JACK JUMPS IN

Based upon the episode by Phil Fehrle, Jonathan Trueman and Abi Grant

Adapted by Zack Wanzer and Rachel Ravens

Christmas and the New Year had gone by on the Island of Sodor, and it wasn't long before spring was in bloom once again.

"Did you hear about the foghorn this past winter?" asked Emily; she, Martha and Julian were at Elsbridge with Thomas, Annie and Clarabel.

"I don't think so," said Thomas. "What foghorn?"

"Long story short, it was why BoCo ended up crashing into a rockslide," sighed Emily. "The Pack spent ages trying to clear that up."

"Oh dear!" cried Annie. "Poor BoCo, I hope he's okay."

"He's back at work," said Martha. "Though I am worried about—"

Just then, Thomas' guard blew the whistle. "Oh, that's us," the blue tank engine said. "We'll see you three later."

Along the way, Thomas, Annie and Clarabel had to stop at a red signal. It was near a construction site between Callan and Hackenbeck.

"Okay, time to smooth out the foundations," called a female voice. "Buster, that's yer cue."

"Got it, Miss Jenny," smiled the red steamroller. He rolled out and started to do his work.

"Cinders and ashes," cried Thomas in surprise. "Miss Jenny, what are you and the Pack up to?"

"Ah, hello, Thomas," Miss Jenny smiled. "We're buildin' a new station fer the town o' Maithwaite, commissioned by Sir Topham Hatt."

"That's great news," said Clarabel.

Just then, there was a groan of annoyance. "Not again, Max and Monty!" Alfie had dropped his load of dirt onto the ground.

"Ha!" laughed Max. "You've been so tired as of late."

"Sorry if you can't keep up," added his brother.

"Hey!" snapped David. "That wasn't very nice, guys."

Miss Jenny sighed as she observed the scene. "Max and Monty, you two keep that up and you'll be kept in your garage for a month!"

The two dump trucks exchanged a worried look as they sheepishly subsided. Alfie gave a weak smile at his owner before yawning.

"You sure you're okay there, Alfie?" asked Kelly.

"As dumb as those dump trucks act, they do have a point," sighed the little excavator. "There's only so much digging I can do, and Oliver can't do his jobs and help me out at the same time."

"Well, that's why I've brought in someone to help ye out," said Miss Jenny. "He was due to arrive this mornin'... Thomas," she said, turning to the blue tank engine, "do ye think ye could pick him up after yer return trip?"

"Of course, Miss Jenny," smiled Thomas. "Anything to help a friend. I'll just have to arrange it with Sir Topham Hatt."

Upon arriving at Ffarquhar station, Thomas asked Mr. Volley to send a message to Sir Topham Hatt about Miss Jenny's new arrival. It came back sooner than expected.

"Okay, Thomas," Mr. Volley smiled. "Percy's on his way to get Annie and Clarabel. You can pick up the new Pack member now."

"Great," said Thomas. "See you soon, girls."

"Spot on, Thomas!" smiled Miss Jenny. "Ye'd make a mother proud."

"Thanks, Miss Jenny." Then Thomas spotted a red front loader with the number eleven on his cabin on the flatbed. "Oh, you're the new Pack member. Welcome to Sodor."

"That's right; I'm Jack," the front loader replied. "I can load, unload and carry lots of things!"

"I can haul and shunt," boasted Thomas.

"And I can get ye two chatterboxes off to the construction site!" laughed Miss Jenny. The two laughed as Miss Jenny jumped on board the brake van, and then Thomas quickly puffed off.

"Is this your first job on the construction site?" asked Thomas.

"It's my first job on the island!" replied Jack, excitedly.

"Look out for Max and Monty," warned Thomas. "They're trouble!"

"Thanks for telling me," said Jack. "Ooh, I can't wait to meet everyone."

Thomas shunted Jack onto the siding where he was unloaded. The whole Pack was working really hard on the new station.

"Thanks, Thomas!" called Jack as he whirred away. He quickly found Oliver the excavator with Alex and Jasmine. "I'm Jack!" he smiled at them. "Can I help?"

"Oh, my, no thank you," Oliver replied, politely.

"You can go help Byron though," added Jasmine. "Oh, and this is Oliver, that's my brother Alex, and I'm Jasmine, by the way."

"Pleasure to meet the three of you," said Jack.

"N-nice to meet you t-too," replied Alex.

At another part of the construction site, Byron the bulldozer was helping to level the ground for Patrick to lay freshly mixed cement.

"Hello, I'm Jack!" called the red front loader again. "Can I help?"

"I don't need help, thank you," boomed Byron. Jack jumped back a bit. "Oh… sorry about that. I can have that effect on others sometimes."

"No matter," said Jack. "You're Byron, right? And who's this?"

"Name's Patrick," replied the cement mixer. "Great ta have another member o' the crew. Ye may want ta try helpin' Kelly the crane."

Kelly and Isobella were getting out some frames for when the cement was set, so the builders could start building the outside of the station. Jack rolled up alongside the pair, spraying some dust as he did so.

"I'm Jack!" he said yet again.

"Mind my paint!" snapped Isobella.

"Isobella!" scolded Kelly.

"Sorry; welcome to the Pack."

"And if you want to work…" began Kelly.

"See the foreman," Isoeballa said, cheekily. "He's in charge."

"Oh, I get it," chuckled Jack. "Right, thanks, you two. Nice meeting you."

Jack rolled over to where the Pack foreman was waiting; standing beside him was another man.

"Ah, Jack," smiled the foreman. "I'd like for you to meet your banksman. He's here to make sure that you're working safely."

"That's right," said Jack's banksman. "We don't speed around a dangerous area or commit to horseplay - safety first! That's our motto."

"I completely understand," said Jack. "But, there is just one question."

"Yes?"

"What's my first job around here?" he asked with excitement.

Jack's banksman chuckled. "We'll need to go and help Alfie."

"Oh, yes, sir!" Jack cried. "Right, to Alfie… wait, where is he?"

"Just over there," said the foreman. "Now, remember; safety first."

Alfie was moving dirt from the construction site onto David and Poppy's flatbeds. There wasn't too much room, but it was better than having the dump truck twins there.

"I wonder when that new Pack member's due," Alfie was saying to David. "I mean, Miss Jenny did promise she'd look into the issue a couple of years back."

"Oh yes, during the lean-to incident," said David. "I remember that well."

"A lean-to?" asked Jack. "What's that all about?"

"Oh, some idiot decided to knock over a whole lean-to shed after… huh?!" Poppy's eyes widened in surprise. "When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago," said Jack. "I'm Jack, and I've come to help."

"Oh, good!" smiled Alfie. "More help means more dirt, and more dirt means more fun. I'm Alfie, and these two are David and Poppy."

"Well, how about that?" chuckled David. "Help's arrived after all."

Jack and Alfie quickly set to work as they dug up the dirt into David and Poppy, and Jack was informed of the whole "lean-to" incident.

"Well, this Toby you speak of sounds like quite the character," said Jack. "Diesel 10 does sound scary, though."

"After hearing about what almost happened to Oliver and Toad, then Douglas, and then Duck and Tasha? You sure said it," sighed David. "Thank goodness that that monster's been banished off of our humble island."

"Most definitely," agreed Poppy. "That Diesel 10 is a real piece of work."

"I'm just glad we Pack members never got to really deal with his 'demon' side," added Alfie.

Before anyone else could say anything, there was the sound of laughter, followed by two big shapes speeding past and kicking up dirt and dust in their wake.

"Max and Monty!" cried Alfie.

"So those two are Max and Monty!" said Jack. "Thomas was right; they are trouble."

Still cackling at their own fun, the brutish dump trucks each did a 180 before beginning to speed away again, except…

"Look out, Jack!" cried Alfie. Max and Monty had come to a quick stop, right in front of the front loader.

"Hey, get outta our way, pipsqueak!" snapped Max. But Jack didn't move; instead, he glared crossly at the duo.

"Why don't you two go pick on someone your own size?!" he snapped back.

"Can't you take a joke?" Monty grumbled, and then he and Max dieseled away.

"Thank you, Jack," smiled Alfie. "That was very brave of you."

"That's quite alright, Alfie," Jack replied. "Come on, let's see who can dig more dirt when David and Poppy go and get rid of this lot."

Alfie chuckled and winked in acceptance of the challenge.

Later that day, there was a load of rocks that had been removed from the foundations.

"Oliver!" called the foreman. "I need you to move this rock."

"Coming," the brown excavator replied, and he started to get to work.

"Ooh, I'll help too!" cried Jack in excitement. He then scooped up a bucketful of rocks.

"Jack, stop!" shouted his banksman.

"That's too heavy for you!" added Oliver, but Jack didn't stop what he was doing.

"With two working together, Oliver and I can do this in half the time," Jack smiled to himself.

"Watch out, Jack!" cried Isobella. Up on a high slope, Max was waiting for his dumper to be loaded, and Jack raised his arms… before tipping over onto his side and down the slope.

"Oh no!" Jack cried before reaching the bottom with a crash. "Ouch…"

"Jack!" cried Kelly, rushing over to him. "Here, let me get you upright again."

It wasn't long before Jack was on all four wheels again. Apart from a few dents and scratches, he looked to be in fine shape.

"Thank goodness you're okay," sighed Isobella. "That tumble you took was quite nasty."

"Couldn't have put it better meself," said Miss Jenny, before turning sternly to Jack. "There was a reason the foreman called fer Oliver ta move that rock, Jack. It was beyond yer capacity limits. I appreciate ye wanting ta help out, but ye shouldn't jump into jobs that aren't yers!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Jenny," Jack said, sadly. "I just wanted to make a good first impression…"

"I know," sighed Miss Jenny, "but maybe ye're not ready fer the Pack. We'll see if ye can do a better job tomorrow."

"Yes, Miss Jenny…" sighed Jack as she walked away. "I just had to blow it on my first day…"

"Don't feel bad, Jack," assured Alfie. "You did help to stand up for me when Max and Monty terrorized us."

"And David and Poppy tell me you worked really hard today," added Isobella. "That's a plus in my book."

"You're a really good friend, Jack," said Jasmine. "Remember, there's always tomorrow for better things to come."

Jack smiled and was hoping that that would be the case.

TO BE CONTINUED

Author's Comments

After a hiatus of at least three months, we're finally back on the horse for Series 6-7 Redux! The reason I held off on doing a rewrite of this episode and the next is because it would've been in pretty bad taste to do so in the wake of writer Abi Grant being revealed to have liked transphobic tweets on Twitter, resulting in many Thomas fans disowning her. Now, I believe in separating the art from the artist, especially since she was one third of the people who wrote these two episodes, but I've a feeling it's going to get especially awkward when we get to Series 8-12. There's one other episode she's written solo that will turn up much later in this redux, so it's not as awkward, but still.

Anyway, internet drama aside, this rewrite was fairly straight forward, as the most we've done was expanding upon the backstory and adding in a few more Pack members. You'll also notice that we've changed up the locations of the stations on Thomas' branch line; this is because in the TV series, Elsbridge was made the junction to Thomas' branch line, whereas in the books, it was Knapford. To work around this issue, we've made the station by the river Callan instead, as the Ffarquhar engines have been seen stopping there in episodes like Mind That Bike, Thomas and the Rumors and Sir Topham Hatt's Holiday, which I thought made for a fair enough swap. I know that Callan is on the Misty Valley branch line according to the 2014 map, but that line is non-existent in the Seventyverse, so things will be changed around for Callan Castle and Black Loch in the near future. The route for Thomas' branch line is now as follows: (every now and again, trains go up to either Tidmouth or Ulfstead Castle)

Knapford - Elsbridge - Dryaw - Toryreck - Callan - Maithwaite - Hackenbeck - Ffarquhar - Ulfstead

Upcoming stories:

- A Friend in Need

- Gordon and Spencer

- The Sky's the Limit

- Salty's Secret

- Oh Gnome!

- Jack Owns Up