March 28, 1927

Henry coughed severely as he struggled onto the turntable. "Are you okay?" Eagle asked him, concerned.

"No, I'm not. The coal is...bad today."

"Picky picky, Henry!" Juliet scoffed after Henry finally left.

"He doesn't have a say in the matter," Edward remarked. "His undersized firebox–"

"Yeah yeah, that's what he always says, but we've never seen the inside of his firebox, now have we?" Crovan asked.

"If you ask me," Alfred remarked, "Henry's just lazy!"

"Settle down, everyone!" A workman came up to them. "We need all buffers on deck if tomorrow's circus is going to go smoothly. So be quick about getting to work! And Alfred, the Nor'wester is getting an upgrade. The Southern Railway has sold us six Lifer Maunsell fifty-nine-foot carriages and they shall replace the lifeless red Stroudley four-axle coaches currently making up your train, which will be relegated to local service. You are to go down the Wellsworth line to fetch them."

"About time I got new coaches!" Alfred boasted.

"Yet you still don't deserve them," Eagle muttered.

Henry, meanwhile, needed to pick up two new engines for Peel Godred. Faraday wasn't enough to handle the booming line's traffic anymore. So they'd found his Lifer siblings, twins. Wattson was the male, and Jouleia the female. They argued constantly.

"...Honestly, Jouleia, I don't understand why you'd defend what Zongchang did!" Wattson spat.

"I'm not defending him!" Jouleia retorted. "I just think we could've avoided this if we'd just left China alone in the first place! And furthermore..."

Henry, used to such banter, ignored them. But then he felt himself slowing down, and his firebox growing colder. "Try and keep up the heat!" said his driver. Henry tried, but it was no use; the low-quality coal didn't have enough carbon for him to burn. He slowed to a stop fifty feet before the junction at Peel Godred's start.

Faraday, now painted NWR black with a dark red 1 on his doors, rolled up as far as the pantographs came (in those days the catenary ran the more or less whole length of the line). "And so close, too," he frowned. He looked up at Henry's flatbeds. "Oh, hello you two. Long time no see, huh?"

"I'll say, brother!" Wattson grumped. "We were only alive for three weeks before you departed! And left me with her."

"Now now, siblings shouldn't fight like this."

"And engines shouldn't be in the middle of the line!" Alfred growled as he stopped behind Henry. "Move your fat tender!"

"Implying that your own isn't longer than his? I mean, you do have the same configuration as him," the first of the new coaches, Carly, remarked. At the time she and her sisters were still painted SR olive green.

"Shut up, you don't know what you're talking about!" Carly silently fumed while her sisters reassured her, tittering as coaches did.

Juliet and Crovan pulled up on the next track over, double-heading the circus train. "So Henry's broken down again?" Juliet grunted. "Huh, guess he really is really useless."

"You can say that again!" Alfred scoffed. "He's a useless tube of metal!"

"An improper engine!"

"Worth nothing but his spare parts!" Crovan added, and then all three began tearing into Henry. He wanted to cry, but people always said to him that men didn't do that.

To everyone's surprise, it was the newcomers who changed everything when the electric twins belted out a loud "SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUP!" The tracks fell silent.

"We do NOT agree on a lot of things," Jouleia growled.

"But one of the ones we DO agree on is that we hate bullies!" Wattson snapped.

Edward suddenly puffed into view, returning from his local. "Henry, have you stopped again? Fear not, I'll move you." And as he did, Henry looked back at the electric engines with a newfound sense of respect for them.

Two days later, Henry was asked to go investigate a blockage in Ballahoo Tunnel. As he pushed the trucks in front of him, he still felt sad from being made fun of. The trucks were not much help.

"Cheer up, boy," said his driver. "They'll get theirs in due time. Sir Christopher's son Charles doesn't like their behavior and once he's in charge he promises to do something about it!"

"Really? Well, Chuck always had a strong sense of justice," Henry remarked solemnly.

They finally arrived at the tunnel. "What's the trouble?" Henry's driver asked a workman.

"Something's blocking the tunnels. Big. Alive. Making a dreadful noise. We were hoping Henry might be able to scare it out."

Henry gulped. "Don't worry, a train's bigger than any monster!" his fireman said.

"If you say so." Henry puffed forwards into the tunnel. He didn't like it; it was dark and claustrophobic.

Halfway through, the blockage began to push back, shoving the train out. "Ow!" the truck right in front of Henry complained. "Henry, stop being a pushover and push back!"

"No!" Henry replied sternly. "Blister Box, we can't hurt this creature unless we have to!" He groaned as the creature finally came into the light. A massive bull African forest elephant glowered at the engine, who gulped.

"Well I'll be!" said another workman. "That's Mr. Gigantic, from yesterday's circus! The paper said he'd run off after someone fired a gun too close to him!"

The workmen calmed the beast down with some buckets of water and a plain cake. Mr. Gigantic was on his fourth bucket when Henry suddenly coughed in pain. The elephant was startled and sprayed him with a blast of water.

"Well, you aren't coughing any more," his driver remarked.

Henry stood there dumbly. "An elephant...pushed me. An elephant...hooshed me..."

Mr. Gigantic was returned to the circus and Henry went home. Only Eagle and Edward were in the shed at the time. "So, you met some exotic wildlife, I heard," Eagle smirked. Henry sighed. "You handled it very well, though." Henry perked up at this.

"Henry, you're one of my best friends here," Edward said. "No matter what others say, I'll always find you really useful."

"Oh, thank you, Ed," Henry sighed in relief.

In the distance, Charles Hatt, at the time twelve, watched them. "And I hope that we can figure out a way to help you," he frowned.