Main Description

The informant describes the story of the little girl said to haunt her high school’s bathroom. The girl’s name was Pearl (a name derived from her high school’s mascot’s name), her cries could be heard between flushes, and she became the joking scapegoat of most high school girls’ problems. 

Informant’s Opinion

“Pearl wasn’t a scary ghost at all… more of an inside joke that everyone could bond over. Like, ‘Your hair’s looking bad? Pearl must’ve had something to do with it.” I’m really curious about where she came from though, because every girl knew about her but no one knew anything about her. How did she die? Why did she haunt the bathroom? No one knew.”

Thoughts

This story reminds me of Harry Potter‘s Moaning Myrtle: a girl who died in the girls’ bathroom and who provides comic relief throughout the Harry Potter series. I would assume that the girls of the informant’s high school watched Harry Potter and then wanted to create their own Moaning Myrtle in their bathroom, and in doing so they were able to iterate authored literature and create folklore from a copyrighted source.