Lee's Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

Stories

Agnes, the Magpie and the Squirrel

Agnes the little Yellow Scottish Bus enjoys her life a lot on the Island of Sodor. She enjoys giving passengers a lift and enjoys seeing the sights of Sodor as she goes along the many twisty roads before her. Having good friends such as Bertie and Cordelia have helped make her less angry at times, but her old Scottish, stern ways come back to her very often now, and it can be annoying, as her driver found out one ordinary, icy day.

The sun may have been out but the day was bitterly cold and the roads were becoming slippy, but a new gritting machine called Gabby was helping rid the roads of ice. She had been loaned for a short while during this bad bit of weather and was seemingly doing a good job. Agnes and all other transport services were still on duty, so there was no let up in their work-load and Agnes was happy to do the work as she felt she was doing Scotland proud. Her driver laughed every time she said it and during this miniature cold snap, keeping up morale was very useful indeed.
"Weather like this reminds me of the good old days up in the vicious cold snaps of bonny old Scotland!" said Agnes proudly to her driver. He didn't say anything, he just agreed with her and drove her along being careful all the time. Occasionally, they'd see the odd animal crossing the road bringing food along to their shelters. In the skies aswell, there weren't many birds about and when they did see one, it was only returning to its nest.
"Poor animals..." said Agnes "Their doing the right thing by sheltering!" she added.
"Shame we can't..." muttered her driver to himself who could see his breath before him. The inside of Agnes was cold and what heat the heater gave off, it wasn't enough.
"Stop complaining, driver!" moaned Agnes. "This is pretty warm compared to a Scottish cold snap!" she added. Her driver didn't speak, mainly because he didn't want to annoy Agnes, but also in the cold, his lips were sticking together and it was making it hard to speak. Agnes was very happy because of this and decided to talk, and talk, and talk for long periods of time about things that were insignificant just for the purpose of annoying her driver.

The next day wasn't any better either weather-wise as the ice as expected formed on the roads and in the early hours, Gabby was sent out to grit the roads.
"I'm a gritting...I'm a gritting...I'm a gritting the roads!" she sang to herself repeatedly as she gritted the roads. Ice had badly affected the rails and provisionally, for the time being, all train journeys were suspended, but due to Gabby's work on the roads, the bus services were still working. Even Cordelia, who is a coach was being used to take passengers whose train journey had been affected by the ice.
"I'm not a bus!" she protested to her passengers "Treat me nicely! Your lucky to be traveling on me!" she added. The passengers obliged and Cordelia was very happy with them indeed. Bertie was happy too with his passengers, it was just mainly Agnes with her passengers who all happened to be Tennis Players.
"How can you play Tennis in this bad weather?" she asked them as they boarded her.
"We'll make sure we can!" said one of them.
"You haven't answered my question!" protested Agnes.

"Never mind..." interrupted her driver. "Let's set off then..." and they did. Gabby had done an excellent job on the roads and they were in perfect condition for buses and cars to travel on, but once again, animals were crossing the roads with just moments to spare as traffic passed them. Agnes was getting annoyed with the animals.
"Stay in your shelters!" she cried out, but her shouting stirred a Magpie who cawed extremely loudly from its nest. Agnes instantly looked up to see the commotion, but in doing so, she hadn't noticed on the road that a squirrel was crossing right infront of them. Her driver noticed just in time and applied the brakes. The sudden screech of the brakes got the attention of the squirrel, who immediately scampered away from the road, but the sudden breaking caused Agnes to swerve, and she swerved a lot.
"Keep calm everyone!" cried her driver to the passengers, but it was no use.

"Help!" cried many of them, but some just stayed silent almost as if they were enjoying it. Then the swerving stopped as Agnes clipped the edge of the road and hit a great dip in the land which momentarily flipped her onto two wheels.
"AAAHHHHHH!" cried Agnes as she saw Sodor at an angle. Then she landed back on all four wheels and stopped finally.
"Phew..." said her driver.
"Indeed..." agreed Agnes. The Tennis players were all seemingly fine, just a little shaken by the event which was understandable. In the process though, Agnes has punctured a tyre, and Butch the Recovery Unit soon came to tow her back to the Bus Depot where a new tyre was fitted. The Tennis players then got Bertie to take them to the Tennis court while Agnes just rested after a different day to say the least.

By morning, the icy weather had all but gone and Gabby's services were no longer needed. She didn't mind, she knew when Winter properly started she'd be back again and maybe she could stay permanently, but she doubted that. As she left though, she sang her song once again, although it was slightly different this time.
"I was a gritting...I was a gritting...I was a gritting those Sodor roads!" She beeped her horn as she left leaving everyone safe in the mind that the roads were now safe enough to go back to their old, normal speeds. Agnes was especially happy with this as she felt good again to be zooming along the roads rather than trundling through them like Cordelia who constantly admires the view along the way. However, after the incident, Agnes is more careful around areas where she knows animals are likely to be crossing the road, and as they do, she can only say a simple thankyou.