The walk takes more than two hours. Elsa wishes it were Halloween, because then they could take the bus without scaring normal people, everyone would just assume they were dressed up. That’s why Elsa likes Halloween: on Halloween it’s normal to be different.
It’s almost lunchtime by the time they find the right address. Elsa’s feet hurt and she’s hungry and in a bad mood. She knows that a knight of Miamas would never whine or be afraid of a grand adventure when sent out on a treasure hunt, but whoever said a knight can’t be hungry or ill-tempered?
There’s a high-rise at the address, but also a hamburger restaurant across the street. Elsa tells the wurse and The Monster to wait, and she goes across even though she has firm moral objections to hamburger chains, as every almost-eight-year-old should. But even almost-eight-year-olds can’t eat their principles, so she grudgingly buys ice cream for the wurse, a hamburger for The Monster, and a veggie burger for herself. And as she leaves she sneaks out her red felt-tip pen and crosses out the dash between “Lunch” and “menu” on the sign outside.
Despite the below-freezing temperature clawing at their faces, they sit on a bench opposite the high-rise building. Or rather, Elsa and the wurse sit, because The Monster looks at the bench as if it’s also about to lick him. He refuses to even touch the greaseproof paper around his hamburger, so the wurse eats that as well. At one point the wurse drops a bit of ice cream on the bench and licks it up without concern, and The Monster looks close to asphyxiation. After the wurse takes a bite of Elsa’s burger and she carries on eating it regardless, she has to help him breathe from a paper bag.
When they’re finally done, Elsa leans her head back and looks up the fa?ade of the building. It must be fifteen floors high. She takes the envelope from her pocket, slides off the bench, and marches inside. The Monster and the wurse follow her in silence, surrounded by a strong smell of alcogel. Elsa quickly scans the board of residents on the wall and finds the name as written on the envelope, though preceded by the words “Reg. Psychotherapist.” Elsa doesn’t know what that means, but she’s heard a good deal about terropists setting off bombs and causing all sorts of trouble, so a psychoterropist must be even worse.
She heads over to the lift at the other end of the corridor. The wurse stops when they get there, and refuses to take another step. Elsa shrugs and goes in. The Monster follows her, after a certain amount of hesitation, though he is careful not to touch any of the walls.
Elsa evaluates The Monster as they’re going up. His beard sticks out of the hood like a large, curious squirrel, which makes him seem less and less dangerous the longer she knows him. The Monster clearly takes note of her examination of him, and he twists his hands uncomfortably. To her own surprise, Elsa realizes that his attitude hurts her feelings.
“If it bothers you so much you could just stay on guard downstairs with the wurse, you know. It’s not like something’s going to happen to me while I’m handing over a letter to the terropist.”
She talks in normal language, because she refuses to speak in the secret language with him. Her jealousy about Granny’s language not even being Granny’s from the very beginning hasn’t gone away.
“Anyway, you don’t have to be right beside me the whole time to be able to guard me,” she says, sounding more resentful than she means to. She’d started thinking of The Monster as a friend, but remembers now that he’s only here because Granny told him. The Monster just stands there in silence.