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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmBut he needed something. If he was going to have to see that pink slip about the carpet on his noteminderboard every time he glanced up from the front file spread out in front of them, he neededsomething.He was cruising fairly well when Mrs. Baillings, the nightlike doing it—it made him feel like the most rancid sort of gossip—but Missy would accept no money for sitting, and he was grateful to her for the evening he and Rachelhad shared.Gage was fast asleep before Louis had gotten the mile between Missy’s house and their own; even Elliewas yawning and glassy-eyed. He put Gage into fresh diapers, poured him into his sleeper suit, andpopped him into his crib. Then he read Ellie a storybook. As usual, she clamored for Where the WildThings Are, being a veteran wild thing herself. Louis convinced her to settle for The Cat in the Hat. Shewas asleep five minutes after he carried her up, and Rachel tucked her in.When he came downstairs again, Rachel was sitting in the living room with a glass of milk. A DorothySayers mystery was open on one long thigh.“Louis, are you really all right?”“Honey, I’m fine,” he said. “And thanks. For everything.”‘ “We aim to please,” she said with a curving, slightly saucy smile. “Are you going over to Jud’s for abeer?”He shook his head. “Not tonight. I’m totally bushed.”“I hope I had something to do with that.”“I think you did.”“Then grab yourself a glass of milk, Doctor, and let’s go to bed.”He thought perhaps he would lie awake, as he often had when he was interning, and days that wereparticularly hairy would play over and over in his mind. But he slid smoothly toward sleep, as if on aslightly inclined, frictionless board. He had read somewhere that it takes the average human being justseven minutes to turn off all the switches and uncouple from the day. Seven minutes for conscious andsubconscious to revolve, like the trick wall in an amusement-park haunted house. Something a littleeerie in that.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (58 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM