It was a week before Percy saw the other engine's face, but he knew something was up since that night. He was deep in a conversation with himself when he looked up to see 25 gliding over to the sheds. She looked tired and her eyes were closed, but she had them.

As soon as the shed door closed, Percy talked to the other engine. "Hello," he started, "I'm Percy, unofficially. Do you have a name?"

25 just looked in Percy's direction in shock at another living engine.

"I'll take that as a no, then? I'll call you 25, the staff call me 10 anyway. It's nice to know someone else is here. It gets lonely, you know?"

25 didn't know, she was only at the workshop for less than a month and had workers to talk to.

If she were human, she'd have shaken her head, but instead she resorted to looking down at her knuckle coupler.

"Well, I guess I'll stop bothering you. Goodnight." Percy learned the signs fairly quickly of an engine who didn't want to talk.

25 tried saying "no, it's fine," but as always, it came out as a gurgled cry. Percy heard it and asked a big question: "Can you speak?"

Eyes turned downward, no. Why? She knows English well enough.

He'd find out tomorrow. He shut his eyes, said a final "goodnight," and fell asleep.

25 closed her eyes too, she was ignoring her fatigue for long enough. The street lights outside provided the tiniest but of orange light for the engines to see in.

The next day, Percy and 25 followed their routines to a T when six rolled around. Percy and his crew agreed to ask 25's crew to take her out for a bit. 25 puffed by but stopped by a water tower, which provided a great opportunuty to ask her crew.

They agreed and went to a siding. Their crews left them alone and Percy started work.

"Alright," Percy said, "say 'aah'."

"Aah," she said, following Percy's mouth.

"Now 'bee'."

"Bee."

And so they went on before she got the hang of phonetics. They went onto common words next, yes and no being the first ones.

All night, they practiced speech.

The sun came up and she just finished the word "xylophone", Percy's driver ending the lessons with a shirt whistle and a puff.

25's driver came, too, and soon she left the station muttering the words "mustn't be late".

Percy smiled, his work wasn't in vain. He finished work but he was put in the shed that night. It didn't matter, she got the hang of words.

He went to sleep that night feeling accomplished.