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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmJoan Chariton laughed. “Knowing the University Motor Pool,” she said, “it’ll come back aroundDecember fifteenth wrapped in Christmas ribbon.” She glanced at the student. “You’ve got half a degreeof fever,” she said. “Take two aspirins and stay out of bars and dark alleys.”The girl got down. She gave Louis a quick appraising glance and then went out.“Our first customer of the new semester,” Charlton said sourly. She began to shake the thermometerdown with brisk snaps.“You don’t seem too pleased about it.”“I know the type,” she said. “Oh, we get the other type too—athletes who go on playing with bone chipsand tendonitis and everything else because they don’t want to be benched, they got to be macho men,not let the ream down, even if they’re jeopardizing pro careers later on. Then you’ve got little Miss Half-Degree of Fever—” She jerked her head toward the window, where Louis could see the girl with thepeeling sunburn walking in the direction of the Gannett Cumberland-Androscoggin complex of dorms.In the examining room the girl had given the impression of being someone who did not feel well at allbut was trying not to let on. Now she was walking briskly, her hips swinging prettily, noticing and beingnoticed.“Your basic college hypochondriac.” Charlton dropped the thermometer into a sterilizer. “We’ll see hertwo dozen times this year. Her visits will be more frequent before each round of prelims. A week or sobefore finals, she’ll be convinced she has either mono or pneumonia. Bronchitis is the fall-back position.She’ll get out of four or five tests—the ones where the instructors are wimps, to use the word they use—and get easier makeups. They always get sicker if they know the prelim or final is going to be anobjective test rather than an essay exam.”“My, aren’t we cynical this morning,” Louis said. He was, in fact, a little nonplussed.She tipped him a wink that made him grin. ‘I don’t take it to heart. Doctor. Neither should you”“Where’s Stephen now?”“In your office, answering mail and trying to figure out the latest ton of bureaucratic bullshit from BlueCross-Blue Shield,” she said.Louis went in. Charlton’s cynicism notwithstanding, he felt comfortably in harness.Looking back on it, Louis would think—when he could bear to think about it at all—that the nightmarereally began when they brought the dying boy, Victor Pascow, into the infirmary around ten thatmorning.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (49 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM