After the incident with Philip being taped to the ceiling and Edward getting soaked by a rigged sink, James was plotting to do something to get some sweet payback though he found he had to bide his time. Percy and Thomas were cautious to the extreme and would take tedious steps to cover their tracks so that James had to guess where they were when not on duty and this made things infinitely harder. So, he decided to turn to the experts on mischief. They were available and James went to Tidmouth after his own shift was done.

"James!" Bill (or was it Ben?) came running over and gave a high five but it more or less became a slap to James' face as he didn't expect the greeting.

"Ouch!" James yelped, swatting at the other. "Bill! Don't go around slapping people. Now my cheek stings and it'll be red."

"That's what you're concerned about? Don't you carry foundation to cover those red spots?" The twin teased, and gave a sly smile. He adjusted his nametag to reveal 'Ben'.

"I don't have time to put on more makeup, I need to talk to you. I know you've heard about what happened with Philip."

"Taping him to your ceiling? That's genius! We need to think of something similar. Bill! Do you think we could tape Ryan to Diesel's ceiling?"

"Why not tape Daisy?"

"You can't just tape a lady to a ceiling! Bill, I can't believe you even thought of that! I should tape you to Timothy's ceiling."

The two twins went back and forth arguing only for James to seperate them and give a loud, forceful cough. "Ahem! I don't have much time left so I need to ask you to pull a prank on Percy and Thomas. Something that rivals what they did with Philip."

Ben raised an eyebrow and gave a quirky grin. "I dunno. Bill, do you think James can afford our rates?"

"I don't know if he can. Our rates are pretty high, especially for mischief on the expert level. Maybe we should offer him something from the discount prank bin of ideas?"

"We should!"

James was getting tired of all of this and so he raised his hands, exasperated by the nonsense. "You know what? I'll ask Donald and Douglas to help."

That made both twins shut up and give James a scrutinizing glare. Bill flicked his hair back and Ben tapped a foot on the ground. "You wouldn't dare ask one of them to do a prank!"

"They can't even go a meter without bickering! You need someone who is quiet. Like us!"

"Yes, but they don't charge for their pranks. And I'm sure they'll be able to come up with something much more creative."

Ben pushed his brother aside. "Much more creative? I'm a bit cross we didn't think of the taping to the ceiling. That's probably because we'll come up with something better!"

Bill gave an enthusiastic nod. "Yes! Okay, James, we won't charge you for this prank. But you should feel privileged. We usually charge for something of ninja skill."

"Yeah, ninja skill!"

James emitted a sigh. "Look, can you both go and do your prank?"

"Don't you want to know what we're doing?" Bill had already gotten his phone out and was scrolling through the internet for ideas.

"I'd rather keep as distant as I can from this prank."

"So we have to take all of the blame, I bet," both twins snapped.

"No, so you get to have all the glory." James got out some money and placed it in Ben's hand. "Go order a tea or something. Tea helps you think of pranks to do."

And with that, James turned around and headed for his car. This left Bill and Ben in Tidmouth to do all of their plotting. They wasted no time in ordering a hot drink and sitting down at a table outside in the beautiful weather. Bill got out a notebook and pencil, spinning it around on the table a bit.

"Ask Donald and Douglas to do a prank," Bill said. "Do you think James is getting old?"

"He's almost thirty. That's pretty ancient if you're in football."

"Do we have tickets for the next football game?"

"I thought you were the one buying."

And so they talked about the next football game before one of their phones buzzed with a text from James, reading something along the lines of Bill and Ben should get back to their planning.

"I think he's psychic," Ben whispered.

"Nevermind that! I know what we could do. We could replace Thomas's lunch with a fake tuckbox! Or give him a fake tuckbox. Maybe it'll have rocks instead of sweets."

"We could tape a picture of Thomas's face to his favorite locomotive."

"That's a good one! Thomas the Saddle Tank Engine. So do we put Percy's face on his favorite engine?"

"That one is too obvious. No repeats. Oh! You know the tea that he keeps in the break room? Let's replace all of the tea bags with bags of peppercorn! He'll think he has a lovely cup of tea, but it'll be nasty peppercorns instead!"

"I'll print out a big picture of Thomas's face!"

"I'll go and get the peppercorns and replace the tea!"

Ben took off running to go and print out the picture and Bill set off to painstakingly replace black tea with peppercorns. The latter would run straight into Gordon but before he could be scolded, Bill was already out of sight and that left the older engineer rather cross. But Gordon would have to just suck it up and continue on his way.

The break room was open, as usual, and Emily was eating some biscuits. She nodded at Bill as he came on in.

"What're you doing, Bill?"

"I'm looking for the tea that Percy likes. I want to buy some but I need the box for reference."

"He keeps his tea over there, behind the biscuit jar." Emily pointed and continued eating her snack. "I don't think he'll mind if you took some. It's quite good, actually."

Bill slipped the box into his pockets and quickly left, and Emily didn't notice him leaving. She turned around to talk but found that the other had already left.

During the night Bill and Ben were sneaking around. With great care they placed the box of tea back in the break room and it was filled with tea bags where the leaves had been replaced with black peppercorns. The twins kept laughing even as they left the room and went for the sheds where the locomotives were kept.

"Bill, which locomotive is Thomas's favorite?"

"I thought you knew. Is it the blue one?"

"Ah! Yeah, it must be the blue one. Lemme see the picture of Thomas. Alright!"

It was a big picture of Thomas's face, one taken from a social media site. A rather silly picture, too. Ben taped the photo to a blue locomotive and they proceeded to sneak back out. They had to dodge the nightwatch but that was easy and they made it to their apartment flat without any problems.