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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmthing had been a hideous nightmare, like his dream of Pascow leading him into the woods, and for amoment his tired mind grasped at it. The shadows helped—there was only the shifting light of theportable TV that Jud had taken up for her to pass the hours. The long, long hours.But it wasn’t Gage, of course; it was Ellie, who was now not only grasping the picture in which she waspulling Gage on the sled, but sitting in Cage’s chair. She had taken it out of his room and brought it intohers. It was a small director’s chair with a canvas seat and a canvas strip across the back. Stenciledacross that strip was GAGE. Rachel had mail-ordered four of these chairs. Each member of the familyhad one with his or her name stenciled on the back.Ellie was too big for Gage’s chair. She was crammed into it, and the canvas bottom bulged downwarddangerously. She held the Polaroid picture to her chest and stared at the TV, where some movie wasshowing.“Ellie,” he said, snapping off the TV, “bedtime.”She worked her way out of the chair, then folded it up. She apparently meant to take the chair into bedwith her.Louis hesitated, wanting to say something about the chair, and finally settled on, “Do you want me totuck you in?”“Yes, please,” she said.“Do you. . . would you want to sleep with Mommy tonight?”“No, thanks.”“You sure?”She smiled a little. “Yes. She steals the covers.”Louis smiled back. “Come on then.”Instead of trying to put the chair in bed with her, Ellie unfolded it by the head of the bed, and an absurdimage came to Louis—here was the consulting room of the world’s smallest psychiatrist.She undressed, putting the picture of her and Gage on her pillow to do it. She put on her baby dollpajamas, picked up the picture, went into the bathroom, put it down to wash up, brush, floss, and to takeher fluoride tablet. Then she picked it up again and got into bed with it.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (198 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM