The White Dress
Florida ghost story about a young girl who will do anything for a nice prom dress, including
robbing the dead!
It was the night before the senior prom, and one girl didn’t have a dress to wear. She was poor
and lived in a section of town where there were many immigrants from Haiti and other islands in
the Caribbean Sea.
She had gone to the neighborhood funeral parlor that same day to pay her respects to the remains
of an elderly neighbor. While she was in the funeral home, she had seen a young girl about her
age and size lying in state in a casket in one of the many rooms, which she had entered by
mistake. As she looked down at the casket, she noticed that the dress was very pretty and brand
new. It had been bought just for the burial.
While she was in the room, the funeral director came in and said it was time to close the casket.
He sealed it with a big key – kind of like a wrench – and said that the casket would remain
closed from then on, and that the burial would take place the next morning.
After the director left, the girl went on down the hall to the room where her dead neighbor was
laid out. While she was in the room paying her respects, she heard a lot of crying and wailing
down the hall. Someone had collapsed with grief in one of the rooms, and everyone, including
the funeral director, ran down the hall to help that family.
As the girl ran by the room with the sealed casket, she had an idea. She went into the room,
opened the sealed casket with the huge curved wrench, and quickly slid the white dress off the
girl. She put the key back in the socket and the casket lid and sealed the lid again. Stuffing the
white dress into her school bag, she slipped out past the room where all the crying was coming
from.
The next night, she put on the dead girl’s white dress and went to the dance.
As she danced with several different boys she knew, her joints began to get kind of stiff. As time
went by, her muscles began to stiffen, and she began to walk and dance awkwardly. She thought
maybe there was something wrong with the dress, so she went into the girl’s restroom and
slipped into a stall. She took off the dress and searched all over it,
but couldn’t find anything wrong with it. So she put it back on.
As she danced, she became colder and stiffer until she was as stiff
as a board. The ambulance was called, and she was rushed to a
hospital. The doctors pronounced her dead – but she was alive!
She could hear every word everyone said, and see everything that
was happening. She just couldn’t move or speak.
Soon, she was lying in state in the same funeral parlor, with her
family and friends coming by and crying. She tried to move or cry
out, but she couldn’t.
The White Dress
The funeral director came in and closed the lid on her casket. And the next day, the casket was
taken to the graveyard. And she could hear the gravediggers working: “Did you hear what
happened at the funeral home this morning?” said one of them. “No, what?” said the other as
they threw shovels full of dirt onto her casket. “A young mortician’s assistant heard a knocking
sound in one of the caskets. Well, he opened it up, and a young girl in a slip climbed out. She
said she’d been the victim of a voodoo ritual. Someone had given her a dress dusted with that
zombie powder, so she seemed dead when she wasn’t.”
“Huh,” said the first gravedigger. “I wonder what happened to that dress.”
And then the girl couldn’t hear anything else….
- THE END -
The White Dress
1. The words mortician’s assistant is
one who
a. helps prepare dead bodies for
burial.
b. helps the mortician undress
the dead bodies.
c. helps the mortician clean the
dead bodies.
d. All of the above
2. When the girl began to become cold
and stiff, she most likely felt
a. frightened
b. excited
c. nothing
d. angry
3. The author’s purpose in writing this
passage is to
a. entertain.
b. inform.
c. persuade.
d. describe.
4. The girl’s actions throughout the
passage show that she is
a. honest.
b. lazy.
c. angry.
d. desperate.
5. In the story, the girl can best be
described as a person who is
a. gentle and kind.
b. honest and respectable.
c. selfish and disrespectful.
d. vengeful and cruel.
6. This passage is best described as
a. narrative
b. science fiction
c. mystery
d. folklore
7. Which literary device is used in the
line? “She became colder and stiffer
until she was as stiff as a board”.
a. allusion
b. onomatopoeia
c. metaphor
d. simile
8. Which point of view does the author
use in the story?
a. first person
b. second person
c. third person
d. Omnipresent
9. According to the passage, why does
the girl think it is fine for her to
borrow the dead girl’s dress?
a. The dress was very pretty and
brand new.
b. The casket would remain
closed from then on so no
one would know she had
taken it.
c. She planned to sneak back to
return the dress after the
prom.
d. The dead girl’s family agreed
to let her borrow it.
10. What purpose does the imagery in
the last paragraph serve?
a. to emphasize that all crimes
are punished
b. to emphasize that voodoo is
real
c. to emphasize that the girl was
buried alive
d. to emphasize the girl’s
sadness
The White Dress
Reading Open – Response Item
A. Identify and explain two character traits of the girl in “The White Dress.” Then, explain what
affect each of these traits had on her decision to take the dress from the dead girl’s body.
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Multiple Choice
1. ________
5. ________
9. ________
2. ________
6. ________
10. ________
3. ________
7. ________
4. ________
8. ________
The White Dress
Answer Key
1. D
2. A
3. A
4. D
5. C
6. D
7. D
8. C
9. B
10. C