True Stories

Scene: Open on a wide shot of a somewhat grim looking re-purposed cinder block elementary school. Visible at the entrance is a sign reading Happy Fields Nursing Care Center.

INTERIOR, HAPPY FIELDS: A group of seniors are gathered in the common room. Several are staring blankly in space, a small group are gathered around a card table playing a desultory game of Scrabble. And in one corner of the room MRS. MCKINNON, a plump, cheerful looking woman appearing to be in her 80's, wearing a sweater with “Forever Young!” hand-embroidered on it, is happily watching cat videos on a large i-Pad.

At the entrance, a middle-aged nursing AIDE [1] and BILL WILEY, a lawyer in his early 30's, are looking over the scene.


AIDE: Just take it easy on her, okay? She can get confused sometimes, but she's really a dear. (leading Bill over): Mrs. McKinnon? You have a visitor.

MRS. MCKINNON (looking up): Oh, hello! Forgive me, I get so distracted. This thing is like my very own Magic Mirror.

BILL (holding out her hand as the aide withdraws): Mrs. McKinnion, I'm Bill Wylie. I'm a lawyer with the Kansas State Attorney's office.

MRS. MCKINNON (shaking it): How do you do? Please, sit down.

(Bill sits, pulling out some papers from his briefcase)

BILL: Ma'am, if it's all right, I'd like to discuss some things with you.

MRS. MCKINNON (smile fades a bit): Oh, I have nothing but time in this place.

BILL: To start with, state census board was going over the records from the last survey, and they found some anomalies, mistakes, with your census form.

MRS. MCKINNON: What sort of mistakes?

BILL: Well for starters, it says you were born in 1890. Why is that?

MRS. MCKINNON (smiles impishly): Because I was born in 1890.

BILL: Mrs. McKinnon, that's impossible. That would mean you were a hundred and twenty-five years old.

MRS. MCKINNON: Well, not exactly. I was about ten years old for oh, forty years or so.

BILL (incredulous): Forty years you say?

MRS. MCKINNON (blandly): I was out of the country. Missed out on the Great War entirely, which was just as well. There was that terrible influenza epidemic at the time, you know.

BILL: Okay, um, all right. Anyway, the real problem is that the State Historical Society dug up a time capsule recently, buried in 1920. Most the objects were merely of historical value as you can imagine, but there was one rather extraordinary item there. A piece of jewelry, quite a valuable one. And the tag attached to it identified it as belonging to you.

MRS. MCKINNON: I don't recall owning any truly valuable jewelry, or at least anything I would donate to the Historical Society.

BILL (pulling out a photo from a folder and showing it to her): So you don't recognize this?

(Close up a color photo a belt made of some sort of golden weave, with what appears to be hundreds of jewels sewn into it.)

MRS. MCKINNON (shocked): What? What is that doing here? My God, please tell me it's somewhere safe!

BILL (growing alarmed): Ma'am, it's all right. It's sitting in a bank vault right here in Topeka.

MRS. MCKINNON (starting to cry): Here. Here! The Nome King's belt here, all this time! Oh, Princess, why didn't you tell me!

BILL: Nome King? What are you talking about?

AIDE (approaching Bill): What did you say to say to her? Mrs. McKinnon, is this guy bothering you?

MRS. MCKINNON: Yes, I mean no. I mean, everything is all right, will be all right now. I'm going to have a happy ending again, at last!

BILL: Mrs. McKinnon... Dorothy, what are you talking about it?

DOROTHY GALE-MCKINNON: Oh, but you don't know the story do you? Not all of it. So few people do nowadays. Let me tell it to you. The true story.