And the lonelier Elsa gets in the real world, the larger her army in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. The harder the lashes of rolled-up towels in the day, the more astounding the adventures she gets to ride into in the night. In Miamas, no one says she has to learn to fit in. That’s why Elsa wasn’t especially impressed when Dad took her to that hotel in Spain and explained that it was “all-inclusive” there. Because if you have a granny, your whole life is all-inclusive.
爱莎在现实世界中越孤单，她在不眠大陆的军队就越强大。白天那些毛巾卷的抽打越猛烈，夜晚她遇见的冒险就越精彩。在密阿玛斯，没人强迫她“合群”。正因如此，某次爸爸带爱莎去一家西班牙的酒店并且说它“无所不包”，爱莎一点儿也不兴奋。毕竟，如果你有一位外婆，那你的整个人生自然就“无所不包”了。
A grandmother is both a sword and a shield. When they say at school that Elsa is “different,” as if this is something bad; or when she comes home with bruises and the headmaster says she “has to learn to fit in,” this is when Granny backs her up. Won’t let her apologize. Refuses to let her take the blame. Granny never says to Elsa that she shouldn’t let it get to her because “then they won’t enjoy teasing you as much.” Or that she should “just walk away.” Granny knows better than that.
一位外婆既是宝剑又是盾牌。当学校里的人说爱莎“很不一样”，并将此视为坏事的时候，当她带着淤青回家而校长却说她必须“合群”的时候，外婆总会挺她，不会让她去道歉，也不会让她为此承担责任。外婆从不对爱莎说“不要在意”，也不会说什么“你越在意，他们越欺负得厉害”或者“你躲着点儿就好了”之类的话。外婆才没那么愚蠢。
Having a grandmother is like having an army. This is a grandchild’s ultimate privilege: knowing that someone is on your side, always, whatever the details. Even when you are wrong. Especially then, in fact.
拥有一位外婆就像拥有一整支军队。外孙或外孙女因此获得一项特权：不管在什么情况下，都有人站在你这边，即使是你的错。事实上，特别是你错的时候。
Her teachers at school say that Elsa is having “concentration issues.” But it isn’t true. She can recite more or less all of Harry Potter by memory. She can outline the exact superpowers of all the X-Men and knows exactly which of them Spider-Man could and could not take out in a fight. And she can draw a fairly okay version of the map at the start of The Lord of the Rings with her eyes closed. Unless Granny is standing next to her, tugging at the paper and moaning about how this is insanely boring and how she’d rather take Renault out and “do something.” She’s a bit restless, Granny. But she has shown Elsa every corner of Miamas and all the corners of the other five kingdoms in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Even the ruins of Mibatalos, which was sacked by the shadows at the end of the War-Without-End. Elsa has stood with Granny on the rocks by the coast, where the ninety-nine snow-angels sacrificed themselves; she has looked out over the sea, where one day the shadows will come back. And she knows all about the shadows, because Granny always says one should know one’s enemies better than oneself.
学校的老师说爱莎有“注意力问题”，但这不是真的。她能凭借记忆，复述出差不多所有“哈利·波特”的故事；她能概括出每个X战警确切的超能力，知道他们中哪个能被蜘蛛侠打败，哪个不能；她能闭着眼睛，大致画出《魔戒》正文前的地图，只要外婆不站在她身边，扯她的纸，唠叨着这太无聊了，不如开着雷诺出去兜兜风。外婆这个人挺容易不耐烦的，但她向爱莎展示了密阿玛斯的每个角落，以及不眠大陆其他五个王国的所有地方，甚至是密巴塔洛斯的废墟，在无尽战争的尾声，那里被暗影摧毁了。爱莎曾与外婆并肩站在海边的石头上——九十九位雪天使牺牲的地方；她也曾望着大海的远方——暗影有朝一日卷土重来的地方。她知道所有关于暗影的事情，因为外婆总说，要比了解自己更了解你的敌人。
And without fairy tales, Miamas and the whole Land-of-Almost-Awake die a death without imagination. The most repellent kind of death.
没有童话故事，密阿玛斯和整个不眠大陆就会因失去想象力而消亡。这是最可怕的死亡方式。
The shadows were dragons in the beginning, but they had an evil and a darkness of such strength within themselves that it made them into something else. Something much more dangerous. They hate people and their stories; they have hated for so long and with such intensity that in the end the darkness enveloped their whole bodies until their shapes were no longer discernible. That is also why they are so difficult to defeat, because they can disappear into walls or into the ground or float up. They’re ferocious and bloodthirsty, and if you’re bitten by one you don’t just die; a far more serious and terrible fate lies in store: you lose your imagination. It just runs out of your wound and leaves you gray and empty. You wither away year by year until your body is just a shell. Until no one remembers any fairy tales anymore.
暗影最开始是龙，但它们内心的邪恶和黑暗力量使它们变成了另一种更危险的东西。它们痛恨人类以及人类的故事，长久的深仇重怨最终使它们的整个身体被黑暗所笼罩，直到身形轮廓都无法辨识，这也是它们很难被击败的原因。它们能穿墙、入地、飘浮空中，而且残忍嗜杀，如果你被暗影咬了，你不会马上死，更严重更可怕的命运会降临到你的身上：失去想象力。想象力会从你的伤口消散，留下阴郁和空虚。年复一年，你日渐衰惫，直到身躯只剩下外壳，再也不能记起任何一个童话故事。
But Wolfheart defeated the shadows in the War-Without-End. He came out of the forests when the fairy tales needed him most and drove the shadows into the sea. And one day the shadows will come back, and maybe that is why Granny tells her all the stories now, thinks Elsa. To prepare her.
然而，在无尽战争中，狼心打败了暗影。在童话故事们最需要他的时刻，他从森林中出现，把暗影赶进了大海。外婆现在告诉爱莎这些事情，因为有一天暗影会卷土重来，她需要做好准备。
Granny says people who think slowly always accuse quick thinkers of concentration problems. “Idiots can’t understand that non-idiots are done with a thought and already moving on to the next before they themselves have. That’s why idiots are always so scared and aggressive. Because nothing scares idiots more than a smart girl.”
外婆说，脑子迟钝的人总是说脑子灵敏的人有注意力问题。“蠢货们不明白，在他们想清楚一件事之前，聪明人早就想明白并开始想下一件事了。所以蠢货总是感到害怕，有攻击性。没有什么比一个聪明姑娘更让他们害怕的了。”
So the teachers are wrong. Elsa has no problems concentrating. She just concentrates on the right things.
老师们错了，爱莎没有注意力问题。她只是将注意力集中到了正确的事情上。
That is what she often says to Elsa when Elsa has had a particularly concentration-challenged day at school, and they lie on Granny’s gigantic bed under all the black-and-white photographs on Granny’s ceiling, and close their eyes until the people in the photographs start dancing. Elsa doesn’t know who they are, Granny just calls them her “stars,” because when the streetlight comes through the blinds they glitter like the sky at night. Men in uniforms stand there and other men in doctors’ coats and a few men with hardly any clothes on at all. Tall men and smiling men and men with moustaches and heavyset men wearing hats, and they all stand next to Granny and they look as if she just told them a cheeky joke. None of them are looking into the camera, because none of them can tear their eyes away from her.
爱莎被学校严厉批评注意力不集中的时候，外婆常常这么说。她们会躺在外婆巨大的床上，仰望天花板上贴的那些黑白照片，闭上眼睛，直到照片里的人开始舞蹈。爱莎不知道他们是谁，外婆把他们叫作她的“星星”，因为当街灯透过百叶窗照进来时，他们会像星星般闪烁。有个穿军装的男人站在那里，另一些人穿着医生的白大褂，还有几个人几乎没穿衣服。高个子的人、正在微笑的人、留着小胡子的人、戴着帽子的壮汉，全都围绕在外婆身边，看上去像是刚刚听她讲了个放肆的笑话。他们都没有看镜头，因为所有目光都聚焦在外婆身上。
Granny is young. She is beautiful. And immortal. She stands by road signs whose letters Elsa can’t read; she stands outside tents in deserts between men with rifles in their hands. And everywhere in the photos are children. Some of them have bandages around their heads and some lie in hospital beds with tubes inserted into their bodies, and one of them only has one arm and a stump where the other arm should have been. But one of the boys hardly looks hurt at all. He looks like he could run fifty miles in his bare feet. He’s about the same age as Elsa, and his hair is so thick and tangled that you could lose your keys in it, and there’s something in his eyes as if he’d just found a secret stash of fireworks and ice cream. His eyes are big and perfectly round and so black that the surrounding white is like chalk on a blackboard. Elsa doesn’t know who he is, but she calls him the Werewolf Boy, because that is what he looks like to her.
外婆非常年轻、美丽，像位女神。她站在路牌旁，路牌上的字爱莎不认识。她站在沙漠中的帐篷外，身边是几个手持来复枪的男人。每张照片里都有孩子。有些头上缠着绷带，有些躺在病床上，身上插着管子。有一个孩子只有一只手臂，另一只手臂是假肢。但其中有一个男孩外表上几乎毫发无伤，似乎能光脚跑个一百公里。他跟爱莎差不多年纪，头发又厚又乱，钥匙掉进去都会找不到。他的眼睛又大又圆，黑白分明，炯炯有神，看上去像是刚刚发现了一处藏满烟花和冰激凌的秘密基地。爱莎不知道他是谁，但管他叫狼孩，因为这就是爱莎对他的印象。
She always thinks about asking Granny more about the Werewolf Boy. But the minute the thought occurs to Elsa, her eyelids start drooping and in the next moment she is sitting on a cloud animal and Granny is next to her on her own and they’re gliding over the Land-of-Almost-Awake and landing by the city gates of Miamas. And then Elsa thinks that she’ll ask Granny in the morning.
她总想询问外婆关于那个狼孩的事情，可每当这想法冒出来时，她的眼皮就开始睁不开，下一刻她已经坐在一只云兽身上，而外婆坐在另一只上，在不眠大陆上空翱翔，降落在密阿玛斯的城门边了。于是爱莎决定，那就明天早上再问外婆吧。
Elsa is sitting on the bench outside the big window. She’s so cold that her teeth are chattering. Her mum is inside talking to the woman who sounds like a whale, or, at least, the way Elsa imagines a whale would sound. Which is difficult to know, admittedly, when you have never happened to run into a whale, but she sounds like Granny’s record player after Granny tried to build a robot out of it. It was slightly unclear what sort of robot she was intending to build, but whatever the case it wasn’t a very good one. And then it sounded like a whale after that whenever you tried to play a record on it. Elsa learned all about LPs and CDs that afternoon. That was when she worked out why old people seem to have so much free time, because in the olden days until Spotify came along they must have used up almost all their time just changing the track.
爱莎坐在大窗外的长椅上，冷得牙齿直打战。妈妈在里面，跟一个声音听上去像是一头鲸鱼的女人说话，至少听上去像是爱莎想象中的鲸鱼的声音。但这也不好说，毕竟爱莎没听过鲸鱼的声音，但那的确很像外婆的留声机——在外婆试图将它改造成某种机器人之后。搞不懂她想造的是哪一种机器人，但不管怎样，最后没成功。后来再放唱片时，那留声机听上去就像是一头鲸鱼了。爱莎在那天下午学会了所有关于黑胶唱片和CD的知识，也明白了为什么老年人看上去有那么多的空闲时间，因为在Spotify[1]出现之前，他们一定把所有的时间都用来更换曲目了。【注：[1]全球最大的正版流媒体音乐服务平台，2008年10月在瑞典首都斯德哥尔摩正式上线，或译为“声破天”。】
And then one morning there is no morning anymore.
然后，有一天，再也没有早晨了。
She tightens her coat collar and her Gryffindor scarf around her chin. The first snow came in the night. Gradually, almost reluctantly. Now it’s so deep you can make snow-angels. Elsa loves doing that.
她紧了紧外套领子，用格兰芬多围巾包住下巴。昨晚下了第一场雪，一片一片，好似不太情愿。现在雪已经积得很深，可以做雪天使[2]了。爱莎喜欢做雪天使。【注：[2]平躺在雪地里，挥动四肢，形成天使的造型。】
In Miamas there are snow-angels all year round. But as Granny constantly reminds Elsa, they are not especially polite. They’re quite arrogant and self-important, in fact, and always complain about the service when they’re eating out at one of the inns. “There’s a right fuss, smelling the wine and all that crap,” snorts Granny.
在密阿玛斯，全年都有雪天使。但外婆一直提醒爱莎，他们不太懂礼貌，还非常高傲自私，每每在饭馆就餐，他们总会抱怨人家的服务。“什么‘忙乱不堪、酒气冲天’之类的废话。”外婆不屑地说。
Elsa holds out her foot and catches the snowflakes on her shoe. She hates sitting on benches outside, waiting for Mum, but she still does it, because the only thing Elsa hates more is sitting inside waiting for Mum.
爱莎伸直腿，用鞋子接雪花。她讨厌坐在室外长椅上等妈妈，但还是这么做了，因为爱莎更讨厌坐在里面等妈妈。
Britt-Marie forced Kent to ring the doorbell of Our Friend’s flat, but no one answered. It just barked so loudly that Kent stumbled into a wall. So Britt-Marie called the police. She has hated Our Friend for a long time. A couple of months ago she went round the house with a petition, to get everyone to sign it so she could send it to the landlord and demand “the eviction of that horrendous hound.”
布里特—玛丽强迫肯特去按“我们的朋友”房间的门铃，但没有人应门。它只是叫得很响很响，吓得肯特撞上了墙。于是，布里特—玛丽就报了警。她已经恨“我们的朋友”很长时间了。几个月前，她带着一份请愿书走遍了整栋楼，想让每个人都签名，然后送交房东，要求“驱逐那只可怕的猎犬”。
She wants to go home. With Granny. It’s as if the whole house is missing Granny now. Not the people living in it, but the actual building. The walls are creaking and whining. And Our Friend has been howling without pause in its flat for two whole nights.
她想回家，和外婆一起。现在，整栋房子都像在思念外婆，不是里面住的人，而是那建筑本身。墙壁嘎吱作响，哀号诉冤。“我们的朋友”则已经在它的公寓里号叫了整整两晚。
“We can’t have dogs in the leaseholders’ association. It’s a question of safety! It’s dangerous for the children, and one must think of the children!” Britt-Marie explained this to everyone in the manner of someone who is concerned about children, although the only children in the house are Elsa and the boy with a syndrome, and Elsa is pretty sure that Britt-Marie is not massively worried about Elsa’s safety.
“租户协会不能让狗待在这栋楼里，这事关安全！对孩子们来说，它很危险，我们必须为孩子们着想！”布里特—玛丽对所有人都这么说，就好像她是最关心孩子的人，然而这里仅有的孩子就是爱莎和生病男孩，而爱莎非常肯定布里特—玛丽不是太在乎爱莎的安全。
The boy with a syndrome lives opposite the terrifying dog, but his mother lightheartedly told Britt-Marie she believed the hound was more bothered by her son than the other way around. Granny couldn’t stop herself laughing when she heard this, but it made Elsa worry about Britt-Marie trying to prohibit children as well.
生病男孩就住在那条凶犬对门，但他的母亲云淡风轻地对布里特—玛丽说，她相信她的儿子应该给那条猎犬造成了更大的麻烦，而不是相反的情况。外婆听到这话，笑个不停，但爱莎却担心布里特—玛丽会想要把孩子们也驱逐出去。
Elsa jumps off the bench and starts traipsing around in the snow, to warm up her feet. Next to the big window where the whale-woman is working there’s a supermarket with a sign outside: MINCEBEEF 49:90. Elsa tries to control herself because her mum is always telling her to control herself. But in the end she takes her red felt-tip pen from her jacket pocket and adds a neat ‘D” and a slash, to show that it should be two words.
爱莎从长椅上一跃而起，在雪地里走来走去，想让自己的脚暖和一点儿。鲸鱼女士工作的大窗户旁有一家超市，外面贴着一张告示：牛肉未49.90。爱莎努力控制住自己，因为妈妈总是要求她有自制力。但最后，她还是从夹克口袋里掏出了红色记号笔，把“未”改成一个工整的“末”。
And Elsa doesn’t know why she gets so scared, but she finds herself fumbling around the bench for a weapon. It’s very odd; she never does that in the real world. In the real world, her first instinct is always to run. Only in Miamas would she reach for her sword, as a knight does when sensing danger. But there are no swords here.
爱莎不知道为什么会如此害怕，但她意识到自己正在长椅附近笨拙地寻找武器。这太奇怪了，她从未在现实世界中这么做过。在现实世界里，她的本能反应总是逃跑。只有在密阿玛斯感受到危险时，她会像一名骑士一样拿起她的剑，但这里没有剑。
The man is standing a distance away. In the shadow of one of the high-rise apartment buildings. She can’t see him clearly, only pick out the red glow of his cigarette between his fingers and the fact that he’s very thin. As if he’s lacking in contours. He stands partially turned away from her, as if he hasn’t even seen her.
有个男人站在远处某栋高层公寓的阴影里。她看不清他的长相，只看见他手指间香烟的红色火光和他消瘦的身形，仿佛他缺乏正常的轮廓。他侧身背对着爱莎，似乎没看见她。
She looks at the result and nods slightly. Then puts the pen back in her pocket and sits down again on the bench. Leans her head back and closes her eyes and feels the cold little feet of the snowflakes landing on her face. When the smell of smoke reaches her nostrils she thinks she’s imagining it. At first it’s even wonderful to feel that acrid smell at the back of her throat and, though Elsa can’t think why, it makes her feel warm and secure. But then she feels something else. Something thumping behind her ribs. Like a warning signal.
她看了看自己的作品，微微点了点头，把笔放回口袋，坐回到长椅上。她向后靠着椅背，闭上眼睛，感受着冷冰冰的雪花片落在脸上。当香烟的气味传入她的鼻孔时，她以为是自己的错觉。一开始，这辛辣的烟味在喉咙深处竟感觉有点儿美妙，虽然爱莎不知道是为什么，但这气味让她觉得温暖安全。然而接下去，她感到有什么东西重重地击打她的胸腔，像是一个警告。
When she looks up again the man is still turned away from her, but she could swear that he’s moved closer. And he’s still in the shade, although he’s moved away from the high-rise. As if the shadow isn’t cast by the house, but by the man himself. Elsa blinks, and when she opens her eyes she no longer thinks the man has moved closer.
她抬起头，那个男人还是背朝她，但她敢发誓他走近了一些。而且他始终站在阴影里，即使远离了那些高楼，就好像阴影不是房子的，而是那男人自身的。爱莎眨了眨眼，再次睁眼时，她不再怀疑那男人是否靠近了。
She knows he has.
他确实走近了。
She slips off the bench and reverses towards the big window, fumbling for the door handle. Stumbles inside. Stands there panting, gasping, trying to calm down. Only when the door closes behind her with a little friendly pling does she understand what she found reassuring about the cigarette smoke.
她从长椅滑下，倒退着走向大窗，摸索门把手，然后跌跌撞撞地进了屋，站在那儿，气喘吁吁，试着让自己冷静下来。当门在她身后发出友善的“砰”的一声，她才明白为什么那香烟气味令她安心。
The man smokes the same tobacco as Granny. Elsa would recognize it anywhere, because Granny used to let her help out with the cigarette rolling, because Granny says that Elsa has “such small fingers, and they’re perfect for these little sods.”
那个男人和外婆抽一样的烟。外婆以前会叫她帮忙卷烟，所以爱莎无论在哪儿都能认出这气味，外婆说爱莎“手指那么小，正好可以对付这些小家伙”。
When she looks out the window she no longer knows where the shadows begin and end. One moment she imagines the man is still standing there on the other side of the street, but then she starts wondering if she actually saw him at all.
她望向窗外，已经分不清阴影的边界。有一瞬间，她想象那个男人依旧站在街对面，但下一秒她就开始怀疑自己是不是真的看见了这么一个人。
Elsa stares, forcing her tiredness away and sliding out of her mother’s grip.
爱莎盯着她的眼睛，努力赶走疲倦，挣开了妈妈的手。
“First I want to talk to Granny!”
“我要先和外婆谈谈。”
“Let’s go home,” Mum whispers softly in her ear.
“我们回家吧。”妈妈温柔地在她耳畔说。
“It’s… darling… I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” whispers Mum.
“这…亲爱的…我觉得这不是个好主意。”妈妈小声说。
Mum looks devastated. Elsa knows that because “devastated” is a word for the word jar. (We’ll get to the word jar later in this story.)
妈妈看上去很绝望。爱莎明白什么是“绝望”，它是生词罐里的一个词 jar。（稍后我们将讨论jar这个词。）
Granny is waiting for her in the middle of the room. There’s a fragrance of lilies, Mum’s favorite flower. Granny doesn’t have any favorite flowers because no plant lives for longer than twenty-four hours in Granny’s flat, and in a fairly rare instance of compliance, possibly also because of the enthusiastic encouragement of her favorite grandchild, Granny has decided it would be bloody unfair to nature for her to have any favorite flowers.
外婆在房间的正中央等着她。有一股百合花的气味，那是妈妈最喜欢的花。外婆没有什么最喜欢的花，因为没有任何植物能在外婆的公寓里存活超过二十四个小时，也可能是因为她最疼爱的外孙女的固执坚持，让她少有地决定顺从。如果外婆有最喜欢的花，那对大自然就太不公平了。
She jumps like a startled animal when Mum’s hands alight on her shoulders. She spins round with wide-open eyes, before her legs give way. Tiredness disarms all her senses once she is in her mother’s arms. She has not slept for two days. Mum’s distended belly is big enough to rest a teacup on. George says it is nature’s way of giving a pregnant woman a break.
妈妈的手落在她的肩膀上时，爱莎像受惊的动物一般跳了起来，趁双腿还没有瘫软，瞪大眼睛转过身，投入妈妈的怀抱，疲倦立刻解除了她的全部武装。她已经两天没有睡觉了。妈妈鼓鼓的肚皮大得可以在上面放一只茶杯。乔治说，这是老天爷让孕妇休息的方式。
But Elsa has already run past the reception desk and into the next room. She can hear the whale-woman yelling behind her, but then she hears her mother’s composed voice asking her to let Elsa go inside.
但爱莎已经跑过服务台，跑去了隔壁的房间。她听到身后鲸鱼女士的大吼，但随后就听见妈妈冷静地说，让爱莎进去。
Granny doesn’t answer. She never answers when she knows that Elsa is right. Elsa stamps more snow off her shoes.
外婆没有回答。每次她知道爱莎是对的，就不答话。爱莎从鞋上抖掉更多的雪。
“I don’t want to be a part of this treasure hunt, it’s idiotic.”
“我不想参加这次寻宝，太白痴了。”
Elsa stands to one side with her hands pushed moodily into her jacket pockets. Defiantly she stamps snow from her shoes onto the floor.
爱莎双手插在夹克口袋里，站在一边，挑衅般地跺着脚，甩掉鞋上的雪。
“YOU are idiotic,” she says cuttingly.
“你就是个大白痴。”她挖苦道。
Granny doesn’t rise to that one either. Elsa sits on the chair next to her and holds out the letter.
外婆也没有起身对这句话做出回应。爱莎坐在她身旁的椅子上，拿出那封信。
“You can take care of this idiotic letter yourself,” she whispers.
“你自己去处理这封白痴信吧。”她小声说。
Two days have gone by since Our Friend started howling. Two days since Elsa was last in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the kingdom of Miamas. No one is being straight with her. All the grown-ups try to wrap it in cotton wool, so it doesn’t sound dangerous or frightening or unpleasant. As if Granny hasn’t been ill. As if the whole thing was an accident. But Elsa knows they’re lying, because Elsa’s granny hasn’t ever been laid low by an accident. Usually it’s the accident that gets laid low by Granny.
从“我们的朋友”开始号叫起，已经过了两天。爱莎也已经两天没去不眠大陆和密阿玛斯王国了。没人对她说实话。所有大人都企图用棉布包裹住这件事，让它听上去不那么危险、可怕、难受，仿佛外婆并没有生病，整件事只是一场事故。但爱莎知道他们在撒谎，因为爱莎的外婆从不会因为一场事故就倒下。通常情况下，都是外婆打败了事故。
This time, though, Granny doesn’t get up. Elsa bangs her fists against the coffin, but Granny doesn’t answer, and Elsa bangs harder and harder as if it’s possible to put right all the things that are wrong by banging. In the end she slips off the chair and sinks onto her knees on the floor and whispers: “Do you know that they’re lying, they say you’ve ‘passed away,’ or, that we’ve ‘lost you?’ No one says ‘dead.’ ”
然而，这一次，外婆没有起身。爱莎用拳头捶打着棺材，但外婆没有回应，爱莎捶得越来越用力，仿佛可以将一切错误都捶到消失。最后，她从椅子上滑下，双膝跪地，轻声说：“你知道吗？他们都在说谎。他们说你‘离开了’，或者说我们‘失去了你’，没人说‘死’。”
And Elsa knows what cancer is. It says all about it on Wikipedia.
而且，爱莎知道癌症是什么。维基百科上全都有。
She gives the edge of the coffin a shove, to get a reaction. Because deep down she’s still hoping this could be one of those occasions when Granny is just pulling her leg. Like that time Granny dressed the snowman so he looked like a real person who’d fallen from the balcony, and Britt-Marie got so furious when she realized it was a joke that she called the police. And the next morning when Britt-Marie looked out the window, she discovered that Granny had made another identical snowman, and then Britt-Marie “went loopy,” as Granny put it, and came charging out with a snow shovel. And then the snowman jumped up and roared, “WAAAAAAAAH!!!” Granny told her afterwards that she’d lain in the snow for hours waiting for Britt-Marie and at least two cats had weed on her in the meantime, “but it was well worth it!” Britt-Marie called the police again, of course, but they said it wasn’t a crime to scare someone.
她推了推棺材的边沿，想得到一个回应。她心底里还抱着一丝希望，这也许是外婆的一个恶作剧。就像那次，外婆给一个雪人穿上衣服，让它看起来像是从阳台上摔下来的真人，布里特—玛丽报了警后才意识到这是场恶作剧，气坏了。而第二天早上，布里特—玛丽从窗户望出去，发现外婆做了另一个一样的雪人，于是就“疯了”——照外婆的话说，拿着把雪铲冲了出来。然后雪人突然一跃而起，大吼：“哇啊啊啊啊啊啊！！！”外婆后来告诉她，自己在雪地里等了布里特—玛丽好几个小时，在那期间起码有两只猫在她身上撒尿。“但太值了！”布里特—玛丽当然又一次报了警，但警察说吓唬人不算是犯罪。
Granny doesn’t answer. Elsa puts her forehead against the lower edge of the coffin. She feels the cold wood against her skin and warm tears on her lips. Then she feels Mum’s soft fingers against her neck, and she turns around and throws her arms around her, and Mum carries her out of there. When she opens her eyes again she’s sitting in Kia, Mum’s car.
外婆没有回答。爱莎用额头抵住棺材下沿，皮肤感受到木头的冰凉，以及嘴边温热的泪水。随后，她感觉到妈妈柔软的手搭在了自己的脖子上，她转过身，抱住妈妈，然后被妈妈带离了房间。当她再次睁开眼睛时，她已经坐在妈妈的起亚车里了。
“I don’t know how to get to Miamas if you’re dead…”
“你死了，我不知道怎么去密阿玛斯…”
Elsa digs her nails into her palms and her whole body trembles.
爱莎的指甲深深地掐进手掌，整个身体颤抖起来。
Mum is standing outside in the snow talking to George on the telephone. Elsa knows she doesn’t want her to hear them talking about the funeral. She’s not an idiot. She’s still got Granny’s letter in her hand. She knows you’re not supposed to read other people’s letters, but she must have read this one a hundred times these last two days. Granny must have known she’d do this, because she’s written the entire letter in symbols that Elsa can’t understand. Using the strange alphabet she saw on the road signs in Granny’s photographs.
妈妈站在车外的雪地上，和乔治打电话。爱莎知道她不想让自己听到他们谈论葬礼。她不傻。她手上还握着外婆的信。她知道不应该看别人的信，但这封，在过去的两天里，她已经读了一百遍。外婆一定知道她会这么做，所以整封信都用爱莎不明白的符号写成。信上的奇怪字母，和外婆照片里路牌上的一样。
Elsa glares at it. Granny always said she and Elsa shouldn’t have any secrets from each other, only secrets together. She’s furious with Granny for the lie, because now Elsa sits here with the greatest secret of them all and she can’t understand a crapping thing. And she knows that if she falls out with Granny at this point it will set a personal record that they can never beat.
爱莎盯着它。外婆总说她和爱莎彼此不应该有秘密，但可以有共同的秘密。她为这谎话感到气愤，因为现在爱莎坐在这儿，手里拿着她们之间最大的秘密，毫无头绪。她知道，如果现在她和外婆吵起来，激烈程度将打破两人之间前所未有的纪录。
It’s one of the few things they really row about, Granny and Elsa, because Elsa thinks letters are something more than just a way of sending messages. Something more important.
这是为数不多她们会真的吵起来的事情。爱莎认为文字不仅仅是一种传达信息的方式，它有更重要的意义。
The ink smudges over the paper when she blinks down at it. Although there are letters that Elsa doesn’t know, Granny has probably misspelled things. When Granny writes, it’s as if she is just scattering words over the page while she’s already mentally on her way somewhere else. It’s not that Granny can’t spell, it’s just that she thinks so fast that the letters and words can’t keep up. And unlike Elsa, Granny can’t see the point of spelling things correctly; anyway she was always better at science and numbers. “You bloody understand what I mean!” she hisses when she passes Elsa secret notes while they’re eating with Mum and George and Elsa adds the dashes and spaces in the right places with her red felt-tip pen.
她低着头眨眨眼睛，晕开的墨水弄脏了信纸。虽然爱莎不认得这些字母，但外婆十有八九拼错了什么。外婆写字时的样子，就像把单词随便撒在纸上，而心思早就不知道跑哪儿去了。不是说外婆不会拼写，只是她脑子转得太快，而字母和单词跟不上。与爱莎相反，外婆完全不重视拼写的正确性，她一向都更擅长理科和数字。和妈妈、乔治吃饭时，外婆给爱莎偷偷传纸条，然后当爱莎拿出她的红笔加上正确的破折号和空格的时候，外婆就会低声呵斥说：“该死的你明白我想说什么！”
The name on the envelope is the same name as the one on The Monster’s mailbox. And the only word Elsa can read in the letter is “Miamas.”
信封上的名字和怪物家投信口上的名字一致。而爱莎唯一认识的单词是“密阿玛斯”。
Or used to. They used to row about it.
或者说，曾经。她们曾经会为这件事争吵。
Granny has always loved treasure hunts.
外婆一直很喜欢寻宝游戏。
There’s only one word in the whole letter that Elsa can read. Just one, which has been written in normal letters, tossed down almost haphazardly in the middle of the text. It’s so anonymous that Elsa didn’t notice it the first time she read it. She reads it again and again until she can’t see it through all her blinking. She feels let down and angry for tens of thousands of reasons and probably another ten thousand she hasn’t even thought of yet. Because she knows it’s not a coincidence. Granny put that word right there so Elsa would see it.
整封信里，爱莎只认得一个词语。只有一个，用正常的字母写的，随意地扔在文本中。它看上去太不起眼，爱莎一开始读的时候都没有注意到。她一遍又一遍地读着它，直到眼中的泪水模糊了视线。有成千个理由让她失望、气愤，也许还有上万个原因她还没想到。她知道这不是一个巧合。外婆就是为了让爱莎看见才在信里写下这个词的。
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