It was a quiet evening at Tidmouth Sheds and the engines slept soundly. But Thomas was up late counting stars when he heard James talking in his sleep.
"No...But I'm a really useful engine. I don't want to go to the scrapyards to turn into something else," he mumbled.
Thomas looked at his friend and saw him trembling and sweating in his sleep.
James continued to talk," No...Get away from me!" and he bolted awake, looking around to make sure that he hadn't woken up anybody else before falling back to sleep.
Thomas too, soon fell asleep but he was concerned for James.
The next morning, Thomas was shunting trucks in Knapford when James pulled up to take a line of trucks to the scrapyard. He looked terrible! As the red engine crawled down the line, Thomas saw that he was still sweating and shaking, while black bags were visible beneath his eyes.
"James, you look terrible, what's wrong?" the blue tank engine asked.
"It's nothing Thomas, I'm okay." responded James with a yawn.
"Okay whatever you say," said Thomas as he took off to go arrange the train for James.
When he returned with the rusty old trucks he was surprised to see that James was asleep and snoring loudly. So Thomas blew his whistle to wake him up.
"James, your train is ready!"
"Oh, okay." said James and he puffed away before he was even coupled up to the trucks.
"Wait! You've left the train behind!" said Thomas as he raced after James.
The very confused tender engine backed down on the trucks and was coupled up to them. He slowly puffed out of the station with the rusted trucks. Now Thomas was even more concerned for James.
That evening, Thomas and James were at the sheds when Sir Topham Hatt drove up to the sheds with an announcement.
"James, you have caused confusion and delay. First you came into work late and you nearly left behind your train. Now I'm hearing that you caused an accident at the scrapyards with Arry and Bert?"
"Yes sir," wheeshed the engine sadly.
"You need to stay in the shed and think about what you have done." said Sir Topham Hatt, and he got in his car and drove away."
Thomas looked towards James, "What's really wrong? Today you weren't as good at your job and you were far less cheerful."
James decided that now was the time to be honest. "Well Thomas, it's just that I've been having really bad nightmares. But I don't want to talk about them."
"I know all about nightmares, I used that have them all the time when I used to work on the mainland. The best thing to do is just think about something else."
"But what if I can't think of anything else?"
"Then you should know that they can't hurt you," whistled Thomas.
James smiled. He was happy that he had a friend that could help him get over his fears.