Devious Diesel was sulking in the yard; the trucks wouldn't stop singing about him.
"Trucks are waiting in the yard,
tackling them with easel.
'Show the world what I can do!'
gaily boasts the Diesel!
In and out he creeps about,
like a big black weasel,
when he pulls wrong trucks out...
Pop Goes the Diesel!"
"Grrr!" growled Diesel and he bumped the trucks, but of course, the trucks didn't stop.
Suddenly, Duck came into the Yard to shunt Gordon's express coaches and was horrfied at the song.
"Shut up!" he ordered and he bumped the trucks. The trucks died down.
"I'm sorry our trucks are rude to you, Diesel," apologized Duck. Diesel was still furious.
"Pah! You're not sorry! You did it on purpose?"
"Did what?"
"You know what!"
"Nonsense!" interuppted Henry, "You did it to yourself."
"Indeed," agreed Gordon, "You were just trying to show off."
"Oh, like you don't." snickered Diesel. Gordon was now very cross.
"Besides," said James, "We engines have our differences, but we never talk about them to trucks of all things! That would be... uh-"
"Disgraceful!" corrected Gordon.
"Disgusting!" put in James.
"Despicable!" finished Henry, but Diesel was too devious to care; he hated Duck and he wanted him to be sent away somewhere else.
"But how..." thought Diesel.
The next day, Diesel was resting in the shed when he heard a "clunk. clunk." He looked up and saw that it was Henry, backing down into the shed.
"What a menace trucks are!" complained Henry.
"Henry! What happened?" asked Duck.
"It was those trucks on the hill. I managed to stop them, but now I got flat tyres! Pah!" snorted Henry indignantly. Diesel snickered; he had gotten an idea.
Later, Diesel was shunting some trucks in the yards.
"Hello, trucks. I laughed and laughed about your good joke about me yesterday. Duck told me one about Henry. He called him 'Old Square Wheels' after that incident this morning." snickered Diesel.
The trucks laughed and giggled.
"Don't tell Henry I told you," finished Diesel and he scurried away before anybody could see him.
It wasn't long before Henry found out once he came back from the Works.
"Call me 'Old Square Wheels', eh Duck?" he fumed crossly.
"'Old Square Wheels'? Sorry Henry, but I don't know anything about it." Henry scoffed.
"Nobody else did it. It must be you." Diesel snapped. Duck was cross, but he could do nothing as he sadly puffed away to shunt Gordon's express.
"That worked well," snickered Diesel, "Now, what can I do for James...?"
He didn't have long to find out.
The next day, Diesel approached the yard.
"James has been here for a long time, hasn't he? He must be old." pointed out Diesel.
"He's not the oldest," remarked a truck, "Edward is older. The engines used to tease him about it, but he proved them wrong."
"How?" asked Diesel slowly.
"Well, James got into a runaway and somehow Edward stopped him, or so I heard," replied the truck.
"Indeed. James must've felt silly. It's funny," said Diesel, "that if James stood out in the rain, he'd be the color he is: red with rust." The trucks laughed.
Suddenly, Diesel suddenly got an idea and he growled off to the shed.
When he came back, he was snickering.
"You know," Diesel said, trying to keep calm, "that after I told him the story you told me, Duck called James 'Rusty Red Scrap Iron.'" The trucks laughed harder.
"How clever!" chortled the trucks.
The story went round quickly and when James went to collect his trucks, they snickered "Rusty Red Scrap Iron! Rusty Red Scrap Iron!" James was furious. He soon found out where the name supposedly came from.
"That Duck!" fumed James as he puffed away, "I'll never trust him again!"
As he puffed away, Diesel smirked triumphantly.
That night, Duck was very tired indeed.
"Finally, I can rest..." he panted as he thought of the shed.
But as he puffed near the shed, he saw James and Henry blocking his path; James on the turntable and Henry in one of the births.
"Go away! You can't come in!" hissed James.
"What are you two playing at?" asked Duck.
"The real question is, what are you playing at?" fumed Henry.
"I'm not 'Rusty Red Scrap Iron'!" wheeshed James.
"And I'm not 'Old Square Wheels' either!" chimed in Henry, "the trucks say you've been calling us names."
"But I didn't call you those names. You can't trust trucks," objected Duck, but Henry nor James didn't move.
Duck sighed and he sadly puffed onto a siding out of the way.
"I can't believe this..." he sighed. Diesel was in the shed too, and he couldn't help but smirk.
"Right..." Diesel said in his oily voice, "Now that I've Henry and James on my side, I wonder what I can do for Gordon..."
A few days later, Diesel overheard a conversation between the trucks.
"Gordon thinks he can got faster than anything else! I wonder who would win? A horse or him?" giggled a small truck.
"That reminds me of the engines that used to be on my old railway," wheezed an old brakevan, "Back then, engines were named after horses like Pretty Polly and Lamburg."
"Pretty Polly! Ha, ha, ha! What a silly name!" giggled the trucks.
"Have you noticed," said a van, "that Gordon looks as if he's galloping?" The trucks laughed harder.
"Like a horse!" they giggled.
Diesel thought about the trucks' conversation all day.
"Hm... Galloping..."
The next day was very hot indeed and heat flew around Henry and Gordon's boilers. Henry had just finished his drink and he was puffing away. Gordon didn't need water, but he had to pass the water tower to get to the station. As he moved past the water tower, dripping water fell on his hot boiler which caused a loud sizzling noise.
"Looks like a frying sausage." remarked Diesel's driver.
"Galloping sausage... Yes, that's it!" giggled Diesel and that afternoon he spoke to the trucks again.
"Do you know what Duck said about Gordon this morning?" he asked the trucks.
"Uh... no."
"Well, this is your chance to find out. Duck called Gordon a 'Galloping Sausage!'" The trucks tittered.
"You shouldn't laugh! It's very rude," Diesel said modestly, but trucks don't have good manners so they laughed anyway, much to Diesel's delight.
The 'Galloping Sausage' story spread quickly like the last two, and Gordon soon found out why.
"Duck!" he growled as he approached the shed, "I'm an important engine! Not a galloping sausage!" Duck was confused.
"But Gordon, I never called you that," replied Duck, but Gordon didn't believe him.
Henry, Gordon, and James started to hiss loudly and blew steam all over Duck. The Fat Controller came to see what was the matter.
"What's with all the noise?"
"Duck called me 'Old Square Wheels'!" sulked Henry.
"He called me 'Rusty Red Scrap Iron'!" fumed James.
"I'm not a 'Galloping Sausage'!" finished Gordon crossly. The Fat Controller turned to Duck.
"Did you cause this rocus, Duck?"
"Beg pardon sir, but no steam engine would be as mean as that. I only wish sir, that I thought those names myself if the dome fits..." Diesel approached the shed.
"Now Diesel, you heard what Duck said," said the Fat Controller.
"I'm sorry sir, but I know nothing of it. Duck is the only engine that could've done it."
"Liar!" fumed Duck.
"Silence!" boomed the Fat Controller, "Now Duck, I want you to work at Wellsworth with Edward. I know he'll be glad to see you."
"Y-you m-m-mean leave sir?"
"I'm afraid so, just until I can get to the bottom of this."
A small tear fell down Duck's face.
"As you wish, sir..." and Duck puffed sadly away, while Diesel laughed quietly with triumph.