Pet Sematary(123)

"Don't you worry about the truant officer," he said. "I'll take care of the school, and you can start again in the fall with no trouble."

"I hope I'll be okay in the fall," Ellie said. "I never was in a grade before.

Only kindergarten. I don't know what kids do in grades. Homework, probably."

"You'll be fine."

"Daddy, are you still pissed off at Grandda?"

He gaped at her. "Why in the world would you think I was that I didn't like your grandda, Effie?"

She shrugged as if the topic held no particular interest for her. "When you talk about him, you always look pissed off."

"Ellie, that's vulgar."

"Sorry."

She gave him that strange, fey look and then drifted off to look at the racks of kid books-Mercer Meyer and Maurice Sendak and Richard Scarry and Beatrix Potter and that famous old standby, Dr. Seuss. How do they find this stuff out? Or do they just know? How much does Ellie know? How's it affecting her? Ellie, what's behind that pale little face? Pissed off at him-Christ!

"Can I have these, Daddy?" She was holding out a Dr. Seuss and a book Louis hadn't seen since his own childhood-the story of Little Black Sambo and how the tigers had gotten his clothes one fine day.

I thought they'd made that one an unbook, Louis thought, bemused.

"Yes," he said, and they stood in a short line at the cash register. "Your grandda and I like each other fine," he said and thought again of his mother's story of how when a woman really wanted a baby, she "found" one. He remembered his own foolish promises to himself that he would never lie to his own children.

Over the last few days he had developed into quite a promising liar, he felt, but he would not let himself think about it now.

"Oh," she said and fell silent.
Chapter 7

The silence made him uneasy. To break it he said, "So do you think you'll have a good time in Chicago?"

No.

"No? Why not?"

She looked up at him with that fey expression. "I'm scared."

He put his hand on her head. "Scared? Honey, what for? You're not scared of the plane, are you?"

"No," she said. "I don't know what I'm scared of. Daddy, I dreamed we were at Gage's funeral and the funeral man opened his coffin and it was empty. Then I dreamed I was home and I looked in Gage's crib and that was empty too. But there was dirt in it."

Lazarus, come forth.

For the first time in months he remembered the dream he had had after Pascow's death-the dream, and then waking up to find his feet dirty and the foot of the bed caked with pine needles and muck.

The hairs at the nape of his neck stirred.

"Just dreams," he said to Ellie, and his voice sounded, to his ears at least, perfectly normal. "They'll pass."

"I wish you were coming with us," she said, "or that we were staying here. Can we stay, Daddy? Please? I don't want to go to Grandma and Grandda's... I just want to go back to school. Okay?"

"Just for a little while, Ellie," he said. "I've got"-he swallowed-"a few things to do here, and then I'll be with you. We can decide what to do next."

He expected an argument, perhaps even an Ellie-style tantrum. He might even have welcomed it-a known quantity, as that look was not. But there was only that pallid, disquieting silence which seemed so deep. He could have asked her more but found he didn't dare; she had already told him more than he perhaps wanted to hear.

Shortly after he and Ellie returned to the boarding lounge, the flight was called. Boarding passes were produced, and the four of them got in line. Louis embraced his wife and kissed her hard.

She clung to him for a moment and then let him go so he could pick Ellie up and buss her cheek.

Ellie gazed at him solemnly with her sibyl's eyes. "I don't want to go," she said again but so low oniy Louis could really hear over the shuffle and murmur of the boarding passengers. "I don't want Mommy to go either."

"Ellie, come on," Louis said. "You'll be fine."

"I'll be fine," she said, "but what about you? Daddy, what about you?"

The line had begun to move now. People were walking down the jetway to the 727.

Rachel pulled Ellie's hand and for a moment she resisted, holding up the line, her eyes fixed on her father-and Louis found himself remembering her impatience last time, her cries of come on-come on-come on.

"Daddy?"

"Go now, Ellie. Please."

Rachel looked at Ellie and saw that dark, dreamy look for the first time.

"Ellie?" she said, startled and, Louis thought, a little afraid. "You're holding up the line, baby."

Ellie's lips trembled and grew white. Then she allowed herself to be led into the jetway. She looked back at him, and he saw naked terror in her face. He raised his hand to her in false cheeriness.

Ellie did not wave back.

44

As Louis left the BIA terminal building, a cold cloak fell over his mind. He became aware that he meant to go through with this. His mind, which had been sharp enough to get him through med school mostly on a scholarship and what his wife could earn pushing coffee-and-danish on the 5 to 11 A. M. shift six days a week, had taken the problem over and broken it down into components, as if this was just another prelim-the biggest one he had ever taken. And he intended to pass it with an A plus, one hundred percent.