Because you don’t need to close your eyes to get to the Land-of-Almost-Awake. That’s the whole point of it, sort of thing. You only need to be almost asleep. And in those last few seconds when your eyes are closing, when the mists come rolling in across the boundary between what you think and what you just know, that’s when you set off. You ride into the Land-of-Almost-Awake on the backs of cloud animals, because that’s the only way of getting there. The cloud animals come in through Granny’s balcony door and pick her and Elsa up, and then they fly higher and higher and higher until Elsa sees all the magical creatures that live in the Land-of-Almost-Awake: the enphants and regretters and the Noween and wurses and snow-angels and princes and princesses and knights. The cloud animals soar over the endless dark forests, where Wolfheart and all the other monsters live, then they sweep down through the blindingly bright colors and soft winds to the city gates of the kingdom of Miamas.
到达不眠大陆不需要完全闭上眼睛，这十分关键，你只需要接近于睡着。在即将闭上眼睛的最后几秒钟，迷雾袭来，模糊了意识与感知的边界，那时就可以出发了。你骑着云兽进入不眠大陆，这是去那儿的唯一方法。云兽从外婆的阳台门进入，载着她和爱莎，越飞越高，越飞越高，直到爱莎看见栖息在不眠大陆上的那些神奇生物：蚁象、憾马、诺温、呜嘶、雪天使、王子、公主和骑士。云兽飞过狼心和其他怪兽居住的无边无际的幽暗森林，猛冲过色彩斑斓的天光和轻柔的微风，来到密阿玛斯王国的城门前。
Miamas is Elsa and Granny’s secret kingdom. It is one of six kingdoms in the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Granny came up with it when Elsa was small and Mum and Dad had just got divorced and Elsa was afraid of sleeping because she’d read on the Internet about children who died in their sleep. Granny is good at coming up with things. So when Dad moved out of the flat and everyone was upset and tired, Elsa sneaked out the front door every night and scampered across the landing in her bare feet into Granny’s flat, and then she and Granny crawled into the big wardrobe that never stopped growing, and then they half-closed their eyes and set off.
密阿玛斯是爱莎和外婆的秘密王国，是不眠大陆的六个王国之一。在爱莎更小的时候，爸妈离婚那会儿，她在网上看到有小孩会在睡眠中死去，所以害怕入睡。那时，外婆设想出了这个世界。外婆很擅长出主意。所以，当爸爸搬出公寓，每个人都感到沮丧疲累时，爱莎每晚都会偷偷溜出前门，赤脚跑去外婆的公寓，然后和外婆爬进无限扩展的衣橱中，半闭上眼睛，然后启程。
Mum picked them up at the police station. You could tell that she was very angry, but she was controlled and full of composure and never even raised her voice, because Mum is everything Elsa’s granny is not. Elsa fell asleep almost before she’d fastened her seat belt. By the time they were on the highway, she was already in Miamas.
妈妈来警察局接她们。能看出来她非常生气，但她控制着脾气，保持冷静，甚至连说话都不怎么大声。因为妈妈跟外婆是截然相反的两种人。爱莎在系上安全带之前就几乎睡着了。等她们驶上公路时，她已经在密阿玛斯了。
It’s difficult to say for sure whether Granny is a bit odd because she’s spent too much time in Miamas, or Miamas is a bit odd because Granny’s spent too much time there. But this is the source of all of Granny’s amazing, monstrous, magical fairy tales.
很难说清，到底是因为在密阿玛斯待了太长时间让外婆变得有点儿古怪，还是因为外婆在那儿待了太长时间让密阿玛斯变得有点儿古怪。不管怎么说，它是外婆所有精彩、可怕、神奇的童话故事的来源。
Granny says that the kingdom has been called Miamas for an eternity of at least ten thousand fairy tales, but Elsa knows that Granny only made this up because Elsa couldn’t say “pajamas” when she was small and used to say “mjamas” instead. Except of course Granny insists that she never made up a bloody thing and Miamas and the other five kingdoms in the Land-of-Almost-Awake are not only real, but actually far more real than the world we’re in now, where “everyone is an economist and drinks lactose-free milk and makes a right fuss.” Granny isn’t particularly good at living in the real world. There are too many rules. She cheats when she plays Monopoly and drives Renault in the bus lane and steals those yellow carrier bags from IKEA and won’t stand behind the line when she’s at the conveyor belt at the airport. And when she goes to the bathroom she leaves the door open.
外婆说，很久很久之前这个王国就被称为密阿玛斯，起码有“一万个童话永恒”那么久，但爱莎知道这个名字是外婆瞎编的。当然外婆坚称她从未瞎编过任何东西，密阿玛斯和另外五个王国不仅是真实的，而且远比我们现在身处的这个“人人都是经济学家、喝无乳糖牛奶、喜欢大惊小怪”的世界更加真实。外婆不太擅长在真实世界生活。条条框框太多了。她玩大富翁的时候作弊，在公交车道上驾驶雷诺，从宜家偷黄色购物袋，在机场的行李转盘取行李时从来不站在线外等待，上厕所也总是不关门。
All fairy tales that are worth something come from Miamas, says Granny. The other five kingdoms in the Land-of-Almost-Awake are busy doing other things: Mirevas is the kingdom where they stand guard over dreams, Miploris is the kingdom where they store all sorrow, Mimovas is where music comes from, Miaudacas is where courage comes from, and Mibatalos is the kingdom where the bravest warriors, who fought against the fearsome shadows in the War-Without-End, were raised.
外婆说，所有有价值的故事都来自密阿玛斯。不眠大陆的其余五个王国都忙于其他事情：密瑞瓦斯守护梦想，密普洛瑞斯存储哀伤，密莫瓦斯是音乐的发源地，密奥达卡斯是勇气的故乡，而最英勇的战士都在密巴塔洛斯长大，正是他们在无尽战争中对抗那些可怕的暗影。
But Miamas is Granny and Elsa’s favorite kingdom, because there storytelling is considered the noblest profession of all. The currency there is imagination; instead of buying something with coins, you buy it with a good story. Libraries aren’t known as libraries but as “banks,” and every fairy tale is worth a fortune. Granny spends millions every night: tales full of dragons and trolls and kings and queens and witches. And shadows. Because all imaginary worlds have to have terrible enemies, and in the Land-of-Almost-Awake the enemies are the shadows, because the shadows want to kill the imagination. And if we’re going to talk about shadows, we must mention Wolfheart. He was the one who defeated the shadows in the War-Without-End. He was the first and greatest superhero Elsa ever heard about.
密阿玛斯是外婆和爱莎最喜欢的王国，因为在那里，讲故事是最高尚的职业；货币是“想象”，买东西时不用钱币而是用一个好故事来交换；图书馆不是图书馆，是“银行”，每个童话故事都值一大笔钱。外婆每天晚上一掷千金：讲述许多关于龙、巨怪、国王、皇后和女巫的故事，当然还有暗影。所有幻想世界都必须有可怕的敌人，在不眠大陆，那敌人便是暗影。因为暗影想要除掉想象力。说起暗影，就不得不提到狼心。他就是在无尽战争中击败暗影的人。他是爱莎听说过的第一位也是最伟大的超级英雄。
But she does tell the very best fairy tales ever, and for that Elsa can forgive quite a few character defects.
然而，她却能讲出最精彩的童话故事，因此爱莎原谅了她的大部分性格缺陷。
Elsa was knighted in Miamas; she gets to ride cloud animals and have her own sword. She hasn’t once been afraid to fall asleep since Granny started taking her there each night. Because in Miamas no one says girls can’t be knights, and the mountains reach up to the sky, and the campfires never go out, and no one tries to shred your Gryffindor scarf.
爱莎在密阿玛斯被封为骑士，她可以骑乘云兽并拥有自己的佩剑。自从外婆开始每晚带她去密阿玛斯，她再也没有害怕过入睡。因为在密阿玛斯，没有人说女孩不能当骑士，群山高耸至天际，营火从不熄灭，也没有人会来扯破你的格兰芬多围巾。
Of course, Granny also says that no one in Miamas closes the door when they go to the bathroom. An open-door policy is more or less legally enforceable in every situation across the Land-of-Almost-Awake. But Elsa is pretty sure she is describing another version of the truth there. That’s what Granny calls lies: “other versions of the truth.” So when Elsa wakes up in a chair in Granny’s room at the hospital the next morning, Granny is on the toilet with the door open, while Elsa’s mum is in the hall, and Granny is in the midst of telling another version of the truth. It’s not going all that well. The real truth, after all, is that Granny escaped from the hospital last night and Elsa sneaked out of the flat while Mum and George were sleeping, and they went to the zoo together in Renault, and Granny climbed the fence. Elsa quietly admits to herself that it now seems a little irresponsible to have done all this with a seven-year-old in the middle of the night.
当然，外婆还说，在密阿玛斯，人们上厕所时从不关门。在不眠大陆，任何情况下保持门户开放，或多或少都算是一项法定的强制性政策。但爱莎很确定她是在描述“真相的另一种版本”。外婆就是这么形容谎言的——真相的另一种版本。所以，当爱莎在外婆房间的椅子上醒来时，外婆正坐在马桶上，厕所大门敞开，而妈妈则在门厅，听外婆说着“真相的另一种版本”。这情况可不太妙。说到底，真正的真相，是外婆昨晚从医院偷跑出来，而爱莎趁妈妈和乔治睡觉时溜出了公寓，她们一起开着雷诺去了动物园，然后外婆翻过了围墙。爱莎自己也不得不承认，外婆大半夜带一个七岁小孩干这些事，现在看起来的确有些不负责任。
“This is one of the worst things you’ve done,” Mum calls out grimly towards the bathroom.
“这算得上是你干过最糟糕的事情了。”妈妈严肃地朝厕所喊道。
Granny, whose clothes are lying in a pile on the floor and still very literally smelling a bit monkey-ish, is claiming that when she was climbing the fence by the monkey cage and the guard shouted at her, she thought he could have been a “lethal rapist,” and this was why she started throwing muck at him and the police. Mum shakes her head in a very controlled way and says Granny is making all this up. Granny doesn’t like it when people say that things are made-up, and reminds Mum she prefers the less derogatory term “reality-challenged.” Mum clearly disagrees but controls herself. Because she is everything that Granny isn’t.
外婆的衣服在地上堆成一堆，闻上去还真有一点儿猴子的气味。她正在宣称，自己翻过猴笼的围墙时，保安冲她大喊。她以为他可能是个“杀人强奸犯”，所以才朝他和警察扔脏东西。妈妈用一种很有自制力的方式摇着头，说外婆在胡编乱造。外婆不喜欢别人说什么“胡说八道”之类的话，提醒妈妈说，她更喜欢另一种不那么贬义的说法——“重新解读事实”。妈妈明确表示不同意，但仍保持冷静。因为她与外婆恰恰相反。
Mum responds by methodically running through all the trouble Granny has caused. Granny says the only reason she’s getting so worked up is that she doesn’t have a sense of humor. And then Mum says Granny should stop behaving like an irresponsible child. And then Granny says: “Do you know where pirates park their cars?” And when Mum doesn’t answer, Granny yells from the toilet, “In a gAAARRRage!” Mum just sighs, massages her temples, and closes the bathroom door. This makes Granny really, really, really angry because she doesn’t like feeling enclosed when she’s on the toilet.
妈妈一条条细数着外婆惹过的麻烦。外婆则说，妈妈之所以神经这么紧张，是因为她没有幽默感。然后妈妈又说，外婆不应该再表现得像个不负责任的孩子。接着外婆说：“你知道海盗们把他们的车停哪里吗？”见妈妈没有回答，外婆在厕所里大喊：“车呃呃呃呃呃呃呃呃呃——库！”妈妈只是叹了口气，揉揉她的太阳穴，关上厕所门。这让外婆非常、非常、非常生气，因为她不喜欢上厕所时有被隔绝的感觉。
“I find that very, very unlikely, my dear daughter,” Granny answers from within, unconcerned.
“我认为那绝对不可能，我亲爱的女儿。”外婆在里面漫不经心地回答道。
A nurse comes into the room and quietly asks for a moment of Mum’s time. She gives Mum a piece of paper and Mum writes something on it and returns it, and then the nurse leaves. Granny has had nine different nurses since she was admitted. Seven of these she refused to cooperate with, and two refused to cooperate with her, one of them because Granny said he had a “nice ass.” Granny insists it was a compliment to his ass, not to him, and he shouldn’t make such a fuss about it. Then Mum told Elsa to put on her headphones, but Elsa still heard their argument about the difference between “sexual harassment” and “basic appreciation of a perfectly splendid ass.”
一位护士走进房间，轻声要求和妈妈说几句话。她给了妈妈一张纸，妈妈在上面写了些东西然后递回去，接着护士便离开了。自从住院之后，负责照顾外婆的护士换了九位。其中七位，外婆拒绝配合他们，而另两位拒绝迁就外婆，其中一位是因为外婆说他有个“漂亮的屁股”。外婆坚称，这是对他屁股的赞美，不是针对他，他不应该大惊小怪的。这时，妈妈叫爱莎戴上耳机，但爱莎依旧可以听见她们的争吵，关于“性骚扰”和“对于一个漂亮屁股的基本欣赏”之间的区别。
She’s been in the hospital for two weeks now, but absconds almost every day and picks up Elsa, and they have ice cream or go to the flat when Mum isn’t home and make a soapsud slide on the landing. Or break into zoos. Basically whatever appeals to her, whenever. But Granny doesn’t consider this an “escape” in the proper sense of the word, because she believes there has to be some basic aspect of challenge to the whole thing if it’s to count as an escape — a dragon or a series of traps or at least a wall and a respectably sized moat, and so on. Mum and the hospital staff don’t quite agree with her on this point.
如今，她已经住院两周了，但几乎每天都偷溜出去，接爱莎下课，一起去吃冰激凌，或者趁妈妈不在家的时候回公寓，在楼道间做一个肥皂滑道，或者闯进动物园。基本上，她想干什么就干什么。但是外婆觉得这严格来说不算是“逃跑”，因为她相信“逃跑”这整件事应该包括一些挑战：一头龙、一连串陷阱，或者至少一堵高墙和一条足够深的壕沟，诸如此类。妈妈和医院职工在这点上不怎么赞同她。
Basically, Mum is orderly and Granny is chaotic. Elsa once read that “Chaos is God’s neighbor,” but Mum said if Chaos had moved onto God’s landing it was only because Chaos couldn’t put up with living next door to Granny anymore.
总之，妈妈秩序井然，而外婆一团混乱。爱莎曾经读到过“混乱是上帝的邻居”，但妈妈说如果混乱搬到了上帝的领地上，那只会是因为混乱本人再也受不了与外婆为邻。
They argue a lot, Mum and Granny. They’ve been arguing for as long as Elsa can remember. About everything. If Granny is a dysfunctional superhero, then Mum is very much a fully operational one. Their interaction is a bit like Cyclops and Wolverine in X-Men, Elsa often thinks, and whenever she has those types of thoughts she wishes she had someone around who could understand what she means. People around Elsa don’t read enough quality literature and certainly don’t understand that X-Men comics count as precisely that. To such philistines Elsa would explain, very slowly, that X-Men are indeed superheroes, but first and foremost they are mutants, and there is a certain academic difference. Anyway, without putting too fine a point on it, she would sum it up by saying that Granny’s and Mum’s superhero powers are in direct opposition. As if Spider-Man, one of Elsa’s favorite superheroes, had an antagonist called Slip-Up Man whose superpower was that he couldn’t even climb onto a bench. But in a good way.
妈妈和外婆，她们经常争吵。从爱莎记事起，她们就从未停歇，每件事都吵。如果外婆是一个功能失调的超级英雄，那么妈妈就是彻彻底底完美运作的英雄。她们的交流模式有一点儿像《X战警》里的镭射眼和金刚狼，爱莎经常这样想。每当她有这种想法时，她都希望身边有人能懂得她的意思。爱莎周围的人对于好书都读得太少，肯定也都不明白《X战警》漫画完全算得上是其中之一。对那些凡夫俗子，爱莎会很耐心地解释给他们听，X战警的确是超级英雄，但首要一点，他们是变种人，这在学术上有明确的区别。简而言之，外婆和妈妈的超级英雄能力截然相反。就比如蜘蛛侠——爱莎最喜欢的超级英雄之一——有一个对手叫“阻滞人”，他的超能力是他连一张长椅都爬不上去——从积极的角度来看。
Perfection is Mum’s superpower. She’s not as much fun as Granny, but on the other hand she always knows where Elsa’s Gryffindor scarf is. “Nothing is ever really gone until your mum can’t find it,” Mum often whispers into Elsa’s ear when she’s wrapping it around her neck.
完美是妈妈的超能力。她不像外婆那么有趣，但另一方面她总是知道爱莎的格兰芬多围巾在哪儿。“除非连你妈妈都找不到，否则没什么东西会真的不见了。”每当妈妈将围巾戴在爱莎脖子上时，外婆总会这么说。
Mum has files and calendars for everything and her telephone plays a little jingle fifteen minutes before she has a meeting. Granny writes down things she needs to remember directly on the wall. And not only when she’s at home, but on any wall, wherever she is. It’s not a perfect system, because in order to remember a particular task she needs to be in exactly the same place where she wrote it down. When Elsa pointed out this flaw, Granny replied indignantly, “There’s still a smaller risk of me losing a kitchen wall than your mother losing that poxy telephone!” But then Elsa pointed out that Mum never lost anything. And then Granny rolled her eyes and sighed: “No, no, but your mother is the exception, of course. It only applies to… you know… people who aren’t perfect.”
妈妈为所有事务都设置了文件夹和日程表，她的手机总会在会议开始前的十五分钟响起一声小小的叮当提醒音。外婆把自己需要记住的事情直接写在墙上。不仅仅在家这样，在任何墙上都写，不管她在哪里。这不是一个完美的方法，因为为了想起一个特定事项，她必须回到写下这件事的同一地点。当爱莎指出这个缺陷时，外婆愤然回答道：“我弄丢一面厨房墙的概率总比你妈搞丢她那部破手机小得多！”然而，随后爱莎就指出，妈妈从不弄丢任何东西。听到这话，外婆翻个白眼，叹口气：“对，对，当然你妈是个例外。这个逻辑只适用于…你知道的…不那么完美的人。”
Elsa’s mum is the boss. “Not just a job, but a lifestyle,” Granny often snorts. Mum is not someone you go with, she’s someone you follow. Whereas Elsa’s granny is more the type you’re dodging rather than following, and she never found a scarf in her life.
爱莎的妈妈是领导者。“不仅在工作上，也在生活方式上。”外婆常常不屑地说。妈妈不是那种会和你相伴而行的人，而是更习惯被人追随。反之，爱莎的外婆却是你避之不及的那种类型，她这辈子从未找到过一条消失的围巾。
Granny doesn’t like bosses, which is a particular problem at this hospital, because Mum is even more of a boss here. Because she is the boss here.
外婆不喜欢那些当老板的人，在这家医院时问题尤为严重，因为妈妈在这儿表现得更加像个老板。因为她就是这里的老板。
“Hello? A little privacy, perhaps?”
“有事吗？给点儿隐私，好吗？”
“You’re overreacting, Ulrika, good God!” Granny calls out through the bathroom door just as another nurse comes in, and Mum again writes on a bit of paper and mentions some numbers. Mum gives her a controlled smile; the nurse smiles back nervously. And then things go silent inside the bathroom for a long while and Mum suddenly looks anxious, as one does when things go quiet around Granny for too long. And then she sniffs the air and pulls the door open. Granny is sitting naked on the toilet seat with her legs comfortably crossed. She waves her smoldering cigarette at Mum.
“你太大惊小怪了，乌尔莉卡，天啊！”外婆透过厕所门大吼时，另一个护士进屋，妈妈再次在几张纸上写写画画，还说了一些数字。妈妈以她那克制的方式笑了笑，护士紧张地回以微笑。然后厕所里安静了好一阵子，妈妈突然看上去很焦虑，当外婆周围突然安静下来时，人们都会有这样的反应。她深吸了口气，然后拉开了厕所门。外婆全裸坐在马桶上，舒适地跷着二郎腿。她冲妈妈挥了挥点燃的香烟。
Mum massages her temples again, takes a deep breath, and rests her hand on her belly. Granny nods intently at her, waving her cigarette at the bump.
妈妈又按了按太阳穴，做了个深呼吸，然后双手放在肚子上。外婆热切地朝她点头，挥着香烟，指向妈妈鼓起的肚子。
“Does it not occur to you how dangerous that is for the baby, not to mention Elsa?” Mum says, pointing at the cigarette.
“你从来没有想过那个东西对我肚子里的孩子，还有爱莎，有多危险吗？”妈妈指着香烟说。
“You know stress isn’t good for my new grandchild. Remember you’re worrying for two now!”
“你知道的，压力对我的新外孙可不好。记着你现在可是两个人呢！”
“I’m not the one who seems to have forgotten,” replies Mum curtly.
“好像不是我忘记了这件事吧。”妈妈的回答很简短。
“Did they have cigarettes back then?” asks Elsa.
“他们那时有香烟吗？”爱莎问。
“Touché,” Granny mumbles and inhales deeply. (That’s one of those words Elsa understands without even having to know what it means.)
“说得好。”外婆咕哝着，深深吸了口烟。（这是艾尔莎理解的一个词，甚至不必知道它的意思。）
Mum puts her hand on her belly. Elsa is unsure if she’s doing it because Halfie is kicking in there or because she wants to cover her/his ears. Mum is Halfie’s mum but George is Halfie’s dad, so Halfie is Elsa’s half sibling. Or she/he will be, anyway. She/he will be a proper full-size human; a half sibling, but not in any way half a person, Elsa has been promised. She had a couple of confused days until she understood the difference. “Considering how smart you are, you can certainly be a bit of a thickie sometimes,” Granny burst out when Elsa asked her about it. And then they bickered for nearly three hours, which was almost a new bickering record for them.
妈妈把手放在腹部。爱莎不确定她这么做是为了什么，是因为“小半”在里头踢腿，还是因为她想捂住她／他的耳朵。妈妈是“小半”的妈妈，乔治是“小半”的爸爸，所以“小半”是——或者说将会是——爱莎同母异父的妹妹／弟弟。她／他将会是一个完整的人，虽说与爱莎有一半的相同血缘，但绝不是一半的人，爱莎听到的是这样的保证。她在明白两者的区别前，疑惑了好一段日子。“作为一个聪明孩子，你有时候还真有点儿蠢。”爱莎问外婆时，外婆爆发出一阵大笑。然后她们吵了将近三个小时，几乎是她们之间吵架的最长纪录了。
“Don’t make such a fuss! People have been smoking since the dawn of time and there have been perfectly healthy babies born the whole way through. Your generation forgets that humanity has lived for thousands of years without allergy tests and crap like that before you showed up and started thinking you were so important. When we were living in caves, do you think they used to put mammoth skins through a scalding-hot machine-wash program?”
“别大惊小怪的！老早之前人们就开始抽烟了，到现在为止，还是有许多健康得不得了的孩子出生。你这一代人忘记了，在没有过敏测试和其他什么狗屁玩意儿之前，人类已经活了上千年，直到你们出现，开始觉得自己如此重要。人类还住在洞穴里时，你以为他们洗猛犸皮的时候，会用到什么三十二度温水机洗模式吗？”
Granny says, “Don’t you start.”
“你别来找碴儿。”外婆说。
“I only wanted to show her the monkeys, Ulrika,” mumbles Granny as she extinguishes the cigarette in the sink.
“我只是想让她看看猴子，乌尔莉卡。”外婆一边小声嘟囔，一边将烟在水槽中熄灭。
“I don’t have the energy for this…” Mum answers with resignation, although she’s absolutely controlled about it, and then goes into the corridor to sign a piece of paper covered in numbers.
“我没有精力跟你吵这些…”妈妈无奈地回应，但她绝对在控制自己的脾气，随后去走廊签一张写满数字的文件。
Mum disappears down the corridor, her head buried in her phone, while Elsa climbs into Granny’s bed so they can play Monopoly. Granny steals money from the bank and, when Elsa catches her out, also steals the car so she can skip town. After a while Mum comes back looking tired and tells Elsa they have to go home now, because Granny has to rest. And Elsa hugs Granny for a long, long, long time.
妈妈打着电话消失在走廊，爱莎爬上了外婆的床，一起玩大富翁。外婆从银行偷钱，当爱莎逮住她时，她又偷了车好逃出城。过了一会儿，妈妈回来了，看上去很累，她对爱莎说，她们现在得回家了，因为外婆必须休息。爱莎抱着外婆，抱了很长很长时间。
Granny really did want to show Elsa the monkeys. They’d been arguing on the phone last night about whether there was a certain type of monkey that slept standing up. Granny was wrong, of course, because it said on Wikipedia and everything. And then Elsa had mentioned the scarf and what had happened at school, which was when Granny decided that they were going to the zoo, and Elsa sneaked out while Mum and George were sleeping.
外婆的确只是想让爱莎看看猴子。前一天晚上，她们在电话中争论，是否有一种特殊的猴子会站着睡觉。外婆当然错了，因为维基百科和其他地方都写得很清楚。后来爱莎提到围巾还有学校的事，外婆就决定去动物园，爱莎便趁妈妈和乔治睡觉时溜了出去。
“Probably tomorrow!” Granny promises chirpily.
“也许明天！”外婆轻快地保证。
Because that is what she always says. And then she pushes the hair out of Elsa’s eyes, and when Mum disappears into the corridor again, Granny suddenly looks very serious and says in their secret language: “I have an important assignment for you.”
因为她总是这么说。她拨开爱莎眼睛前的头发，妈妈又一次消失在走廊，外婆突然严肃地用她们的秘密语言说：“我有一项很重要的任务交给你。”
“When are you coming home?” asks Elsa.
“你什么时候回家？”爱莎问。
Granny reaches down next to the bed and picks up a big plastic bag from the floor. There are no cigarettes or meat in it. Just sweets.
外婆伸手从地上拎起一只大塑料袋，里面没有香烟或肉，只有糖果。
Elsa nods, because Granny always gives her assignments in the secret language, only spoken by initiates of the Land-of-Almost-Awake. Elsa always gets them done. Because that is what a knight of Miamas has to do. Anything except buying cigarettes or frying meat, which is where Elsa draws the line. Because they make her feel sick. Even knights have to have certain principles.
爱莎点点头，因为外婆总是用只有不眠大陆的人才使用的秘密语言给她交代任务，而爱莎总是能完成任务。因为那是密阿玛斯骑士的责任，除了买烟和炸肉块——这是爱莎的底线，这两件事让她犯恶心。即使是骑士也有特定的原则。
“You have to give the chocolate to Our Friend.”
“把这些巧克力给‘我们的朋友’。”
It takes a few seconds before Elsa understands exactly what friend she is referring to. And she stares at Granny with alarm.
爱莎花了几秒钟才明白她具体指的是哪位朋友。她警惕地看着外婆。
Elsa gives her an offended glare.
爱莎瞪了她一眼，满是受到冒犯后的怒气。
Elsa looks into the bag again.
爱莎又朝袋子里看了一眼。
“Course he knows! Good God. Just tell him your granny sends her regards and says she’s sorry.”
“它当然认识！天啊。告诉它，你的外婆向它问好并向它道歉。”
“He doesn’t know me, though…”
“可是它不认识我…”
Granny snorts so loudly that it sounds as if she’s blowing her nose.
外婆嗤之以鼻，发出的声响像在擤鼻涕。
Elsa peers sulkily into the bag.
爱莎不高兴地朝袋子里看了看。
Granny rolls her eyes.
外婆翻了个白眼。
“For not bringing him any sweets for days and days,” Granny replies, as if this was the most natural thing in the world.
“因为好多天都没给它送糖果了。”外婆回答得好像那是世界上最自然的事。
“Have you gone MAD? You want me to DIE?”
“你疯了吗？你想让我去死吗？”
“Very mature of you to say ‘mature.’ ”
“能说出‘成熟’这个词，你也真够成熟的。”
“Sorry for what?”
“为什么道歉？”
“That’s very mature of you to threaten me with that.”
“用这个来威胁我，你可真够成熟的。”
Elsa snatches up the plastic bag. It’s full of small, crinkly packets of Daim chocolate. Granny says, “It’s important that you remove the wrapper from each piece. Otherwise he gets cross.”
爱莎抓过塑料袋，里面装满了皱巴巴的小包代姆巧克力。外婆说：“你必须把每一块的包装纸都去掉，这很重要。否则它会发脾气的。”
Elsa raises her eyebrows.
爱莎抬了抬眉。
“It’s irresponsible to send out your only grandchild on a mission like this, Granny. It’s insane. He could actually kill me.”
“你让唯一的外孙女去完成这样的任务很不负责任。简直疯了。它真的可能会杀了我的。”
“Don’t faff about. Are you telling me a knight of Miamas is too scared to complete a quest?”
“别小题大做。你是想说，一位密阿玛斯的骑士害怕完成一项小小的任务吗？”
Granny grins; Elsa can’t help but grin back. Granny lowers her voice.
外婆咧嘴一笑，爱莎不自觉地也笑了。外婆压低了嗓门。
“Stop faffing about yourself!”
“你自己别小题大做！”
“You have to give Our Friend the chocolate secretly. Britt-Marie mustn’t see. Wait till they have that residents’ meeting tomorrow evening and then sneak over to him.”
“你必须偷偷地把巧克力给‘我们的朋友’，不能让布里特—玛丽看见。明天傍晚趁他们开居民会议的时候，悄悄溜去找它。”
Granny never says “good-bye,” only “see you.”
外婆从不说“再见”，只说“回见”。
Elsa nods, though she’s terrified of Our Friend and still thinks it’s pretty irresponsible to send a seven-year-old on such a perilous mission. But Granny grabs her fingers and squeezes them in her hands like she always does, and it’s difficult to be afraid when someone does that. They hug again.
爱莎点点头，虽然她害怕“我们的朋友”，也觉得外婆让一个七岁小孩去执行这么危险的任务很不负责任，但外婆抓着爱莎的手指，握得紧紧的，正像她通常会做的那样。当有人对你这么做时，你很难感到害怕。她们再一次拥抱。
“Stop faffing about.”
“别小题大做。”
“See you, oh proud knight of Miamas,” Granny whispers in her ear.
“回见，密阿玛斯的光荣骑士。”外婆在她耳边轻语。
While Elsa is putting on her jacket in the hall she hears Mum and Granny talking about “the treatment.” And then Mum tells Elsa to listen to her headphones. And that’s what Elsa does. She put the headphones on her wish list last Christmas and was very particular about Mum and Granny splitting the cost, because it was only fair.
爱莎在走廊穿外套时，听见妈妈和外婆在说什么“治疗”的事。但妈妈马上就让爱莎戴上耳机。爱莎照做。这副耳机是她去年圣诞愿望单上的礼物，而且她特别要求妈妈和外婆各出一半钱，因为这才公平嘛。
And it’s a very suitable name, because Granny’s Renault is old and rusty and French and when you change gears it makes an ungodly racket, like an old Frenchman with a cough. Elsa knows that because sometimes when Granny is driving Renault while smoking and eating a kebab, she only has her knees to steer with, and then she stamps on the clutch and shouts “NOW!” and then Elsa has to change gear.
这名字很适合它，因为外婆的雷诺又老又破，而且还是法国产的，换挡时会发出一阵粗鲁的嘈杂声，就像是个法国老头在咳嗽。爱莎知道这一点是因为，外婆偶尔会在开车时一边抽烟一边吃烤肉，只用膝盖控制方向盘。如果她踩下离合器并大喊“就现在”！爱莎必须马上换挡。
The last thing she hears is Granny asking when she can pick up Renault at the police station. Renault is Granny’s car. Granny says she won it in a game of poker. It obviously should be “a” Renault, but Elsa learned that the car was a Renault when she was small, before she understood that there were other cars with the same name. So she still says “Renault” as if it’s a name.
她听见的最后一件事是外婆问什么时候才能去警察局取回雷诺。雷诺是外婆的车，外婆说她是在一场扑克牌局中赢来的。它显然应该被称作“一辆”雷诺，但在爱莎明白还有很多辆车也使用这个名字之前，她只知道这辆车是雷诺，所以她仍旧叫它“雷诺”，就好像这是它的名字。
Whenever Mum and Granny start arguing, Elsa turns up the volume and pretends they’re both actresses in a silent movie. Elsa is the sort of child who learned early in life that it’s easier to make your way if you get to choose your own soundtrack.
每当妈妈和外婆开始争吵，爱莎就调大音量，假装她们都是无声电影里的演员。爱莎很小就学会，如果自己选择音轨，生活就会变得好过些。
Elsa misses doing that.
爱莎很想念那么干的时光。
Elsa waits by the lift. She doesn’t like needles, irrespective of whether they’re being stuck into her own arm or Granny’s. She sits reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the iPad for about the twelfth time. It’s the Harry Potter book she likes the least; that’s why she’s read it so few times.
爱莎等在电梯旁。她不喜欢针头，不论它们是扎进自己的手臂还是外婆的。她在平板电脑上读《哈利·波特与凤凰社》，这本书她差不多读了十二遍。这是她最不喜欢的一本“哈利·波特系列”的书，所以她才读了这么少的次数。
Only when Mum comes to get her and they’re about to go down to the car does Elsa remember that she’s left her Gryffindor scarf in the hall outside Granny’s room. So she runs back.
直到妈妈来找她，打算一起下楼去车上时，爱莎才想起来，她把格兰芬多围巾落在外婆病房外的走廊了。于是她跑了回去。
Mum tells Granny that she won’t be able to go and pick up Renault. Granny protests that it’s actually her car; Mum just reminds her that it’s illegal to drive without a license. And then Granny calls Mum “young lady” and tells her she’s got drivers’ licenses in six countries. Mum asks in a restrained voice if one of these countries happens to be the one they live in, after which Granny goes into a sulk while a nurse takes some blood from her.
妈妈告诉外婆，她不能去取雷诺。外婆抗议说那是她的车。但妈妈只是提醒她，无照驾驶是违法的。然后外婆称妈妈是“小姑娘”，对她说自己有六个国家的驾驶执照。一位护士抽了点儿外婆的血，外婆大发雷霆后，妈妈用冷静的声音问，那其中有没有一张驾照正巧是她们生活的这个国家的。
Granny is sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to the door, talking on the phone. She doesn’t see her, and Elsa realizes Granny is talking to her lawyer, because she’s instructing him about what sort of beer she wants the next time he comes to the hospital. Elsa knows that the lawyer smuggles in the beer in large encyclopedias. Granny says she needs them for her “research,” but in fact they are hollowed out inside with beer-bottle-shaped slots. Elsa takes her scarf from the hook and is just about to call out to Granny when she hears Granny’s voice fill with emotion as she says, into the telephone: “She’s my grandchild, Marcel. May the heavens bless her little head. I’ve never met such a good and clever girl. The responsibility must be left to her. She’s the only one who can make the right decision.”
外婆背对着门口，坐在床沿上，讲着电话。她没有看见爱莎，爱莎意识到外婆正在跟她的律师通话，因为她正在给出指示，跟他说下次来医院的时候该带哪种啤酒。爱莎知道，律师会用大百科全书做掩护，偷偷带酒进来。外婆说她需要那些书来做“研究”，但其实那些书的书芯都被挖空成了啤酒瓶的形状。爱莎从钩子上取下围巾，打算开口叫外婆时，听见外婆对着电话情绪激动地说：“她是我的外孙女，马塞尔。老天保佑她那小脑袋。我从没见过这么善良和聪明的女孩。这责任只能落在她身上，只有她才能做出正确的选择。”
There’s silence for a moment. And then Granny goes on determinedly: “I KNOW she’s only a child, Marcel! But she’s a damn sight smarter than all the other fools put together! And this is my will and you’re my lawyer. Just do what I say.”
片刻安静之后，外婆继续坚定地说：“我知道她只是个孩子，马塞尔！但她比其他那些蠢货加起来还要聪明得多！而且这是我的遗嘱，你是我的律师，就按我说的做。”
Elsa stands in the hall holding her breath. And only when Granny says, “Because I don’t WANT TO tell her yet! Because all seven-year-olds deserve superheroes!”– only then does Elsa turn to quietly slip away, her Gryffindor scarf damp with tears.
爱莎站在走廊上，屏住呼吸，当外婆说到“因为我不想现在就告诉她！因为所有七岁小孩都应该有一位超级英雄！”时，爱莎才转身悄悄地溜走，泪水打湿了她的格兰芬多围巾。
And the last thing she hears Granny say on the telephone is: “I don’t want Elsa to know that I am going to die because all seven-year-olds deserve superheroes, Marcel. And one of their superpowers ought to be that they can’t get cancer.”
她听见外婆对电话说的最后一件事是：“我不想让爱莎知道我快死了，因为所有七岁小孩都应该拥有一位超级英雄，马塞尔，而且他们理应具备的一项超能力，就是不会得癌症。”
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