To all the reviewers, once again, I thank you! And welcome back...
Cue the theme.
...
Can't believe we're getting to Christmas again! It feels like it was only a month ago we were doing the Christmas special!
Time flies by, Ringo, when you're the narrator of a train.
...Chigley?
Thank you! Whenever I say that to someone they think I'm just high! Oh, speaking of which, next episode is ready!
...
"Oh, hello Edward!"
"Hi there Percy. All better, I see."
"Ah yes. I...went a little nuts there at the end."
"It happens."
"So, what did I miss?"
"Nothing much. New engine coming into the yard, to work on my branch-line. Buffers crossed, nothing will go wrong."
Edward immediately regretted saying this. And he was right to.
...
Bill and Ben are tank engines twins, each has four wheels, a tiny chimney and dome and a short squat cab-
"Hey! Enough with the size shaming, okay!"
"Couldn't have put it better meself, Bill."
Ahem. Their trucks are filled with china clay. Definitely not drugs. They may look like they contain cocaine, but that's just a coincidence. Okay, so the Pit Manager occasionally sniffs the clay, nothing wrong with that.
The clay (CLAY. Repeat, CLAY) is used for things like pottery, paper, paint and many other things. Non-drug related things. Usually, they work in the china clay pits, and the two engines rarely see anyone outside of Edward and occasionally Toby and Percy, who would pop by to get some clay for whatever uses they had for it. They had used to be on a seperate line, mostly Edward's, but...problems had occurred.
Signals were ignored and crashes happened. Rumors got around. In fact, Edward thought it very likely that the entire reason that perhaps the rumors about Duck had gained so much traction was because Bill and Ben, having seen him briefly while at the docks, were spreading them around with the other engines. So they now worked pulling trucks around for engines on the main line.
They were let out occasionally to give some assistance at the Docks, but they were mostly kept to the background, just the way the rest of the railway liked it. There, they worked out loads for ships in the harbor.
They were...not too bad at it. True, several times the crates that the ships delivered weren't full of the things they were supposed to be, but they got the job done. Usually.
...
One morning, they arranged two lines of trucks, and then went away for more.
Well, things happened. Ben went to the pub briefly, using a false ID and then proceeded to drink an entire barrel of rare vodka. Bill, therefore, had to get water to throw over him.
So by the time they got back, a great deal of time had passed. They returned to find their trucks, trucknapped.
"SON OF A COW!" swore Bill, who had very unique ways of swearing. Ben however used words that most sailors would consider to be in bad taste.
"Well where is it?!" tipsily asked Ben.
"Don't know DO I BEN!?"
To say they were most surprised was a understatement.
The drivers examined a patch of oil. The other they ignored because Daisy had been leaking the night before last. "That's a diesel." said one.
"No shit Sherlock." said the other.
"It's a wattle!?" asked Bill, who was, despite being the oldest and more mature, rather naive about the state of things.
"A dieseasel, I think." said Ben, who was naive in a different sense. "Oh you know, there's that old, old notice that looks like someone's urinated on it in our shed. Next to the old war posters."
"Oh yeah! Cough and sneezles spread diseasels?" asked Bill, who needed to get his contacts checked.
"You had a cough in your smokebox, yesterday!" pointed out Ben. "So it's YOUR fault that the diesesal came! We should burn you at the stake!"
"It isn't!"
"It is!"
"It isn't!"
"It is!"
This went on for four minutes before the drivers got bored. "All right, stop arguing." they grimly chuckled. "Let's go and rescue our trucks! And then see if there's anything on telly!"
Bill and Ben were horrified. "But the diseasal will use his black arcane arts and magic us away like the trucks!"
The four men looked at each other, and winked. "He won't magic us! More like we'll magic him." They got in a huddle. "Listen, he doesn't know you're twins-"
"THEY MAY HAVE DARK TELEPATHY POWERS-"
"Shut up Ben. So we'll take away your names and numbers-"
"We don't have numbers."
"Bill, SHUSH. Then this is what we'll do." They whispered their plan, and the twins agreed it was fairly decent as far as plans go. They whistled and took off.
...
As they exited Suddery, both twins cackled to themselves as they thought of the 'clever' plan. It was genius! It was foolproof.
It was the kind of thing that most people had thought of years ago, but only now had the twins worked this out.
They rushed through Wellsworth quickly, as they were puffing hard to find the diesel. At one point, film captured of them rolling by glitched. Perhaps it was twin magic...or perhaps it was just the camera man being a novice. Allcroft and Mitton had been absent all year.
Subtly, they entered the expanded Wellsworth goods yards. Patiently, they waited for a moment, until at last they spotted a distinctly un-steam engine figure in the distance. They crept forward, and spotted the diesel had the missing trucks. As they stopped by a mysteriously mislaid and huge soup can, Ben hid behind, but Bill went boldly up first.
There was a brief kerfuffle as the twins argued over which siding they wanted to go on, but at last, Bill sidled up on the right.
He grew more and more nervous, especially considering the sheer size of the diesel. He scowled, and his fireman reluctantly stopped playing a piano in his cab. At last, he drew level.
The diesel was the size of Daisy, but all of it was muscle and pure power. He looked up at Bill. "Do you mind?" he rumbled.
"Yes!" snapped Bill, emboldened by the first remark. "I want my trucks please! Now! Quick as you like."
The diesel looked at Bill the way that one might stare at a unruly cockroach. "These are mine. Get your own. Go away."
Bill grinned. He suddenly pretended to be frightened. "You're a b-big bully!" he fake-sobbed. "You'll be sorry!" And he reversed backwards hard.
The diesel sighed. "Not the best of first impressions."
He did a double take as Ben rushed up. "TRUCK STEALING MONSTER!" He cackled, and ran backwards. Bill took his place.
"WHAT?!" shouted the diesel, rattled.
"Witch!" screamed Bill as he backed away.
"Nutter!" howled Ben as he hurried up and backed off.
And thus it continued for another two minutes as the diesel's mind began to turn to stew.
Finally, his eyes rolled so fast that they looked like pinballs bouncing back and forth his brain, nearly popping out. "STOP!" He wailed. "YOU'RE MAKING ME GIDDY!"
The twins looked at him. The diesel looked from one to the other in jaw dropped shock. "Are...Are there...two of you!?"
"Yep."
"We're twins."
"I might have known it." sobbed the diesel through a sickly grin. "Wait...TWO. OF. YOU."
His eyes shrunk to mere dots and he swooned.
...
Edward had had a quiet day for the most part. He bustled back into the yards and was looking forward to a informal chat with the new arrival when he spotted the two engines. "Oh this is NOT the time. Bill and Ben!" He snapped, switching into angry father mode.
"EEP!" said the twins.
"Why." Edward growled. "Are you playing here? When there is work to be doing? IN A PLACE I SPECIFICALLY TOLD YOU NEVER TO WORK IN WITHOUT SUPERVISION?"
"We're not playing!" snapped Bill, breaking through his slight fear of just how angry Edward looked by the feeling of injustice.
"And both of you." Edward's face was redder than a sunburnt James. "For the next two minutes...I suggest you think very, VERY CAREFULLY about what it is you're going to say."
"We're...er, rescuing our trucks!" said Ben. Edward and the diesel shared baffled looks of bafflement. "Even you don't take our trucks without asking Edward."
"Even me?" Edward's voice was dangerously soft, and his patience seemed to be running out like it was in a marathon.
"Uh-uh, but this diseasal did! With his wicked black arts!"
Edward glared. "Well HOW RUDE. There is no cause for it! This DIESEL-" He glared at the twins. "-is none other than a Metropolitan Vickers! Diesel Electric Type 2! Or in other words, HE'S A PRETTY BIG CHEESE. He gets the job done when asked, unlike some LITTLE engines I could mention right now! And I asked him to get those trucks from the docks! Because IT'S HIS JOB."
The twins were abashed. "We're sorry Mr Vickers- Er, Mr Metropolitan-"
"Never mind." the diesel grinned insanely. "Call me BoCo. I'm so, so, so sorry about the trucks." The sarcasm and loathing wrapped in those words were such that even the naive twins could tell their meaning.
"Right." steamed Edward. "That's all right then. Off you go, Bill and Ben. Fetch Mr Boco's trucks, then you can take these!"
The drivers and firemen grinned to themselves.
"And don't think I missed that!" roared Charlie Sand. "We're having a stern word with the Fat Controller once this is over."
"You immature hillbillies!" added Sidney Heaver.
The twins and both crews left down in the dumps.
As soon as they were gone, Edward turned frantically to BoCo. "Oh I am SO sorry about that! It's...not the best way to welcome you to the job, I know! There's no real harm to them, they can just be...UNGODLY MADDENING." Edward's eye twitched.
"You DON'T SAY!" snarled BoCo, his smile having dropped. "Maddening's not the word, but it's the nicest in the circumstances, so I shall RESTRAIN from raising a STINK up about it."
"Thank you." Edward said gratefully. "I know that the board are already up in arms over how badly Daisy came off to the other engines. And with the Marklin incident-"
"The what?"
"It's a long story." Edward looked around. "Well, if those two know what's good for them, they'll take their time getting back here. Want to hear it?"
"Why not?! It's not like I'll have mental scarring!" BoCo sighed. "Sorry, it's not your fault-"
"No, it kinda is. They need supervising or else they get reckless...funnily enough, now that I've put the fear of god into them, perhaps you could-" BoCo's eye twitched. "Ah. Perhaps we should wait another day for that."