EDDIE DICKENS AND THE AWFUL END

feature outline

written by

Roger S. H. Schulman

Act I

6/16/05
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Theme

This is a story about growing up. Specifically, learning to not take

responsibility for your parents' feelings or conditions. Learning to
separate from them so that you can be your own person -- which turns
out to be best for you and for your parents!
Note: this isn't a story about disobeying your parents, and we will be
careful not to teach that inappropriate lesson. It's more like "Finding
Nemo," both parents and children learning to let go a little so growing
up can take place on both sides.
Emotionally, the story is about worry and the awful end it can bring you
to. Simply put, worry is bad. It doesn't help and it usually hurts. Where
there is hope, there is always a chance for happiness. Without hope,
there is nothing but despair and cruelty.

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Look of the film

o Victorian but with bright colors (More "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"
than Tim Burton).
o Hyper-real; Monty Pythonesque
o Size and proportion scaled to emotional reality, not physical
reality.
o Rube Goldberg "action and contraption:" there are Victorian-style
devices and machines of intricate design and works; even when
there is no machine or contraption involved, gags and action
involve a funny cause-and-effect relationship.

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Characters
Eddie Dickens

Age: 10

Sex: Male

Eddie is a carefree, bright, optimistic and faithful boy of 10, although his
size and demeanor might bespeak a boy as young as five. Eddie was
born in a town where nothing bad ever happened, and so doesn’t know
what fear or worry is. That is, until the robberies start taking place and
Eddie learns of the mysterious place that children go when Something
Bad happens to your parents: Awful End. Even then, Eddie believes in
the ultimate justice of the universe and the innate goodness of most
everyone. Some might call it naiveté, but because this is a bit of a fairy
tale, he turns out to be right: even the evilest member of our cast is not
beyond redemption, especially when she’s exposed to the healing
optimism of little Eddie Dickens. Eddie’s courageous faith runs so deep
that, even when he’s rocked to his very soul by a bitter disappointment
in someone he thought was a friend, he turns neither bitter nor cynical.
He still believes, and that is his deliverance.

Accompanying this wisdom is cleverness. Eddie can take the measure

of a bad situation quickly and figure a way out that not many people
would readily see. He’s a lemons-into-lemonade kind of kid.

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Mrs. Cruelstreak

Age: 50s-60s

Sex: Female

Mrs. Cruelstreak is not some purely evil villain who doesn’t know what
Good is. It’s worse than that. She’s a maelstrom of opposites. She
knows happiness, and joy and most of all, Hope -- but only as distant
memories, lost long ago. Perhaps she was treated cruelly by her parents.
Perhaps she had child who ran away from her. We may never know.
But she remembers what it’s like to be happy, to be hopeful -- and
therefore hates and resents anyone who still enjoys those feelings. And
who more than children are the containers of Hope?

So Cruelstreak has opened an orphanage, where she can utterly control

her charges. She can post sign after sign that stretches from ceiling to
floor, covered in intricate rules, impossible to obey. She can love her
children for their potential -- and, in the next moment, hate them for
their optimism. Kindness one moment, cruelty the next: a child’s living
hell.

Mrs. Cruelstreak loves to watch over her little people, perhaps play them
a Brechtian aria on the harmonium with lyrics that start hopeful and end
wickedly.

But the darkest thing about Cruelstreak is her most avid passion. She
makes children cry so that she can collect their tears. For she knows that
in a child’s teardrop glows the ember of Hope. Cruelstreak herself never
cries, for in order to weep, you must love something, be it another
person or life itself. And so she collects her charge’s tears and uses a
wicked monstrous machine to process them into an elixir she hopes will
give her the hope and happiness she lost so long ago...

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Mom Dickens

Age: 30s

Sex: Female

At first, totally carefree in a town where nothing bad ever happens.

Then, with the onslaught of the Sick with Worry disease, the
compilation of every worrywart mother known in the history of
mankind.

Only a wee bit taller than Eddie.

Dad Dickens

Age: 30s

Sex: Male

Just like Mom Dickens: serene and footloose, until the dread Sick with
Worry disease descends. Whereas Mom becomes a trembling
worrywart, Dad tries to cover his fear with bluster, but he really doesn’t
know how to handle a crisis.

Just a little bit taller than Eddie.

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Zucchini

Age: 50s

Sex: Male

A magician in the classic mode from the era when classic magic was
born. Zucchini, so Continental he’s almost got a hood ornament, is not a
genuine sorcerer because this is not “Harry Potter.” But he’s an expert
at Victorian state-of-the-art illusion, and he loves the limelight. He’s
ashamed and embarrassed that he has to stoop to crime to make ends
meet, but this is an age when there’s plenty of good magicians around.
Hey, anyone going to the opera looks like a good magician.

Pumblesnook

Age: 30s?

Sex: Male

Some thespians are considered “an actor’s actor.” Pumblesnook is

nobody’s actor. He’s the world’s greatest performer ever to suffer from
terminal stage fright, the only egomaniac who can’t stand the sound of
applause. He spends his time alone, performing great stage works,
playing every part to an audience of zero. Subsequently he’s wound up
with a mild case of split personalities. You’re never quite sure when
Pumble is playing Pumble -- or someone else.

Pumblesnook will regale you with many tales of the great productions
he’s been part of; he just happens to leave out the part where he
performed before no one. In fact, when he finally does perform in front
of Eddie and doesn’t panic, it’s a first -- and that’s why he loves Eddie

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so and would do anything for him.

Pumblesnook truly loves his stagecraft. His style of speech is Gilbert &
Sullivan on speed: intricate phrases that turn back upon themselves,
always delightful to the ear -- and sometimes so complicated, he has no
idea what he’s saying and his mouth gets stopped up with words. He
may even sprain his tongue!

Bonecrusher

Age: 20s

Sex: Male

Like Lenny in “Of Mice and Men,” Bonecrusher is a monster with a

heart like a rose. He loves his mother (Mrs. Cruelstreak) and wants to
please her, and so does what she asks of him. But he was born with a
moral compass, and deep down knows when he’s doing something
wrong. It takes Eddie and his trusting hopefulness to pull that morality
to the surface and enable Bonecrusher to finally grow up and say “yes”
to what’s right and “no” to what’s wrong.

Bonecrusher likes to use Cockney rhyming slang.

The Peelers

The Peelers are our own Keystone Cops, but they have an excuse for
their comic ineptness: they’ve never had to fight crime before! After all,
they’re the constabulary of Nethermot, a place where nothing bad ever
happens. So who can truly blame them if they aren’t even sure what a
robbery is, much less the meaning of the word “clue.” If the crime scene
is full of clues, in fact, the Peelers remain comically clueless. Jolly by
nature, the Peelers are shocked when a felonious wave hits their town.

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“Somebody call a cop!” one cries, none of them realizing for the
moment that they, in fact, are the cops.

The Peelers sport all manner of crime-fighting contraptions and

gewgaws, most of which they have no idea how to use.

The Narrator

Age: Middle-aged or elderly

Sex: Male

The narrator is a classic “Dr. Suess”-style narrator -- but with a sardonic,

dry wit:
"Eddie grew and grew and... well, er, actually, he didn't grow so
much."

Dr. Muffin

Age: 20s

Sex: Male

Dr. Muffin, ostensibly the be-all and end-all of our story, is actually
more of a Dr. McGuffin. Turns out that the good doctor, a surprisingly
young man, is the worst victim of worry in the whole movie. In fact, he
wishes he were frozen with worry like the Dickens, so he wouldn’t be at
any further risk. Paralyzed by fear, it’s all our heroes can do to get Dr.
Muffin out of his hideaway. And of course, we learn that there is no
magic bullet for Sick with Worry Disease that isn’t inside Eddie (and
everyone else) in the first place.

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Sequences

Town Flyover

We fly through an old book and drop into its pages, which become real
— or, more properly, surreal: the over-the-top streets, buildings and
people of Nethermot. If this were our world, it would be circa 1851, the
year of the Great Exposition in London, a time of mighty steam-driven
machines and intricate watchworks, of glass over iron, rationality over
emotion, reason over magic, head over heart. When came into fashion a
certain arrogance that allowed the people to believe that Man could
solve every problem and that the Patent Office should be closed down
because everything worthwhile had already been invented. Our world is
that plus a twist, Victorian England through a Monty Python lens.

THE NARRATOR introduces us to the tale.

As we fly over the town, we see examples of what makes this particular
place unique: nothing bad ever happens here. Flowers spring up from
pots immediately upon watering. A huge horsedrawn wagon
transporting fresh corn to the market inadvertently dumps its load into
the hopper of a steam engine -- creating a geyser of popcorn for
everyone to enjoy. In a laboratory, an inventor successfully tests a
many-armed automatic dishwasher -- “Eurkea!” he cries, a light bulb
appearing over his head. Another inventor grabs the light bulb floating
over the first inventor’s head, points at it and also shouts, “Eurkea!”
And so on.

Meet Eddie Dickens

We descend into the Dickens house. EDDIE DICKENS is recently born,

an adorable infant adored by his joyful and serene PARENTS. As Dad
lifts Eddie and spins him around, we spin in the opposite direction and
Eddie grows older with each revolution. Narrator: “And as babies tend

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to do, little Eddie grew and grew. He grew and grew and... well
actually, he didn’t grow all that much.”

At first, everything is as perfect in the Dickens household as it is in

Nethermot. Eddie is now exactly 10, and Mom Dickens brings in a huge
cake bigger than Eddie himself.

Yes, Eddie is in fact a very small child. We point at this wherever

possible -- and at Eddie’s predeliction for shrugging off what might be a
handicap to some and cleverly getting around his lack of height -- even
using it to his advantage. One opportunity arises today -- Eddie’s tenth
birthday -- with the present Dad Dickens gives his son, a brand new
velocipede. Eddie has to find a way to get atop the towering front wheel
of this contraption -- and he does, quickly building a teeter-totter kind of
Rube Goldberg device from objects around the room. A makeshift level
drops a medicine chest onto an ironing board, and Eddie goes flying,
somersaulting perfectly onto the saddle of his new mechanical steed.

(The bicycle, by the way, is an opportunity to contribute to the overly-

mechanized hyper-Victorian look of the story. Take a look at the
attached illustrations of actual vehicles of the period, and imagine what
they might look like if the designers were on LSD.)

Another gift from Dad Dickens is a beautifully illustrated story book.

“Once upon a time,” reads Dad, “There was a happy prince. The End.”
Eddie: “That’s a wonderful story, Daddy, read it again!”

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Figure 1 Coventry Rotary tricycle, 1880

Figure 2 Willard Sawyer quadricycle, 1852

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Burglary!

That same night, a mysterious figure in opera hat and black cape glides
behind a hedge. As he passes behind the shrubbery, we see only his top
hat peeking above. When the hat clears the hedge -- it appears to be
disembodied, floating in mid-air! What’s going on? the birds don’t like
it -- a flock flees as if a hunter had just fired off his shotgun. (Note: the
“magic” we see obeys the rules of Victorian illusion; it’s not true
sorcery. SEE character description for Zucchini.)

At the front door of the Dickens house, the floats up; then, in a burst of
smoke, it’s gone.

Inside the house, Eddie catches sight of the disembodied top hat. Rather
than suspicion or fear, Eddie knows only delight and curiosity, as if he
were watching a butterfly flexing over a meadow. Suddenly, a noisy
burst of smoke and light behind him! Mom and Dad rush in: what’s
going on? Then all heck breaks loose: flashes of light, streamers of
smoke, pops and bangs -- and with each new startle, another item goes
missing. Snuff boxes, candlesticks, silverware, picture frames, vases,
disappear one by one. Sometimes they seem to vanish into air; other
times, a black cat or a scurrying mouse seem to spirit items away. Not
knowing any better, Eddie finds it all entertaining, like the small boy in
“Close Encounters during the extraterrestrial abduction, but his parents
are stunned, shocked, dismayed. They look around wildly for the source
of the chicanery. Then they spot the floating top hat -- as it sails out a
window and, with a flash and bang, disappears! Eddie chortles with
delight -- but when he looks at his parents, he sees something he’s never,
ever seen before: the look of fear...

Meet the Peelers

The jolly yet totally inept PEELERS are on the case, scurrying all over
the Dickens house like ants on a half-eaten cupcake. Unfortunately,

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these uniformed bozos have little experience, serving as they do in a

town where nothing bad ever happens. So not only are they not sure
what the Dickens’s problem is, they don’t know what to do about it.
The Chief Peeler, a blustery Terry Jones type, starts the odd ball rolling:
“Who the Dickens are you?” Dad Dickens: “That’s right.” Chief
Peeler: “The Dickens you say!” Dad Dickens: “That’s correct.” “Chief
Peeler: “What the Dickens?!” Dad Dickens: “Exactly.” And so forth.

The Chief Peeler suspects the Dickens of “having them on,” joking or
even (gasp) lying. A robbery?! Things appearing and disappearing?
Poppycock! Meanwhile, the subordinate coppers pull gadgets out of
their Black Mariah with scarcely an idea of how to use them. Which end
of the magnifying glass does one look through? Can you blow a whistle
without swallowing it? As long as you have your bobby stick out, why
not clunk your fellow officer over the head? Seems only right.

Dad and Mom Dickens finally get the Chief Peeler to believe them. And
that’s when the cops turn on the family. The Chief Peeler implies that
the Dickens have somehow invited this deleterious occurrence. In fact,
perhaps this is the beginning of the end of Nethermot’s worry-free
existence. Perhaps this burglary signals the drawing of a black pall over
the fair town of Nethermot. Until now, nothing that could go wrong has
ever gone wrong. Perhaps now everything that could go wrong will go
wrong!

A new feeling comes over the Peelers and Mom and Dad: worry. Eddie
tries to comfort his parents -- he’s not worried or scared; he’s convinced
everything will be all right -- but he doesn’t have much success.

Worrywarts

Back home, Mom and Dad Dickens put a brave face on, but it’s obvious
that things are very different. While upstairs, Eddie hears hushed tones
coming from the parlor. He pokes his head between the uprights of a

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banister and spies on his parents as they pore over a letter they’re
writing. Eddie can just make out their talking about sending Eddie
away... For his own good... Not too late... His eyes grow wide as they
seal the letter with wax. The door bell jingles; Mom and Dad take the
letter and hurry to open the door: a dust-encrusted messenger clad in
cracked black leather enters like a dark wraith. Dad hands the courier
the letter with trembling hand: “Take this,” he says, “To Awful End.”
The courier jangles his spurs and, with a stomp of his boots, is gone.

Eddie advances downstairs, wanting to know what’s going on, but not
wanting his parents to know he’s been eavesdropping. But when they
seem him, Mom and Dad paste phony smiles on their faces and try to
pick up Eddie’s birthday where they left off. Dad brings out another
birthday cake -- but when he lights the candles, Mom reflexively dashes
a bucket of water at it, soaking the cake and Dad. Burning candles in the
house? Too dangerous! Dad Dickens slaps his head: what could have
he been thinking?!

MONTAGE OR SERIES OF SHORT SCENES: The neuroses multiply

and accelerate. Eddie looks more and more like a giant ball of yarn as
Mom repeatedly bundles him up in clothes “so that you don’t catch your
death.” Eddie mustn’t touch anything -- germs! -- read anything --
eyestrain! -- smile -- your face could get stuck that way!

The Disease Strikes!

To get away from this new and debilitating attitude, Eddie goes outside
and mounts his brand new velocipede. A moment later, his parents spot
him and shriek through the closed window: what are you doing?! Eddie
explains he’s merely riding his vehicle; after all, it was their birthday
present to him. But that was before they realized what a dangerous,
dangerous place the world is! respond his parents. Eddie thinks that’s
nonsense, and gaily takes off. He doesn’t realize that his braces have
caught on a tree limb; the elastic stretches as Eddie pedals, until his

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bicycle wheels spin but he makes no progress. “Odd,” Eddie says, and
pedals harder. Then, with a snap, he’s yanked off the bike and hurtles
back toward the tree! His parents rush outside and scream twice -- first
at their son’s peril; second at the realization that they’re outside! They
hold onto one another for safety and watch their son’s fate unfold.

Eddie orbits the tree like a well-struck tetherball, laughing in glee the
whole time. He gets wound around the tree, then unwinds just as fast.
Finally his suspenders come loose from the tree limb and he lands
upright like an Olympic gymnast performing a perfect dismount. “See?”
he laughs to his parents, who seem frozen in fear. “I’m fine!” He takes
step, slips on a pebble, and falls. He gets up, dusts himself off -- but that
last catastrophe did it. Mom and Dad Dickens aren’t just seemingly
frozen in fear -- they are frozen in fear. Eddie circles them, prods them
(it results in only a toy-like squeak), hugs them (a bigger squeak), pleads
with them, but the elder Dickens are like statues, victims of what Eddie
will soon learn is the dread Sick with Worry Disease.

Eddie’s Contraption

Never one to be trumped by circumstance, Eddie determines that first he

must get his parents inside. He can’t move them via sheer muscle
power. Utilizing the same ingenuity that got him atop his velocipede,
Eddie quickly constructs a Rube Goldberg mechanism designed to get
his parents indoors. It involves rope, block-and-tackle, a roundabout in
the backyard, a teapot on the stove (for a makeshift steam engine) and
various found objects, gizmos and whatchamacallit. When he releases a
valve, the contraption comes to life, whirling and screaming like a mad
locomotive -- and gently carrying his frozen folks into the house and
gently depositing them on the sofa, looking for all the world like they’re
about to enjoy a spot of tea.

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Heading for Help

Little Eddie decides he must get his parents help, and now. He ventures
into town on his own. His first challenge is to cross the busy main
street, a river of horse-drawn carriages and weird mechanical
perambulators. Shimmying to the top of a lamppost, he drops onto the
roof of a moving carriage and hops from one moving surface to another
like a lumberjack crossing a stream of logs.

The Doctor Visit

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!” bellows The Doctor. Eddie has

reached The Doctor’s office just before closing and consulted with
Nethermot’s only medical professional, describing his parents’
symptoms. The Doctor is an intimidating if not unkind man, his head
festooned with all manner of complex gadgets, from reflective mirrors to
eyepiece magnifiers to who-knows-what. Making him all the more off-
putting is his habit of sneezing, causing all of these head-mounted
devices to whirl, clack and clatter. Eddie tries to explain that he hasn’t
done anything; his parents merely froze up like statues after he fell
down. Won’t The Doctor come to his house to look at them?

The Doctor says there is no need. He can examine the parents by

examining the child; after all, this acorn didn’t fall far from the sickly
tree. The Doctor proceeds to practice state-of-the-art phrenology,
feeling the bumps on Eddie’s head. this tells him all he needs (or wants)
to know. He diagnoses Mom and Dad Dickens as victims of Sick with
Worry Disease. Every doctor has head about S.W.D. -- but this is the
first case he’s ever seen. Unfortunately he fears it will be far from the
last: the Sick with Worry Disease is highly contagious. How did it
happen? Eddie wants to know. The Doctor says there are only theories -
- on the other hand, all of them point to the children. Children do not
suffer from Sick with Worry Disease -- but they are the carriers. But be
of good cheer, admonishes the doctor. Do not think that your dalliances

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with danger allowed the S.W.D. to worm its way into your dear parents’
heart. Do not blame your incautious flirtations with Germs and Sunlight
and Bicycles for your elders’ sad condition. Do not think for a moment
that the stress and strain of having an offspring who will one day rebel,
revolt and -- horrors -- make up his own mind might be the very cause of
this terrible malady. Eddie begins to feel the Guilt that every sensitive
child bears weighing down upon him.

What can be done? pleads Eddie. The Doctor says not much. Oh, there
was a tale of a wise man named DR. MUFFIN, who could cure the Sick
with Worry Disease. There were stories of his curing whole cities of the
illness. But no one knows where he is, who he is, or, not incidentally,
how he is.

Eddie mentions that he heard his parents talking about Awful End. Yes,
intones The Doctor, that’s where children are sent when they’ve done
something awful to their parents. That’s likely what the Dickens were
talking about. Eddie’s eyes widen in worry -- the only time they’ve ever
done so.

The Doctor says he has little choice. With an illness like S.W.D., no
chances can be taken. The authorities must be alerted so that they can
deal with this threat in a calm, measured, reasoned way. “STELLA!” he
bellows. His nurse rockets in. The Doctor shrieks that the Sick with
Worry Disease is on the loose -- Code Flaming-Hot-Red! Stella
SCREAMS and jumps through the closed window, somersaulting to her
feet and raising the medical hue and cry throughout Nerthermot, only to
fall victim to the disease moments later. With that, panic spreads
throughout the busy town, and a squad of alerted Peelers bumbles their
way into the street, points at the doctor’s office, and make right for
Eddie.

The little boy, determined that he not be detained before he can help his
parents, works at hyper-speed. He grabs a dozen of the doctor’s flasks
and beakers, mixes together the contents in precise proportions, knocks

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back resulting potion, instantly turns into a monster, ROARS at The

Doctor, scaring him away, reverts immediately back into his good old
self, and makes good his escape.

The Disease Spreads

In a QUICK MONTAGE or SERIES OF RAPID-FIRE SCENES, we

see The Sick with Worry Disease spread throughout Nethermot. The
contagion is always connected to fretting over a child. Examples:

• A newsboy hawks a hot-off-the-press extra edition: “TOWN SICK

OVER SICK-WITH-WORRY DISEASE!” In the midst of
grabbing a copy from the kid, a matronly woman freezes solid.
“Leggo!” says the newsboy, trying to take the paper from her stiff
hand. He settles for taking a few coins from her pocket in
payment.

• Around a dinner table, a father admonishes his little girl to eat her
vegetables, lest her bones not grow strong. A moment later, the
concerned dad is stiff as a board (his bones seem mighty strong).
Mom, concerned at what’s happened to Dad, falls victim to S.W.D.
a moment later.

• A little boy chases a rolling hoop out into the street. A hansom cab
driver, fearing that he might hit the boy (although he’s not that
close), yanks the reigns. The horses come to a dead stop, but the
driver, now frozen in his sitting position, keeps going, spinning
head-over-heels, bouncing like a skipping stone off the horses’
backs, along the street and into a line of people all waiting for the
trolley -- all of whom tip over like dominoes, since they’re already
victims of S.W.D. and brittle as dry leaves.

• A very little boy comes downstairs proudly wearing his mommy’s

dress, hat, shoes and make-up. Both parents instantly freeze solid.

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Air Mail

Back at the Dickens home, Eddie sits in his frozen parents’ laps,
weeping: “It’s all my fault. I shall come to an Awful End... An Awful
End...” He snatches the handkerchief from his poor father’s breast
pocket to dab at his tears. As he continues to cry, he glances at the
handkerchief: the spot made damp by Eddie’s tears has turned pink! As
Eddie watches in disbelief, the bright color spreads around the starched
cloth, undulating as if with a life of its own. The color then splits into a
spectrum of colors, which arrange themselves into a bright handbill. He
reads it aloud:

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL WITH DR. MUFFIN!

FOR THOSE WHO ARE ILL
FROM WALES TO BRAZIL
A POTION OR PILL
RESTORES YOUR GOODWILL
THERE’S ALWAYS A WAY
IF THERE IS A WILL
AND WITH THIS HANDBILL
A COMPLIMENTARY TOOTHBRUSH.

Eddie is intrigued -- but for the first time, feeling a little hopeless. How
can this Dr. Muffin work miracles? He tosses aside the handkerchief --
and it bounces around the floor like a happy frog, then right back into
Eddie’s hand! He tries it again -- this time it bounces off the floor,
ceilings and walls like a Superball, and back into Eddie’s hand neat as
you please! Eddie brightens: “Hope really does spring eternal!” he says,
his normal optimism restored. He vows to find this Dr. Muffin
straightaway, and bring him back to cure his parents -- and just maybe
everyone who’s been afflicted with the terrible Sick with Worry
Disease! “This is all my fault,” says Eddie to his statuesque parents,
“And I’m going to fix it. Me and Dr. Muffin!”

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Fall of the House of Dickens

At first light, Eddie wakes up from where he has been sleeping -- on the
settee right next to his parents. He throws a few things in a duffel. He
eats a small crumb cake, offering some to Mom and Dad, who don’t
seem interested. He pours them some tea anyway, just in case, kisses
them goodbye, tells them he’ll be back as soon as possible with Dr.
Muffin, throws open the front door and marches out.

It isn’t four steps later then Peelers fall from the surrounding trees like
overripe fruit, forming a ring of steel around Eddie and the Dickens
house! The Doctor emerges, sunlight glinting off his many head-
mounted gewgaws. “That’s him!” he shouts, pointing from a distance.
“That’s the source of the infection! I wouldn’t touch that one with a ten
foot pole!” The Chief Peeler knows just what to do. “Bring the eleven
foot pole!” he shouts. A timid and clumsy flying squad of Peelers
wrests with a giant staff with a contraption at one end of it. Before he
knows it, Eddie finds himself grabbed by a claw and thrust into a basket.
He’s whirled around the property as the Peelers struggle to maintain
control of the pole. Despite his protests, Eddie is finally thrust into the
back of a paddy wagon. The doors are slammed shut and locked and
Eddie finds himself imprisoned, his mission a failure even before it’s
begun. As he watches, another Peeler emerges from the house,
declaring that the parents are inside. A team of Peelers run in with a
fireman-style safety trampoline, position it next to the inanimate parents,
and yell, “Jump!” That doesn’t seem to work, so a few moments later
they’re carrying Mom and Dad Dickens out of the house on a large
pallet, still sitting on the sofa, with the table and entire tea set still before
them. They’re gingerly placed on a flatbed wagon.

Then The Doctor orders the house destroyed as a source of infection. As

Eddie watches in horror, little fists gripping the bars of the paddy
wagon, a huge apparatus is wheeled into place: a Barn Razer.
Specifically designed to utterly destroy houses, it uses ropes, chain,

© 2005 Brooklyn Power & Light -- R. Schulman -- 6/16/05

 21

pulleys, winches, buzz saws and other contrivances to attack the poor
Dickens house. Finally, a large mechanical set of Rockette legs does
high-kicks in unison to the symphonic climax of a mechanical orchestra,
pushing the frame right off its foundation. “That always brings the
house down,” smiles the Chief Peeler. Eddie’s filled with shock and
dismay.

The Chief Peeler then orders the paddy wagon driver to take Eddie to St.
Horrid’s Home for Grateful Orphans and Soap Emporium. It’s there
that he and the other disease-carrying children can be isolated. “No!”
shouts Eddie. “I must be allowed to find Dr. Muffin!” But his protests
fall on deaf ears and, with a crack of his whip, the driver Peeler takes
Eddie away...

© 2005 Brooklyn Power & Light -- R. Schulman -- 6/16/05