Thanks to all who reviewed! Now, let's get under way with the next episode!
Cue the theme!
...
Ready Mr Starr?
Yeah mate, I'm actually getting really into it! Didn't think I would, but-
Very good! I'm actually surprised. Now, according to this we need to find some way of marketing to the Americans.
Have you tried the Dallas approach?
Ah yes, Topham Ewing working against the hardworking steam engines in a attempt to drill oil. The Americans will love that. No thanks. And ready in five, Mr Starr.
Fair enough.
...
Thomas the Tank Engine wouldn't stop being a nusiance.
And again, I'll pause for you to recover.
The other engines, since the train fiasco and the subsequent trial that had gone underway and was now currently dominating the headlines in the Sodor Gazette, often wanted to try the novel idea of sleeping at night.
Thomas, on the other hand, had opinions.
Night after night he kept the other engines up. Gordon and the Red Engine were already making suicide pacts.
"I'm tired of pushing coaches!" he moaned, sounding like a broken record. "I want to see THE WORLD."
"Have you tried buying a globe?" Henry asked innocently. The other engines, even Edward, who had sort of passed out after a long argument with Marklin, snickered. Marklin himself was now stuck to Edward thanks to said argument culminating in a explosion with a sellotape wagon. So Edward's grumpy reaction was less to Thomas and more to Marklin.
The other engines in general tended to take no notice of the ramblings of the insane Thomas, for he was a little engine with a long tongue. Actual contests had been held to measure who had the longest (Take that out of context, why don't you?) and Thomas's was the longest.
...
But one night, a Marklin free Edward came to the shed. He was a kind engine and felt sorry for Thomas. Well, relatively. There was also this feeling that if he got Thomas off of the big engines's backs, it would be a lot better for all five of them in the long run. It was basically like sharing a room at university, it required a lot of maneuvering.
"I've got some trucks to take tomorrow." he said, having worn out his buffers from bashing the hell demons around. "If you take them instead of me, I'll push coaches in the yard." Really it was a win win situation for Edward.
"Thank you!" said Thomas, gratified that at last someone took him seriously. "That will be nice."
"NOW WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP!?" roared the other three engines, almost in tears.
...
Next morning (As more workman arrived to begin working on Henry, who had complained of eye trouble), Edward and Thomas asked their drivers and when they said yes (Both of them, co-incidentally, a bit nervous and not wanting to argue with the trains that had killed a fireman) Thomas ran off happily to find trucks.
"Please let us not get killed." chanted his new driver and fireman, in a prayer they had repeated quite often since joining Thomas.
...
Now trucks are silly and noisy. This is what any engine will tell you, in a delightful bit of truck profiling. They talk a lot and attend to what they are doing. In many ways, they resemble the teenager. And I'm sorry to say (BUT AM I THOUGH?) that they play tricks on a engine who is not used to them. On their first days respectively, Gordon, Henry and Marklin had been covered in cheese, painted blue and lost of most of his wheels. They were saving something special for the Red Engine.
Edward knew all about trucks. He was kind of the David Attenburough of the engine kingdom. He warned Thomas to be careful, but Thomas was too excited to listen. This was bad news for his driver and fireman, who had immediately called their partners and said that they loved them.
He shunted them back and forth and forth and back until he had a relatively consistent train. The shunter, remembering Hatt's specific order to not screw up again, fastened the couplings, and when the signal dropped, Thomas was ready.
Or so he thought.
The guard blew his whistle (His own, not Thomas's) and remembered that engines were vicious creatures who blew steam at him, so he settled down in the brake van for a cuppa.
"PEEP PEEP!" answered Thomas and started off. But the trucks weren't ready, for they were trying to get the latest on the gossip from the rest of the lads. "OH OH OH!" They screamed their chilling death cry. "Wait Thomas wait!"
But Thomas, surprisingly considering the previous story, didn't wait. "Come on, come on!" he puffed, arrogantly.
"All right, all right, don't fuss, all right don't fuss!" each truck grumbled. But this was the first warning sign, for setting the trucks off grumbling meant that you had to be on your guard for the rest of the trip, and Thomas, as we have established was a idiot.
...
Thomas began going faster and faster, as everything seemed to be going great and swimmingly. "Wheeee!" he whistled as he rushed through the aptly named Henry's tunnel. He popped out the other side, feeling like a fisherman landing a prize carp.
"Hurry hurry!" called Thomas as he puffed along near a wedding between a goat and a top hat. He was feeling very proud of himself, but the trucks were getting crosser and crosser.
"Ey mate! We should really take him out!" shouted one of the vans.
"I know, Ernie! I'M WORKIN ON IT."
As he rounded the bend, Thomas began to slow down as he came to Gordon's hill. "Oh!" he shouted to no one in particular. "I really shouldn't have had those cigarettes last night!"
As they pulled up, the driver, who had given Thomas those cigarettes, looked on in concern. "Steady now, Thomas." He warned. At last, they reached the top. He put on the brakes as they reached the highest point of Gordon's Hill.
"We're stopping, we're stopping!" called back Thomas.
And then they struck!
"NONONONO!" laughed the trucks. "ON ON ON!" They slammed forward and jolted Thomas down the hill. The guard, who was now staring at a magazine entitled 'Playdriver' smacked his head into the ceiling and knocked himself out. Before the driver could stop them, the trucks had sent Thomas hurtling down the hill, and were rattling and laughing behind.
"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII REGRET THIS!" howled Thomas, as his Fireman realized that he didn't want to die today and lept for the nearest grass field.
Poor Thomas tried hard to stop them from making him go too fast. A lost battle at this point, but credit for trying. "STOP PUSHING, STOP PUSHING!" He whined aloud, hoping that they would get the point.
But the trucks ignored him. "Go on! Go on!" They giggled in their silly little way! Just like the working class.
Whistling in futile desperation, Thomas raced over the bridge and raced through into Maron. "THERE'S THE STATION!" he screamed in a vain attempt to state the bleeding obvious. "Oh dear what shall I do!?"
"BALLS IF I KNOW!" shouted his driver, who at this point was hanging onto the brake lever for dear life in a attempt to replace the cowardly fireman with his own strength. Thomas rattled straight through and swerved into the goods yard. Thomas shut his eyes. "I MUST STOP!"
The Driver jumped upon the brake and slammed it down.
There was a soft sound and the trucks slammed into each other, knocking each other silly.
When Thomas opened his eyes he found he had stopped right in front of the buffers.
The driver, now in a puddle of his sweat and with a broken off brake lever in his hands, passed out.
A shadow fell over Thomas. There watching stood-
"DEATH!?"
"Worse." The Fat Controller. He himself looked like he was about to have a heart attack combined with a stroke. "What are you DOING Thomas!?"
The driver, now having grey hair, staggered forward and began feeling the buffers, as if to check he was still alive. The Red Engine ran past and promptly laughed at Thomas's misfortune.
"I've brought Edward's trucks sir." said Thomas, who was currently processing just how much trouble he was in.
"Why did you come so fast?!"
"I didn't mean to sir, I was PUSHED!" Thomas wailed, gesturing towards the trucks with his buffers. If that could happen.
"You've got a lot to learn about trucks little Thomas."
"I'M NOT THAT LITTLE. THE NARRATOR SAID I WAS BIGGER THAN EDWARD."
"AFTER-" said Sir Topham Hatt with such menace that his driver was pulling Thomas back. "-pushing them about here for a few days you'll know almost as much as Edward-"
"IT WAS ALL HIS FAULT!"
"-THEN YOU SHALL BE A REALLY USEFUL ENGINE."
Thomas backed away, for Sir Topham looked demonic.
...
"So that went well."
Alcroft and Mitton looked as Hatt began screaming obscenities.
"IT'LL TAKE A BLOODY MIRACLE TO SAVE THIS RAILWAY AND THAT ENGINE." he raged.
...
Karma sometimes rewards those who are due some.
This was one such time.