Another Thomas rewrite, this time it's "James in a Mess" from Season 1, with lines by tate310. Enjoy and comment.
Toby and Henrietta are enjoying their new job on the Island of Sodor, but they do look old-fashioned, and need new paint.
James was very rude whenever he saw him.
"Yuck, what dirty objects!" he would say. This made Toby very upset.
"James, why are you red?" he asked.
"Because I'm a splendid engine, ready for anything!" answered James. "You never see my paint dirty!"
"Is that why you once needed bootlaces to be ready?"
James felt redder than ever. He snorted off angrily down the line. It was a insult to remind him of the time he needed a bootlace, to mend a hole in his coaches.
At the end of the line, James set down his coaches, and got ready for his next train. It was a slow-freight, stopping at every station to pick-up and let off cars. James hated slow-freight trains.
"Dirty cars from dirty sidings! Yuck!"
Starting with only a few, James picked up more and more cars at each station, 'till he had a long train.
At first, the freight cars behaved, but James bumped them so crossly, that they were determined to get back at him.
Then, they approached Gordon' hill. There is a rule on the Island of Sodor that heavy goods trains must stop to pin down their brakes when approaching the hill. James had an accident before with goods trains.
"Wait James, wait!" called his driver. But James was not listening. He was thinking about what he would say to Toby and Henrietta when he saw them again.
The freight cars chance had come.
"Hurrah, hurrah!" they laughed, and banging their buffers, they pushed him down the hill.
"On, on, on!" giggled the cars.
"I've got to stop, I've got to stop!" he groaned.
James kept going at warp speed. But when he approached Maron Station, some tar wagons lied up ahead! He zipped through the station and crashed right into the tar wagons, and was covered in black from smoke box to cab! Nobody was hurt, but James was dirtier than ever, and the tar wagons and cars were all into pieces.
Toby and Percy were sent to help James, and came as quickly as they could.
"Look here Percy." explained Toby, "whatever is that dirty object?"
"That's James, didn't you know?"
"But James is a splendid red engine, and you never see his paint dirty." said Toby.
James pretended he didn't hear.
Toby and Percy cleared away the mess, and Sir Topham Hatt met them at the next station.
"Well done Percy and Toby!" Then he turned to James.
"Fancy letting your cars run away. I am surprised! You are not fit to be seen, you must be cleaned at once. We can't have your passengers thinking that you are a black monster." he said to the unhappy engine.
"Toby shall have a new coat of brown paint!"
"Please sir." asked Toby hopefully, can Henrietta have a new coat too?"
"Of course Toby." Sir Topham Hatt told him. "A new brown coat of paint for Henrietta too."
"Thank you sir!"
All James could do was watch Toby run happily off with the news.