MY NAME IS JANE:

Spare Any Change?

I dunno why I want to talk to you, but it just seems right, somehow. I want to tell you a story. I ain't much of a storyteller, so I'll tell it just like I used to read those little stories to wee Ruth, my little girl.

Once upon a time, there was this girl. She wasn't no peasant girl, but she weren't no princess, neither. She didn't have so much money, but she worked hard. She wasn't too pretty or too bright, but she got along. Ordinary, y'know. And one day, she met this man. He was nice enough, pretty ordinary too, if anyone else had seen him, they'd hardly have batted an eye. But he was a good man, a gentleman, in his own way.

Well, you know how these things go. They were friends, and then best friends. They would hang out everywhere together, at the movies, in the little cafes all around. It was a great time. I don't quite remember how everything happened, but then one day, they were getting married.

The night before the wedding, they were out at the beach, just looking up at the stars, and the man said something I'll not forget. He was all quiet for a bit, and then he started saying to her, "I don't know quite how to put this. I'm not the best or the smartest man in the world, I'm no one special, really. But tomorrow, I'll be the happiest man in the world, because we'll be sharing the rest of our lives together."

I dunno if I'm quite remembering it right. It sounded real impressive at the time. Anyway, so the wedding went on and everything was as happy as happy could be. She gave birth to a beautiful wee girl, and the two of them, they loved the girl, just as much as they could.

As the little girl was growing up, she was a pretty wee thing, but there was one thing people were always asking questions about. Y'see, she didn't play with dolls and Barbies, like the other wee girls - she wanted to play with dinosaurs! She was so smart too - she knew all their names, and which ones ate plants, and which ones were bad and wanted to eat the other dinosaurs. So her mummy, she went out and bought her a big stuffed dinosaur, all cuddly and soft, and brought it home for the little girl. That big stuffed dinosaur became the little girl's absolute favourite! She would take it everywhere - sure enough, I remember she even brought it with her to the dentist and asked if the dentist could do a quick checkup on the dinosaur's teeth! She didn't want it to be getting no cavities.

Not long after that, the mother, she started forgetting things. It was kinda funny at first, but then it started getting scary. I can't remember much of this - strange, that.

Anyway, it got so bad that the man decided he couldn't live with the woman anymore. He took the little girl, and they moved far away. The woman was really sad, but what could she do? She knew she couldn't take care of the little girl anymore. one day, she was trying to clean the house, when she suddenly realized that the man had forgotten to take that big stuffed dinosaur with him! She rushed out of the house with the dinosaur, thinking that at least she could send it to her little girl.

But she got all turned around and lost. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't even get back to her own house. She wandered around the streets, clutching the stuffed dinosaur, looking in vain for anything familiar.

Finally, she gave up. She found a dry patch to lay down on, and fell asleep.

It's almost a year now, since she left that house, clutching her little girl's stuffed dinosaur. Today's her birthday. All she wants is to find a post office and have enough money to send the toy to her little Ruth.

Can you spare any change? And can you show me where the post office is? Please?