“Your dad is coming to pick you up from school tomorrow afternoon,” says Mum in passing as she ticks things off on her Excel packing spreadsheet.
“Because you’re working late?” asks Elsa, as if she means nothing in particular by the question.
“I’ll be . . . staying on for a while at the hospital,” says Mum, because she doesn’t like lying to Elsa.
“Can’t George pick me up, then?”
“George is coming with me to the hospital.”
Elsa packs things haphazardly into the box, deliberately ignoring the spreadsheet.
“Is Halfie sick?”
Mum tries to smile again. It doesn’t go so very well.
“Don’t worry, darling.”
“That’s the quickest way for me to know that I should be mega-worrying,” answers Elsa.
“It’s complicated,” Mum sighs.
“Everything is complicated if no one explains it to you.”
“It’s just a routine checkup.
“No it isn’t, no one has so many routine checkups in a pregnancy. I’m not that stupid.”
Mum massages her temples and looks away.
“Please, Elsa, don’t you start making trouble about this as well.”
“What do you mean, ‘as well?’ What ELSE have I been making trouble with you about?” Elsa hisses, as one does when one is almost eight and feels slightly put upon.
“Don’t shout,” says Mum in a composed voice.
“I’M NOT SHOUTING!” shouts Elsa.
And then they both look down at the floor for a long time. Looking for their own ways of saying sorry. Neither of them knows where to begin. Elsa thumps down the lid of the packing crate, stomps off into Granny’s bedroom, and slams the door.
You could hear a pin drop in the flat for about thirty minutes after that. Because that is how angry Elsa is, so angry that she has to start measuring time in minutes rather than eternities. She lies on Granny’s bed and stares at the black-and-white photos on the ceiling. The Werewolf Boy seems to be waving at her and laughing. Deep inside, she wonders how anyone who laughs like that can grow up into something as incredibly doleful as The Monster.
She hears the doorbell go and then a second ring following incredibly fast, much faster than would be feasible for a normal person when ringing a doorbell. So it can only be Britt-Marie.
“I’m coming,” Mum answers politely. Elsa can tell by her voice that she’s been crying.
The words come flowing out of Britt-Marie, as if she’s fitted with a windup mechanism and someone has cranked it up using a key on her back.
“I rang your bell! No one opened!”
Mum sighs.
“No. We’re not home. We’re here.”
“Your mother’s car is parked in the garage! And that hound is still loose on the property!” She’s talking so quickly it’s clear she can’t prioritize her various upsets.
Elsa sits up in Granny’s bed, but it takes almost a minute before she manages to take in what Britt-Marie just said. Then she bounces out of bed and opens the door, and has to muster all her self-control to stop herself dashing off down the hall, because she doesn’t want to make the old busybody suspicious.
Britt-Marie stands on the landing with one hand very firmly inserted into the other, smiling at Mum in a well-meaning way, nattering on about how in this leaseholders’ association they can’t have rabid dogs running around.
“A sanitary nuisance, a sanitary nuisance is what it is!”
“The dog is probably far away by now, Britt-Marie. I wouldn’t worry about it—”
Britt-Marie turns to Mum and smiles well-meaningly.
“No, no, of course you wouldn’t, Ulrika. Of course you wouldn’t. You’re not the type to worry yourself about other people’s safety, even your own child’s, are you? It’s something you’ve inherited, I see. Putting the career before the children. That is how it’s always been in your family.”
Mum’s face is utterly relaxed. Her arms hang down, apparently relaxed. The only thing that gives her away is that she’s slowly, slowly clenching her fists. Elsa has never seen her do that before.