Lee's Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends
Stories
Fiona's the Boss
Miss Jenny Packard's the Pack can at times be like the Fat Controller's engines. Byron likes to feel important like Gordon, Oliver is big and strong like Henry, Kelly is old and reliable like Edward and Alfie is cheeky like Percy, but as more works comes in, the real lack of a leader at times can be an issue as Miss Jenny can't always monitor the team. A new member was arriving soon anyway and Miss Jenny hoped they might step up to the plate.
Nelson arrived at Brendam Docks the next morning as a crane lowered the new member of the Pack onto Nelson's back. They were only a small Fork-lift truck with a gleaming paint scheme of grey and purple all over them.
"You're Fiona I gather…" Nelson said happily.
"Of course…" Fiona said grandly. "Who else was it going to be? Is Miss Jenny bringing in other fork-lift trucks too? I hope not…"
"Don't be silly!" Nelson said. "I just didn't know if you liked to be called something other than Fiona."
"Well why would that happen?" Fiona scowled. "My name is Fiona. It will always be Fiona. Nothing more, nothing less - always Fiona." Nelson left the conversation at that and soon went along to the Pack warehouse. Fiona wouldn't just be helping out on site; she'd be helping in the earlier stages from the ordering of materials to the collecting of them. Miss Jenny rather hoped she'd be a usual addition. Fiona was soon unloaded into the warehouse where Miss Jenny and the foreman were waiting. The foreman had a big list of equipment and necessities for the new construction site. Fiona was going to be here for a good while.
"Spades and shovels!" commanded the foreman to Fiona for her first collection. Her driver put her into action and soon she zoomed along. Her bright flashing yellow beacon warned men in the warehouse of her presence and slowly she picked up crates and pallets with her fork-lift prongs.
"Easy-peesy Fiona's going along at a breezy…" Fiona sang to herself cheerily as Miss Jenny and the foreman rattled off more and more requirements from the list. Soon, it was all loaded and ready for the Pack and the work was about to begin. Fiona soon did her best to catch up but she was not as fast the rest of the Pack. "Typical…" Fiona muttered to herself. "Forgotten about before I've even really begun…"
The Pack were helping out with the construction of a new community centre and work had already got underway thanks to Ned and Patrick but the rest of the Pack were now into help. Isobella along with Fiona was helping bring in equipment but the pair of them hadn't spoken to each other yet and Fiona didn't really want to. As soon as work began, Fiona just began to tell everyone how the work should be done. Jack and Alfie were helping digging away land to help with further foundations but Fiona felt their methods were completely and utterly wrong.
"You seriously dig up land like that?" she said to Jack and Alfie with a frown.
"Yes…" they both replied.
"Well it's wrong…" Fiona said.
"How?" asked Jack.
"You're not digging up as much as you possibly could." Fiona replied. "Yes, you both fill your buckets, but not enough. In just this short time of watching you, I can already see that how you dig is not efficient." Jack and Alfie were just confused and continued to dig as they were. This angered Fiona and once again she complained at the pair of them.
"No-one else has complained before about how we dig, not even Miss Jenny has." Alfie said to Fiona. He was clearly annoyed with the bossy fork-lift truck.
"Well Miss Jenny clearly doesn't know how inefficient you are then." Fiona smirked. "I'll tell her right away." she added as she reversed away. Fiona knew best, well she thought she did but no-one else agreed. She picked on Patrick for how his mixer mixed the cement incorrectly, she picked on Buster for not flattening the roads to her standard and she even picked on Kelly for not lifting a piece of corrugated metal in an efficient and proper way. The Pack was soon losing its rag with Fiona and she'd only been here a few hours. During their lunch break while Fiona was sent back to the warehouse to collect more equipment, the other members of the Pack held a meeting.
"She's bossy…" began Isobella.
"That's an understatement…" said Byron. "How can she criticise my brilliant blade?"
"She's eager to be in control, I'll admit…" Oliver continued. "It's not a good eager though…" The Pack continued to chat about Fiona for an age and soon the foreman came back as their break had finished a while earlier.
"Why aren't you working?" he asked impatiently.
"Because we don't want to work with Fiona..." Kelly admitted to the foreman. "She can't keep bossing us about, sir. We all do our work in different ways." The foreman agreed and soon got a lift back to the warehouse from Nelson where he wanted to speak to Miss Jenny immediately.
When he arrived, the foreman discovered that Fiona was busy complaining about the others to Miss Jenny and had been for some time.
"Do you not understand the word efficiency?" Fiona asked indignantly to Miss Jenny.
"Of course I do!" Miss Jenny retorted. "Packard and Co. has been efficient for many, many years. It was under my father's leadership and it is under mine."
"That's doubtful…" Fiona muttered to herself. The foreman soon came in to interrupt the quarrelling.
"I understand the other members of the Pack aren't so keen on Fiona either, Jenny…" he said to Miss Jenny.
"I can see why…" Miss Jenny sighed. "The issue is we need her at the site."
"I do have a name you know!" Fiona grumbled.
"You've got to earn my respect first…" Miss Jenny said authoritatively. Soon, Miss Jenny, the foreman and Fiona all returned to the site and got back into work. Miss Jenny and the foreman surveyed over the plans with extra precision while Fiona was trying her best to not boss the others about, but wherever she looked, someone was doing something wrong.
"Must not boss about, must not boss about…" she said to herself with determination but Fiona could not last. She rushed over far too fast while she was lifting crates and then there was trouble.
"Ned!" Fiona called out. "Don't dig like that!"
"Fiona!" cried Kelly. "Don't fall over like that!" Fiona didn't understand but she soon did as she toppled over and onto her side with a crash. The crates smashed open and the electric drill crunched loudly as it broke onto the construction site ground. Everyone stopped as they just looked on at Fiona. She was dazed and confused and her fork-lift prongs were bent and bruised. Miss Jenny and the foreman were not happy at all although the other members of the Pack all tried to hide their smiles.
"FIONA!" called out Miss Jenny. "You have been incredibly rude and have been an absolute hindrance today!" Fiona didn't feel overly sorry for herself. She just wanted the Pack to work efficiently and thought she was doing a service to Miss Jenny and the foreman but obviously she wasn't.
"All I was trying to do was make the Pack work better…" Fiona whimpered as Miss Jenny looked on crossly.
"Well…" cut in the foreman. "Think about how you can work better whilst you're at the menders because we can't use you with broken prongs."
"Of course, sir…" sighed Fiona. "The menders is it…"
A week later, Fiona was all repaired and just stayed in the warehouse all day working as she would without any annoyances from others. The Pack felt great that Fiona wasn't bossing them about and revelled in it all until Miss Jenny brought her back.
"It needs to be done…" said Miss Jenny. "Sir Topham Hatt gives others a second chance, so I will give Fiona a second chance…"
"I appreciate it a lot…" smiled Fiona.
"Good…" said Miss Jenny. "But please can one of you please take leadership while the foreman and myself are busy. Someone needs to." Everyone expected Fiona to volunteer herself but she didn't. Everyone seemed surprised, even Miss Jenny and the foreman were.
"Kelly…" then said Fiona. "Why don't you? I hear you did years ago, so why not take back the reigns?"
"Good idea Fiona…" smiled Miss Jenny. "Kelly, you're in charge!" she added as she left to speak to the foreman.
"Fiona…" said Kelly. "Are you sure about this? You don't want to lead?"
"I'm certain of it…" Fiona smiled. "I'll just do my work to the best of my ability while you all do the same."
"To Fiona then!" called Kelly to everyone else. "The newest and not so bossiest member of the Pack! Welcome!" and everyone else cheered as Fiona felt part of the Pack at last.