The Dickens You Say

Brooke Copley (30), bookstore owner, acquires the very first signed edition of A Christmas Carol from a mysterious old woman who tells her it’s magic. As Christmas Eve approaches, she sets down to read the famous tale from beginning to end. That night, awakened by noises, she is shocked to find a crew of Dickens characters have taken over her home! Old Scrooge, Young Scrooge, Belle, Tiny Tim and the jolly Ghost of Christmas Present are as perplexed as she is, but eventually explain that because she read it in one sitting, her favorite characters materialized from the book, and will stay until Christmas Eve.

Panicked, Brooke tells them all to stay put in the house so the neighbors—especially, Cal Reynolds, the handsome bachelor next door—won’t discover them while she is at work. Wanderlust prevails and the brooding Belle, sporting her black mourning dress, strolls into the park, drawing the attention of a policeman, whose ear gets bent from her grand soliloquy of how she released the money-hungry Scrooge from their engagement. Likewise, Tiny Tim lands the role of Tiny Tim in the local theater’s Christmas play, to the utter disgust of the other competing boys and their ruthless stage-mothers—one of whom plots to have him removed by the Department of Social Services. In their search for Tim, Young Scrooge and Ghost of Christmas Present stop for a bite at the local diner, where an annoyed waitress alerts the police when they attempt to pay with 19th-century shillings.

When Brooke arrives home, she must not only confess to her best friend, Dot, and neighbor Cal, and not only pay the diner bill when the cops show up with Young Scrooge and Christmas Past in tow, and not only iron out D.S.S’s impending investigation and removal of Tiny Tim, but a late mortgage payment triggers an eviction notice for her bookshop! Dot and Cal are determined to help her solve this mess, but Old Scrooge has his own plan for Joe Travis, the heartless creditor. He goes to his office warning him that he’ll be visited by a spirit, unless he retracts the foreclosure; then employs Christmas Present to materialize in Travis’ bedroom that evening, a la Jacob Marley, to complete the scare! Meanwhile, Young Scrooge and Belle, disguised as modern physicians, convince the halfway house’s social worker that Tim is an axe-murderer and must be released to their custody immediately!

As all the characters finally reunite, the police close in for an arrest, but find nothing after a sparkling mist returns them all to their home inside the magical book.