PAR::read_file question

Instead of producing "hello", the test below produces nothing.   Am I doing 
something wrong?

C:\Documents and Settings\malcolm\My Documents\proj_pp_testing>type text
hello
C:\Documents and Settings\malcolm\My Documents\proj_pp_testing>type 
hello_pl_file.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
my $text = PAR::read_file("text");
chomp($text);
print($text);

C:\Documents and Settings\malcolm\My Documents\proj_pp_testing>pp -o hello.exe 
-a text hello_pl_file.pl

C:\Documents and Settings\malcolm\My Documents\proj_pp_testing>hello.exe

C:\Documents and Settings\malcolm\My Documents\proj_pp_testing>