Lee's Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends

Stories

The Owl and the Open-topped Bus

Olga is one of two open-topped buses on the Island of Sodor. Her brother is Graham the blue open-topped bus and they get along greatly. Olga is painted a lovely dark green and she enjoys nothing more than undertaking tours around Sodor with passengers looking on in amazement at the sights all around. Olga even does night tours and enjoys the light that street lamps project onto buildings. They don't quite look the same as they do in the day and this is what Olga loves most about it all.

One night, Olga was busy filling up with fuel next to an engine pull-in when Stanley the silver tank engine came for a rest.
"Take it easy with that fuel!" Stanley joked. "It's got to last for everyone, not just you."
"Oh I will," smiled Olga. "Besides I don't travel that far at night. There aren't many who want a night tour around Sodor."
"Why's that?" asked Stanley but before Olga even got a chance to reply Diesel appeared.
"It's haunted." he said simply. "The whole island is. Trust me Olga, people don't journey in you at night because they think ghosts will gobble them up. It's a fact."
"What nonsense!" declared Olga loudly. "If the whole island is haunted I suppose you're going to tell me that the trees are haunted too." she added as she looked at trees near to the road and rails.
"Of course." said Diesel. "There's even a neat warning to tell you when something bad is about to happen." he then added. Stanley and Olga looked dismissively at Diesel.
"Really?" Stanley asked.
"An owl will hoot whenever it sees danger ahead." said Diesel in his best spooky voice. "Look, there's one over there!" he added in shock at the sight of the owl. Olga and Stanley looked to the owl, it looked pretty harmless. It didn't hoot at them.
"There's obviously no danger then." said Olga. "If there was, it would have hooted."
"Hmmm..." sounded Diesel. "It's obviously broken."
"Owls aren't like machines!" laughed Stanley. "They don't break." Diesel wasn't in an agreeing mood though and he and Stanley continued to argue about owls for some time. In this time, Olga had quietly slipped away and went on her way to pick up some night tour passengers, but deep down Olga began to think of what Diesel had said.
"It would explain the lack of passengers at times," she thought. "Perhaps Diesel is right." she continued as her journey carried on. All around her were trees and Olga was sure she could see owls, but none of them hooted at her. She was sure one would though and she was beginning to get nervous…

As the night went on, Olga had a few passengers here and there but not too many that made her dismiss Diesel's silly talk altogether. She thought there was some weight behind it now. It was beginning to make sense. When her next stop came, she asked the departing passengers why they chose a night tour, but their answers didn't help much either.
"We just prefer night!" said one. "We know that's not the normal thing though."
"Oh, thanks." sighed Olga as they left. She thought her passengers would have more reason than that and everything about what Diesel had said was beginning to affect her now. She could feel a funny feeling in her engine and she didn't want to look at the trees either. Olga was spooked but didn't want to admit it. Then, she saw a familiar bus coming in her direction, it was Graham.
"Still enjoying your work night owl?" he asked jokingly.
"W...w...what did you call me?" Olga asked nervously. The word owl had clearly shocked her.
"Night owl. It's what we all call you at the depot, Olga." explained Graham. "No-one else is normally out this late. I'm just heading back to the depot now. See you in a bit." he added before leaving. Olga was in no mood for her brother's joking and just tried to focus ahead. When she came to her next stop, there were two passengers waiting, but they didn't look like her normal passengers at all. One of them, a man, was holding a strange device and the other had several notebooks with them.
"We're ghost hunters!" they declared to Olga's driver as they boarded and headed to the top deck.
"Ghost hunters?" said Olga. "W...w...w...where are they? In the trees?"
"I hope not." replied her driver as he and Olga set off. Neither of them could keep a check on the ghost hunters in the top deck but they hoped that no ghosts would be turning up. The night was getting darker by now but it wasn't deterring the ghost hunters at all. The one with the strange device was pointing it all around, especially in the direction of the trees.
"I'm getting something." he said. "The readings are showing something."
"Oh dear..." said the other. "They're here."
"We don't know that." retorted the man with the device. "There's something, but it could be anything." Olga by now was just nervous. The funny feeling in her engine had got worse and she was trying her best not to look at the trees.
"If an owl hoots, then were doomed." she thought. "We'll be toast for whatever gets us. Gobbled up and never seen again." she continued nervously. Then, as Olga and her driver lost concentration for just one second, an owl hooted loudly in their direction.
"Ahh!" yelped Olga's driver.
"Eeeee….they've come for us!" screamed Olga as her driver panicked at the steering wheel and took them down a road where low hanging trees were. This was a road that Olga or Graham didn't take because the low hanging branches would hurt passengers on their top deck, but for Olga it was too late to stop. The ghost hunters on the top row had only seconds to do something before being hit by hard branches. One of them scrambled to the stairs, while the other fell to the floor of the deck. A branch caught his device though and it flew out of the top deck altogether and smashed onto the road itself.
"My device!" he exclaimed.
"Ghosts!" said Olga as her driver quickly pulled over, away from the low-hanging trees. The ghost hunters quickly came down the stairs and headed straight to Olga's driver.
"What was all that about?" they asked.
"We heard an owl. It spooked us both, sorry." said the driver. "We heard a story earlier saying if you hear an owl hoots it means something bad will happen." he then explained.
"People would get gobbled up by ghosts!" added Olga. "It's a fact apparently." The ghost hunters looked at each other and then laughed.
"If we knew that story, then I would have expected to lose my device." said the man as he looked out to his broken device on the road. "That's the bad thing that's happened. No-one got gobbled up!"
"You were searching ghosts though?" asked Olga.
"Yes, but I think our device wasn't scanning them in the end." replied the device man.
"What was it scanning then?" quizzed Olga.
"The owls!" the device man replied with a laugh. "This area's known for them. You'd be lucky to find anything that isn't an owl round here. We were hoping we'd find something else, but obviously that isn't the case."
"No indeed," said the other ghost hunter. "But do you know what, don't let an owl spook you. They're only calling out to friends or loved ones – that's all the hoot is for. They can't see ghosts! Don't listen to those silly stories either. You were doing a lovely job until that little excursion at the end."
"Oh thank you." said Olga. "Thank you and I will stop listening to those stories, I promise!" she added with a beaming smile and with that, she took the men home to their stop, with the broken device in tow, and then returned to the depot. When she reversed into her spot, Graham was the only one who was still awake.
"Have a fun night?" he asked.
"You could say that." smiled Olga. "The night owl certainly had an interesting time that's for sure."

From now on, Olga doesn't take any supposedly scary or spooky story she hears seriously at all. She knows that owls only hoot to get friends or family's attention, they're not there to spook anyone, let alone open-topped buses. She still loves her night tours though and hopes that even if there are ghosts about, they won't get in her way.
"That just wouldn't be very nice of them, now would it?" smiles Olga and you know what, all the owls and even the ghosts agree with that.