A/N: Okay, I just feel like I need to address this because it's been on my mind for a little while now, but... I do not ship Michaela with Duck, Oliver, or Toad. Although she is very good friends with all of them, I do not ship her with any of them, and if you check the character tags on my story, you'll see (spoilers) that I actually ship her with one of the Scottish twins. (The real question is, which one?)

Also, is it just me, or am I the only person who took literally a decade to figure out what Duck meant by the "Great Western way or the wrong way"?

It was a bright and sunny day on the Island of Sodor. Michaela the Iridescent Engine had been hard at work in the Arlesburgh Yards for several days now, and she was getting quite good at her new job.

"You're doing great!" Duck called to her at one point as he passed by with a goods train.

Michaela smiled and whistled back a greeting, but winced at the high-pitched ringing her whistle left sounding in her head.

"He's right, you know." Kennet munched on a sandwich he had brought for his lunch as he let Sam drive Michaela for a few minutes while he rested. "You're slowly overcoming your fear of the Troublesome Trucks, and come to think of it… they haven't been quite so troublesome lately, have they?"

"I think my singing's helping," she replied as she arranged some trucks in a line for Oliver to take when he arrived.

The Troublesome Trucks around her burst into song when they heard Michaela start to hum again.

"They're two, they're four, they're six, they're eight

Shunting trucks and hauling freight

Red and green and brown and blue

They're the Really Useful crew!"

Just then, Oliver and Toad arrived.

"Oh, I didn't know you were teaching singing lessons, Michaela," Oliver teased. "How long before they start performing on stage?"

Michaela laughed and went to fetch his train for him. "You're so funny, Oliver."

"And you're very kind, Miss Michaela," replied Toad.

A few minutes later, the iridescent engine had finished arranging Oliver's train for him and was about to get back to organizing the rest of the yard. Suddenly, Oliver spotted an oil tanker attached to the end of some coal trucks underneath the coal hopper and pointed it out to Michaela.

She immediately went to take care of it. "Oops, not again…"

Michaela nudged the train out of the way, but accidentally ended up underneath the chute. "Oh, no…!"

A few seconds later, Michaela was covered in coal. She coughed up the dust and reversed, feeling embarrassed. "Why does this keep happening to me?"

"That's happened before?" Oliver asked.

Michaela sneezed as Kennet tried to clean off her face with a rag. "Uh-huh. It's not the first time I've put something where it shouldn't have gone and ended up covered in coal today." She shuddered. "So loud…"

"What's so loud, Michaela?" her driver asked.

"Getting coal dumped on me."

"If you don't mind me saying so, Miss Michaela, I would suggest that you take a bath to clean yourself off," said Toad from the end of Oliver's train.

"A… a bath?" stammered Michaela.

"Yes, if you go to the washdown, they'll have you cleaned up in no time." Oliver whistled. "We'd better get going now. See you later, Michaela!"

The iridescent engine smiled nervously as she watched the boys leave. "Um… Kennet?"

"What's up, girl?"

"How do they clean an engine at the washdown?"

Kennet thought about it. "Well, they'll prop up some ladders against you, and clean you off with some water and—"

"Wait, wait, wait." Michaela inhaled. "You mean to tell me that they'll be touching me?"

"Yes…?"

*"With cold water."

"Um… well, I mean what else would they use? Soda?"

She squinted. "What is 'soh-dah'?"

Kennet shook his head, a gesture that his engine couldn't see since he was back inside her cab now. "Never mind. Anyways, we should probably head over there once we're done shunting here—"

Michaela's stern reply surprised him. "No."

"Hey, it won't be that bad. Just a few minutes, and they'll—"

"No!"

"Michaela, it'll be—"

"NO!"

A few hours later, Michaela pulled into Tidmouth Hault Sheds, still covered in coal dust from the day's accidents.

When Kennet climbed out of her cab and walked around to face Michaela, the look on his face told the iridescent engine what he was about to say.

"No." She closed her eyes and exhaled.

Kennet's hair ruffled with his engine's breath, and his cap almost flew off of his head. He adjusted it and crossed his arms. "You know, Michaela, you're going to have to clean off sooner or later. Sir Topham Hatt probably doesn't like it when his engines stay dirty, even when they have all the time they need to wash down."

Before Michaela could reply, they heard a whistle and the sound of an engine approaching the sheds.

Oliver and Toad pulled onto the turntable, and the green tank engine looked surprised to see Michaela back so soon. "Oh, is choir practice over already?"

She smiled for a second, then frowned again and retreated further into her berth.

"What's the matter with Miss Michaela?" Toad asked as Oliver placed him back inside the sheds.

"She says she doesn't want to take a bath," replied Kennet. "I think she's worried about being touched or something like that."

The three of them turned to look back at Michaela. Sam, her fireman, had also climbed out of her cab and was now trying to convince her to go to the washdown, but the iridescent engine wouldn't have anything to do with it.

As a resounding "No!" echoed out of her berth, Douglas showed up and gave Oliver a quizzical look when he heard Michaela shouting.

"Losh sakes, is something th' matter?"

"Michaela doesn't want to go to the washdown for some reason," Oliver responded.

He moved onto the turntable and instead of going to his berth, Oliver went in front of Michaela's and peered inside. "Hey… is it okay if I ask you something?"

She avoided eye contact with him and focused on the tracks in front of her. "What?"

"Why are you afraid of taking a bath?"

Michaela paused for a few seconds before finally responding. "I've had cold water splashed onto me before, and that was during our journey to Sodor. I don't wanna feel that way ever again… and I hate being touched by people that I don't know, or by anything suddenly touching me when I least expect it."

Oliver was surprised, but he wanted to help her feel more comfortable with the thought of going to the washdown. "I understand that you're anxious about what it's going to feel like, but I just want you to know that if you want, you can have your driver speak to the people there and tell them to be gentle and maybe wait for a few seconds if it starts to overwhelm you.

"And to be honest, it's been so warm lately that there's a chance the water might not even be cold. If anything, it'll feel nice after all this heat."

Most of Michaela's tension faded from her face, and she looked up at Oliver, still avoiding eye contact. "...You really think so?"

"Yes. And you don't have to do it today, but I think Sir Topham Hatt would appreciate it if you went there first thing in the morning."

She sighed with relief, but there was still a bit of uncertainty in her voice. "Okay… I'll try it tomorrow."

Duck's voice echoed from outside. "Do or do not, Michaela. There is no try."

"Is that one of your Great Northern quotes or something?"

He huffed as he settled into his berth. "It's the Great Western."

Michaela looked down again. "I'm sorry… I haven't memorized all the directions yet."

Kennet approached her with Sam in tow. "So… you'll go to the washdown, then?"

"Tomorrow morning, but I need you to talk to the people there first about my sensitivity to touch."

He patted her buffer. "Sure thing, girl. Oh, uh… Did that bother you?"

Michaela smiled. "No, not really. I know you pretty well, and you usually do that, so I knew what to expect."

Oliver waited for the turntable to align with the rails, then he reversed and smiled at the iridescent tender engine. "You can do this, Michaela."

"Thank you."

The workman raised his sponge to Michaela's side and glanced down at Kennet. After a nervous smile from his engine indicated that she was ready, her driver turned back to the workman and nodded.

Michaela tightly closed her eyes and braced herself, then winced when she felt the wet sponge touch her body, but she slowly opened them again when she realized how small the sponge was, and how gentle the workman was being.

"Hey… this isn't so bad after all!" Michaela laughed.

Kennet and Sam grinned at each other and watched as their engine began to have the rest of her livery cleaned and polished.

Oliver was waiting to be coupled up to a train at Arlesburgh Yards, when he suddenly heard a cheery, high-pitched whistle sound from behind him.

"Oliver, you were right!" said Michaela as she pulled up next to him.

The green tank engine tried to look at her, but he was immediately blinded by the bright sunlight reflecting off of Michaela's iridescent livery. "Oh, I—ow! I-I was?"

"Yep! I could hardly feel the workmen's touches at all, and the water wasn't as cold as I thought it would be!"

Just then, the Scottish twins pulled into the yard with a delivery.

"Alright, who pulled th' sun outta th' sky an' put on the tracks?" Donald pretended to complain with a smile on his face.

Michaela giggled after Kennet translated what he had said to her. "Do I look alright?"

"Aye, but… ah cannae even glance in yer direction fer verra long," replied Douglas.

The iridescent engine's smile faltered for a second. "Hm… Now you know how it feels for me to look people in the eyes."

There was a brief uncomfortable silence as the Little Western engines all realized what Michaela had said, but it was soon broken by the sound of Duck puffing into the yard.

"What's going on then—aah! Michaela, no offense, but you're hurting my eyes…"

She laughed. "Oops. Well, I guess I'd better get back to work, then. Maybe I should get dirty again and cure you all of your sudden blindness?"

"No!" the boys all suddenly burst out at the same time.

Then they all started to have trouble looking at each other and functioning like normal engines, and there was a lot of awkward stammering and puffing away as they all went back to their jobs.

Michaela giggled silently as she went to shunt the trucks into their proper places. She was just grateful that she wouldn't have to be afraid of taking a bath anymore.

Duck, Oliver, Donald, and Douglas, on the other hand, were probably more scared of Michaela doing so… because they would temporarily be blinded and stunned each time that she did whenever it was too sunny outside.

A/N: I haven't been able to determine what Michaela's basis is, but her wheel configuration is 0-6-0, and she's a special tender engine meant for shunting, hence her smaller tender and overall size.

*I'm honestly surprised there aren't more engines who don't like taking a bath (like Scruff for example, but he has different reasons than Michaela). Then again, maybe they're just used to people constantly handling them, like when they were first built—but Michaela wasn't comfortable with that either, as revealed near the end of chapter one.