DUCK AND THE GOLD (PART ONE)
Duck was a very useful engine. He worked hard on his lines and always pulled his trains well. Sir Topham Hatt noticed this. He spoke to Oliver in private about this.
"Does Duck really work as hard as it seems?" he asked. Oliver grinned. "He works as hard as anyone! Sometimes I think he is the hardest working engine on Sodor!" Sir Topham Hatt smiled. "Then I think he will be perfect for my task..." he said as he drove off.
The next day, Sir Topham Hatt was sitting in his office, listening to the radio and sorting out some papers.
"Arthur's accident...taken care of, Chesil bridge...paid off, Percy's incident with the chocolate factory...HOLY COW!" Then he heard a knock at his door. "Come on in!" he yelled. A man wearing a huge jacket, black pants and had a walkie-talkie and a gun in his pocket came in. "It's here." he said. Topham walked out.
Outside, was a van. They opened it up and pulled out six boxes. Very large boxes. "This is it." the man said as he gave him a paper. He signed it and the van drove off. "Duck...he can do it." Sir Topham Hatt said.
Duck puffed into the station. "Duck," Sir Topham Hatt started "This train is filled with gold." Duck's eyes grew huge. "You are to take it to the other side of the island. You must take the valley route, becuase it's the fastest. Can you manage?" Duck took a deep breath. "I won't let you down!" he said as he buffered onto the two vans. He left the station.
He was puffing through the valley. The train wasn't heavy, but he had to protect the gold. "Nothing to it, really." he said to himself. But while he was speeding along, something was going on, on the hill.
"So when the train comes through, we jump onto the van and open the door." a shadowy man said. Two others nodded. "Then we toss out the loot!" a rather large man said. Then Duck started passing through the valley below. "Let's roll." the leader said.
Duck felt confident about this train. "This is easy." he said to himself. Then the gang of robbers started riding up to the first van. "Jump!" the leader said. They jumped onto the side of the van. "Now open it!" one of them called. They pryed at the lock, and eventually opened the van. They saw three crates of gold on the train. "This is gonna be great!" the fat one said. Then one got an idea. "How about we take this train! We can take it into the town and give boss the gold right away!" The others agred.
Then Duck's fireman heard some noise. "What's going on?" he yelled. No one replied. He then looked back and saw one of the two vans was open! "OH NO!" he cried. He jumped back to the van and saw the robbers.
"Get out of here!" he called. They did what was natural: They took him and tossed him to the side. Then they jumped into the cab and took the driver also. "Hope you like your new home!" the leader said as he slammed the door of the van. Duck's crew was now trapped in the van.
The robbers jumped into the cab. "Let's see how fast this old engine can go!" they cried as the throttle was increased. Duck felt his speed change drastically.
"What's going on?" he asked. One of the robbers yelled. "Shut it ya little green weasel!" he called. Duck realized what was going on. "Get out!" he said. The men didn't listen. Duck was being robbed and was a runaway. And his crew could do nothing.