A/N Gordon and James were the choices and due to James' streak of being the POV, I chose Gordon.
Hey, it's me, Gordon. I haven't narrated before as my friends were all featured in the episodes before. They let me have this one as James had a streak awhile back. My fellow tender engines, for the most part, were with me on shunting.
Henry, like me, was lonely when Thomas left the yard to run his branch line. We missed him very much. We had more work to do and had to fetch our own coaches. We thought we were too important to fetch our own coaches. Our little friend James grumbled too.
"We get no rest, we get no rest!" we complained. But the coaches only laughed at us.
"You're lazy and slack, you're lazy and slack!" they answered. It's hard to fetch coaches when one's got a big tender, but the coaches didn't know that. Sir Topham Hatt said we big engines caused trouble then. The stations at the ends of line each had a turntable. Sir Topham Hatt did this because it's dangerous for us tender engine to go fast and backwards. But I talked in a way you would've thought Sir Topham Hatt had given me my tender just to show how important I was. I was proud over having it when I was younger and pulled the express. I still got my tender, even I'm too old for the express.
I said to Thomas, "You don't understand, little Thomas. We tender engines have a position to keep up. It doesn't matter where you go, but we are important, and for Sir Topham Hatt to make us shunt freight cars, fetch coaches and go on some of those dirty sidings. It's well, it's not the proper thing."
Thomas chuckled and went off with Annie and Clarabel. Cheeky little engine, I thought, watching the tank engine go.
"Disgraceful!", I hissed as I ran backwards to the turntable. The turntable was in the windy place close to the sea, and I was not on it just right. I put it out of balance and made it difficult to turn. That day, I was in a bad temper, and the wind was blowing fiercely. Driver tried to make me stop in the right place but I wasn't trying. I was in no mood to try. My fireman tried to turn the handle, but my weight and the strong winds prevented him.
"It's no good," they said at last. Driver then said to me, "Your big tender upsets the balance. If you were a little tank engine, you'd be all right. Now you have to pull the train backwards. I was cross at being compared to a tank engine. Thomas wasn't really my ally yet. My friends were his, but I had yet to put him on my mate list. Even if I did whistle greetings to him when we met at his branch line's Knapford junction. I just didn't understand him, as compared to me, he's so much more emotional and cheeky. He smiles and cries more than I do. I remember when we formed our alliance. I've never in my life had so much water down my face as that. However, that's his story to tell.
"Look!" called some boys. "There's a new tank engine! Oh, it's only Gordon back to front ." Oh the indignity, I thought. It did nothing to help my mood, them calling me tank engine.
"Hello!" called Thomas. "Playing tank engine? Sensible engine. Take my advice, scrap your tender and have a nice bunker."
I said nothing. Even James laughed when he saw me. First Thomas was being cheeky, then my friend James laughed because of me "Playing tank engine?".
"Take care," I hissed. "You might stick, too." I remembered my turntable trouble and wondered if James would have trouble, too.
"No fear," chuckled James. I'm not so fat as you. I mustn't stick, thought James. He told me this when it was just us at a later point how he thought that at me, like he said to me in his mind only. He stopped on just the right place to balance the turntable. It could now swing easily. I arrived just in time to see everything. James turned much too easily. The wind puffed him around like a top. He couldn't stop!
He spun faster and faster until the turntable slowed and then came to a stop. He was all green and dizzy.
"Well, well," I said. "Are you playing roundabouts?"
Poor James feeling quite giddy, rolled off to the shed without saying a word. That night, we held an indignation meeting, Henry, James and me, that is.
"It's shameful to treat tender engines like this." Referring to myself in third person, "Gordon has to go backwards and people think he's a tank engine. James spins like a top and everyone laughs at us. And added to that, Sir Topham Hatt makes us all shunt in dirty sidings. Ugh! Listen", I said. I then whispered my plan for us to my friends. "We'll do it tomorrow. Sir Topham Hatt will look silly." We had decided to go on strike.
A/N I wanted to show Gordon's proud personality.