Thanks to all who reviewed! Now, let's get under way with the next episode!
Cue the theme!
...
Mr Starr, you've got to do some sort of commercial.
What for?
Domino's Pizza.
Hey, you know what would be fun?
What?
If we teased the Beatles getting back together!
Ha! Try it! They'll go nuts.
...
Thomas the Tank Engine is very proud of many things. His youthful good looks, his crossword solving abilities, and most of all, his branch line. Mainly because it means that for most of the time, he's his own boss. He thinks it's the most important part of the whole railway.
He's a idiot, in case we haven't established.
His two coaches, Annie and Clarabel, agree with him. It is about the only thing that Annie, certainly, agrees with Thomas on. Considering that she's often literally the closest to him, he tends to be the one to get some of the more back-biting comments. Clarabel, meanwhile, is filled with so many questions about the world, such as why there were two workmen constantly struggling with a signal all the time. She was also a bit loopy, to be honest.
Annie can only take passengers, but Clarabel can take passengers, luggage and the guard. She's a bit of a show-off like that. Annie wasn't too jealous though, how could she be when she could see such things as the Bridge With Urine Colored Water, and a Windmill. She wasn't bitter. At all. Seriously. Annie told me to tell you that.
They are both old- THWACK! - ow! Okay, okay, they are both experienced and need new paint, but Thomas loves them very much. And that hurt my knuckles you beast!
As they run backwards and forwards along the line, particularly when Thomas has had a good few many, they sing songs to each other. Well, Thomas and Clarabel sing songs, Annie doesn't, because she considers herself to be both sober and sane. When Thomas starts from a station, he sings "Oh come along, we're rather late! Oh come along, we're rather late!" to annoy Annie.
To which Clarabel will often sing back, in a slightly giddy voice. "We're coming along, we're coming along!"
And then they mostly begin singing Right Said Fred.
It's a odd team. Annie even says as much.
They don't mind what Thomas says to them, mostly because A: They know he's usually talking right out of his smokebox, and B: They know he's trying to please teh Fat Controller. And they know too that if Thomas is cross, he is not cross with them.
Unless it's about his cigarette habit.
"It's not healthy!" Annie snapped once more.
"It makes me happy!" Thomas argued back.
"It hurts your body!"
"So does chocolate, and no one's moving to make that illegal!"
"IT IS NOT THE SAME."
"You can have chocolate cigarettes though, can't you!?"
Anyway, moving on. One day they had to wait for Henry's train. It will not surprise you to learn that Henry had been sick as a dog the previous night (Annie suspected that Thomas and he had sneaked off to the Sidings once again for a nice cold one, but she had no way of proving it) and thus was late with the latest group of gawkers.
This made Thomas very cross. This is a bit like the pot calling kettle black when you consider that Thomas had not even pulled his first train correctly. If at all.
A loud bird whistled.
"How can I run my line properly if Henry is always late!?" He moaned. The bird agreed with him. Or not, it was hard to tell considering it was just a bird. "He doesn't realize that the Fat Controller depends on me!"
The guard started laughing automatically, at the thought of the Fat Controller depending on Thomas.
Thomas whistled impatiently, frightening the bird into the path of a plane. He wanted to leave straight away but he had to wait for Henry.
Annie was angry too. The cigar smoke was beginning to get up her nose. There was a mournful whistle, and at last Henry wheeshed in, trying to look as pathetic as possible to gain pity points.
He came to a rough stop and looked mournfully at Thomas.
Thomas gave no sympathy. "Where have you been, you lazyboned, fatfaced...prat!" Thomas had gone to insult school.
"Oh dear!" said Henry, putting those lessons from James on acting into action. "My system is out of order!"
"DAMN RIGHT!" shouted one of the Feminist coaches.
"No one understands my case! You don't understand what I suffer through!" wailed Henry.
"What? Indigestion? Gas? Rubbish!" said Thomas. "You're too fat, you need exercise!"
"I'll tell Sir Topham Hatt you said that about fat people!" said Henry cunningly.
"Not bloody likely! I'll tell him about your problems, and he will LAUGH! I swear, you're faking it sometimes!" Before Henry could answer, the guard blew his whistle and Thomas started so quickly that he left him behind.
The guard stared at the retreating train that was well on it's way out of the station, waved his red flag ineffectually, and then at Henry. "This railway is NUTS!"
"Tell me about it." said the surly green engine.
...
Clarabel, who had seen the whole thing, was distraught, for she was a nice sole at heart who liked her guards supremely.
"Come along, come along!" puffed Thomas. But Clarabel didn't want to come (No, not a innuendo. Get it out of your head) "I lost my nice guard! I lost my nice guard!" She wailed.
"Odd lyrics." said Thomas, who was in his own world.
Annie tried to tell Thomas what had happened. "We haven't a guard! We haven't a guard!" But he was hurrying and wouldn't listen, especially to her after the nagging he had had all day. Both coaches tried to put on the brakes, but they couldn't without the guard. This was a flaw in Sir Topham Hatt's plans.
"Where is our guard, where is our guard!?" They cried, and Thomas was now baffled at where this song was going. He didn't stop until they came to a signal. He glared up.
"So old foe!" he hissed. "We meet again! What's the matter?!"
"I don't know." said the driver. "The guard will tell us soon."
They waited and waited, but the guard didn't come. No one, by the way, went back to the end of Clarabel to check on him, they just assumed that like a dog, he would follow eventually. "Peep peep! WHERE IS THE GUARD?!" called Thomas angrily.
"WE LEFT HIM BEHIND!" howled Annie and Clarabel in annoyance.
Everyone looked back to Clarabel at this, and there was the guard, running and breathing heavily as he did so along the line, with his flags in one hand and his whistle in the other. He collapsed onto Clarabel and spent the next three minutes breathing heavily and trying not to die. He was very hot, so he had a drink (Alcoholic, of course) and told them all about it.
"I'm very sorry Mr Guard." said Thomas sadly.
"My name is RALPH!" snapped the guard, before he grit his teeth. "It wasn't your fault Thomas. Look, the signal is down and it's changed color! Let's make up for lost time!"
Everyone piled into the coaches and with a flourish of his whistle, Thomas took off once more.
A lone boy on the bridge watched as he went under. So did Allcroft and Milton, who got on their bike and rushed over to the station to catch a money making shot.
Annie and Clarabel were pleased to have their guard back that both of them began singing "As fast as you like! As fast as you like!"
"Now you're talking!" said Thomas and he sped up. They reached the end of the line quicker than ever before!
"THE POWER OF SMOKING, KIDS." Thomas spoke aloud.
"What did you say about fat people?!" roared a voice.
Thomas gulped. "Ah." He said desperately. "Hello Sir Topham Hatt! Nice weather we're having!"