AScaryStorytoGetYouIntotheHalloweenSpirit..docVIP

VOICE ONE: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. Im Faith Lapidus. VOICE TWO: And Im Barbara Klein. October thirty-first, this coming Saturday, is Halloween. Millions of children will dress as ghosts, witches, skeletons, superheroes, princesses -- all sorts of costumes. VOICE ONE: Then, with parents usually nearby, they will walk through their neighborhoods. They will go door to door, yelling trick or treat. This threat of a trick, all in good fun, quickly brings a treat, usually some candy. Then the trick-or-treaters will go off to the next house. VOICE TWO: But, you know, there is a reason people in ancient times were careful to honor evil spirits and the dead with a night of their own. The masks that people wore on All Hallows Eve were meant to hide their identity, so they would avoid a most frightful trick. But now, do you want to know a story that is even scarier than that? VOICE ONE: Do you mean the story of my mother? That story? It makes me shake just to think about it! (SOUND) VOICE TWO: Faiths mother lived in a small town in New York State when she was a girl. The fall season was beautiful in the Adirondack Mountains, but it was very cold at night. VOICE ONE: There was a girl named Arial at my mothers school. She was popular but not very nice. She told stories about people. She ruined them with her gossip. Missus Hart was a very kind teacher at the school. Everyone liked her. VOICE TWO: Class ... VOICE ONE: she said one morning early in the new school year, VOICE TWO: ... we have a new student, Pearl Dew from Kentucky. Please welcome her. VOICE ONE: Arial saw an easy victim in Pearl. And my mother says Pearl was very strange. She was so thin and her skin was so white you could almost see through it. She had long black hair. It reached so far down her back, she had to bring it around the front so she would not sit on it. She did not look healthy. VOICE TWO: Arial did not help the situation for Pearl, did she? No, she made the situation w