She has a sunny disposition and loves to tell jokes, especially when she is trying to cheer up the people around her. As a child, Elsa lived happily with her mum until her mum fell in love with “Mack the Smack”, a Scottish man whom Elsa dislikes because he is extremely short-tempered and, as the nickname suggests, frequently uses smacking as a punishment. Elsa’s mum married Mack and together they had Pippa, Elsa’s nearly five-year-old sister, and Hank, her infant brother.
Mack has several jobs that only last a certain period of time, which means that the uncertainty surrounding money is always evident to the children. After several house moves, including in with Mack’s mother in Scotland, the family is finally evicted and forced to move in a bed and breakfast hotel ironically named “The Royal Hotel”, which used to be a grand place but has become dirty and poorly maintained by ambivalent staff. Elsa nicknames the hotel “The Oyal Htl” due to the missing lettering on the hotel front.