench. George trains a lot at running and jumping up and down from things. Elsa sometimes thinks he’s in a permanent audition to be in the next Super Mario game.
“Come!” whispers Elsa quickly to the wurse to get it inside before George catches sight of it. And to her surprise, the mighty animal obeys her.
The wurse brushes past her legs so its coat tickles her all the way up to her forehead, and she’s almost knocked down by the force of it.
She laughs. It looks at her and seems to be laughing as well.
Apart from Granny, the wurse is the first friend Elsa has ever had.
She makes sure Britt-Marie is not prowling about on the stairs and that George still hasn’t seen them, and then she leads the wurse down into the cellar. The storage units are each assigned to a flat, and Granny’s unit is unlocked and empty.
“You have to stay here tonight,” she whispers. “Tomorrow we’ll find you a better hiding place.”
The wurse doesn’t look hugely impressed, but it lies down and rolls onto its side and peers nonchalantly into the parts of the cellar that still lie steeped in darkness. Elsa checks where it’s looking, then focuses on the wurse.
“Granny always said there were ghosts down here,” she says firmly. “You mustn’t scare them, d’you hear?”
The wurse lies unconcerned on its side on the floor, its hatchet-sized incisors glinting through the darkness.
“I’ll bring more chocolate tomorrow if you’re nice,” she promises.
The wurse looks as if it is taking this concession into consideration. Elsa leans forward and kisses it on the nose. Then she darts up the stairs and closes the cellar door carefully behind her. She sneaks up without turning on the lights, to minimize the risk of anyone seeing her, but when she comes to Britt-Marie and Kent’s flat she crouches and goes up the last flight in big leaps. She’s almost sure that Britt-Marie is standing inside, peering out of the spyhole.
The next morning both The Monster’s flat and the cellar storage unit are dark and empty. George drives Elsa to school. Mum has already gone to the hospital because, as usual, there’s some emergency going on there and it’s Mum’s job to sort out emergencies.