Almost done with Season 2 guys! This season's been so much fun!
Cue the theme.
...
Okay, so this is the last one. The taxi's waiting.
It's been waiting since we started.
I know...I think you're going to have to pay him a bit extra.
Me! You're the producer, you pay him!
No, no, see, I'm strapped for cash. You, on the other hand, are one of the Beatles! Not really comparable, see.
...
In summer, the gangers who work on the Island of Sodor cut the grass in the countryside. They did this at first because they lacked a social life, and now did it as a sort of replacement for the mayday pole. They packed it into heaps and left it there to dry in the sun.
At this time of year, as autumn is slowly fading out to the cold winter of discontent, Percy often stops by the grass, and the men finally get off their asses and load his empty wagons and he pulls them to the station.
Percy generally finds this to be a very boring task indeed, and has so conditioned his mind to think about other things more interesting. Such as paint drying, or listening to one of James's rambling speeches about the importance of looking fine.
Toby, who understands the ways of the world a little more, then takes the trucks up to the farmers, so that they can feed their stock. Also, to stuff very uncomfortable mattresses with so they can offload them onto family members who they hate.
This, funnily enough, requires Toby to be out of the way of most of the engines for a good hour or so, often having to pass through the rather quiet valley. Thomas, on this particular day tired and grumpily watching as Toby vanished, wondered if Toby did this job simply to get some alone time.
"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESH!"
Thomas closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten as Percy gave a ghostly whistle. He grinned cheerily at Thomas, who was staring off into the distance as if hoping that Percy would vanish if he ignored him for long enough.
"Don't be frightened Thomas! It's only me! I'm not a ghost!" Percy had gotten great mileage out of Thomas discovering his scam with the ghost story. This had the effect of making Thomas extremely bad tempered and angry...more angry than usual.
"Your ugly fizzy face is enough to terrify anyone into a coma!" Thomas snapped. "You're like-" he cast for a word.
"UGLY INDEED!" I'm-"
"-A grrrrreen catepillar with red stripes!" trilled Thomas, gleeful at having found a rather unique insult. "You crawl like one too!"
"I don't!"
"Then who-" thundered Thomas with the self-righteous conviction that would make James roll his eyes. "-has been late EVERY afternoon this week!?"
"It's the hay! It's being...troublesome!"
"I can't help that!" huffed Thomas self-importantly. "Time's time, and the Fat Controller relies on me to keep it! I can't if you keep crawling in the hay at all hours!"
"Explains why you were late to that meeting yesterday." muttered Percy rebelliously as he puffed off. "GREEN CATERPILLAR INDEED!" he fumed out loud.
...
"Everyone says I'm handsome!" Percy bragged to no one in particular, having asked a total of one person about his handsomeness and had therefore used a lot of hyperbole. "Anyway, my curves are better than Thomas's corners!"
Mr Carlin looked at the fireman. "He's finally ******* cracked!"
"Finally? I think he cracked when he went off on one at the Fat Hatt."
"Thomas always says I'm late!" Percy grumbled. "I'm never late! A few minutes at the least! And it's fashionable to be late!" And so he went on in this vein until he reached the harbor.
"What's that to Thomas!? He can always catch up time further on! Little cocky blue prat!"
All the same, he and his driver decided to start home earlier than usual. Then, as per usual, there came trouble.
Percy was just sitting there, waiting for his trucks to be checked over for any damage, when suddenly, something smacked onto his head. He squawked and suddenly let out a moan of pain as some form of liquid poured down into his eyes.
A crate of treacle had been upset all over Percy. It was hard to say who was more upset, the treacle or the engine. Carlin went off on a three minute rant/tangent about how shoddily the crate had been secured before at last he could be convinced to give some assistance.
Percy was, to say the least, cross. And the incompetence of some of the workmen who were trying to get the stuff off him meant that he was still sticky when he was forced to puff away.
"Why couldn't you have gotten Edward to do this?!" he fumed. "Or Duck!?"
"Because they have actual important work to do! Remember what that was like? No? I don't either!" Carlin snapped.
The wind was blowing something fierce when he arrived at the fields.
"Well ******* look at that!" shouted Carlin. The wind had caught the pile of hay and the various little bits that the gangers had missed and was tossing it about. It landed by the track and on it. Percy closed his eyes, ignoring the deep stinging sensation as the treacle on his eyelids stung his eyeballs.
The line climbed her at the worst of it. "Take a run at it Percy!" his driver advised, and Percy bit back a retort as he puffed up as hard as he could. He gathered speed, but slipped on the hay that was clinging to the line. His wheels tried to grip the rails, but he slipped constantly, and time after time he span uselessly, all the while the wind threw up the hay like it was trying to emulate the Wizard of Oz.
Percy growled, but eventually had to stop, and had to remain where he was, until the line ahead was clear.
The green engine told the driver just what the farmers could do with their hay.
...
Everyone was waiting at Elsbridge. Thomas was muttering mutinously about how certain little green bugs needed to go back to working at the harbor if they couldn't take it. He seethed impatiently.
"Ten minutes late!"
"We know Thomas." said his driver.
"I WARNED HIM! Passengers will complain, and the Fat Controller-" What the Fat Controller would do was never asserted, as Percy panted wearily up. The passengers laughed and shouted at him.
Percy looked, to put it nicely, like someone had emptied a barn over his head. Straw was clinging to his paint like ants to a anthill, and tiny pieces dotted his face, making him look like a rather bizarre shrapnel victim.
"Sorry I'm late!" he said with a edge to his voice. "As you can tell, I've had a rough day."
"Look what's crawled out of the hay!" Thomas crowed.
"What's wrong?" asked Percy, who had no access to a mirror.
"Talk about hairy caterpillars!" scoffed Thomas. "It's worth being late to have seen you!"
...
Percy drove back to the sheds baffled, especially considering how hard both driver and fireman were snickering.
"What's so funny?!" he snapped. His driver, as soon as they arrived, pulled out a large mirror and showed it to Percy. He jumped and stared open mouthed "Well bust my bloody buffers! No wonder they all laughed! I'm just like a woolly bear!"
"Temper like one too." slyly muttered the fireman.
"Please clean me before Toby comes!"
It was no good of course. Thomas had told Toby everything in great detail.
As they arrived, Percy was slowly losing his makeshift wig, though not so much that Toby couldn't chuckle and tease him good naturally.
For the rest of the evening, instead of talking about sensible things like playing ghosts (At least to Percy's mind) Thomas and Toby would not shut up about woolly bear caterpillars, and other things that crawled about in hay.
They laughed a lot, but Percy thought they were very silly indeed.
Well he would, wouldn't he?