A friend of mine told me about “The Spitting Lady,” an elderly woman who haunts Manhattan’s East Side by screaming at and spitting on pedestrians. I’ve never seen The Spitting Lady but once when I was 12, with that same friend and her mother, we watched a man run down the street with blood dripping out of his mouth. I was shocked by this and my friend looked anxious. We speed-walked away and eventually the man was gone. That’s definitely one of the scariest encounters I’ve had in the city. I’m thirteen now, and I’m sure there will be more.
Jane Silverman is in eighth grade in Larchmont, New York. She’s always loved writing and reading.