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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“They do it,” Louis began and heard the thickness in his own voice, “to honor the dead, Ellie.” He pulledout the knob that turned on the wagon’s headlights. “Come on.”They were going home at last, the graveside ceremony over— actually it was held at the small MountHope Chapel; no grave would be dug for Norma until spring—when Ellie suddenly burst into tears.Louis glanced at her, surprised but not particularly alarmed. “Ellie, what is it?”“No more cookies,” Ellie sobbed. “She made the best oatmeal cookies I ever ate. But she won’t makethem anymore because she’s dead. Daddy, why do people have to be dead?”“I don’t really know,” Louis said. “To make room for all the new people, I guess. Little people like youand your brother Gage.”“I’m never going to get married or do sex and have babies!” Ellie declared, crying harder than ever.“Then maybe it’ll never happen to me! It’s awful! It’s rn-rn-mean!”“But it’s an end to suffering,” Louis said quietly. “And as a doctor I see a lot of suffering. One of thereasons I wanted the job at the university was because I got sick of looking at it day in and day out.Young people quite often have pain. . . bad pain, evenbut that’s not quite the same as suffering.”He paused.“Believe it or not, honey, when people get very old, deathdoesn’t always look so bad or so scary as it seems to you. And you have years and years and years aheadof you.”Ellie cried, and then she sniffed, and then she stopped. Before they got home, she asked if she could playthe radio. Louis said yes, and she found Shakin’ Stevens singing “This Ole House” on WACZ. Soon shewas singing along. When they got home she went to her mother and prattled about the funeral; toRachel’s credit, she listened quietly, sympathetically, and supportivelyalthough Louis thought she looked pale and thoughtful.Then Ellie asked her if she knew how to make oatmeal cookies, and Rachel put away the piece ofknitting she’d been doing and rose at once, as if she had been waiting for this or something like it.“Yes,” she said. “Want to make a batch?”file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (172 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM