Keisha and Emily are best friends in school and church, and wish they could be sisters. When Emily and her mom become homeless, they move in with Keisha’s family, and the wish seems to come true.

SYNOPSIS:

This script follows two families. Sandra and her nine-year-old daughter Emily are white; Sandra has lost her full-time job and her current part-time job is not enough to pay the bills, so although Sandra frantically looks for other alternatives, she and Emily wind up losing their home, sleeping in the car for one night – and then moving into a homeless shelter. Emily is best friends with Keisha, who is African-American. Keisha's father Russell has also gone from full-time to part-time work, though his wife Joyce still works full-time. They've bought a creaky old house from an elderly woman at their church to save money. The elderly woman has moved into a senior citizens center. Keisha sees Emily in class and in church. Though Emily tells Keisha not to tell people what is happening, as Emily and her mom deal with homelessness, Keisha is troubled by keeping this secret, and her sadness concerns Russell and Joyce; at last, once boys at school start teasing Emily about being homeless, Keisha tells her parents about it. They invite Sandra and Emily to come live in the big old house with them. Sandra can contribute a little extra money every week, and that's just what Joyce and Russell need. Keisha and Emily have each wished to have a twin sister – and now it's like they do! They secretly explore the cold, dark attic of the old house, with flashlights, hoping to find something valuable to help their families. Instead, they find a dollhouse, dolls and a girl's diary from the 1940s: things that make them see the old woman who used to live in the house, a woman they thought was stern and mean, in a new light. They talk their parents into inviting her to spend Christmas with them.