Henry was bored, lonely, and miserable as he watched the other engines pass by with their trains. Most of these would ignore him. Edward and Gordon were the exceptions: every time he passed, Edward would whistle, "Peep peep - hullo!"
While Gordon would say, "Poop, poop, poop! Serves you right!"
With his fire out, poor Henry had no steam to answer.
"Oh why did I think only of myself?" he wheeped. "It was a wedding that day. Will the Fat Director ever let me out of this dirty tunnel again?"
His chance would come hours after Gordon had dragged Thomas behind.
The A0 was bragging about it to anybody at Tidmouth, which unfortunately, caught the attention of the Fat Director.
"So, it was you, Gordon!" he shouted. "I heard about Thomas leaving the yard when I got here, I should've known you had something to do with this!"
"I don't see what the big deal is," scoffed Gordon. "The blue runt deserved it."
The Fat Director lost patience. That feud had gotten on his nerves long enough.
"I shall deal with you when we return to Vicarstown," he told Gordon sternly. "In the meantime, you can shunt your own coaches for the rest of the week. Any objections and I'll be sure to make you regret them."
"But sir, it is improper for tender engines to do shunting!" protested Gordon.
"I believe to have said no objections," said the Fat Director. So upset was Gordon, he raced forward and smashed into the buffers at the end of one of the platforms!
Gordon's buffers were dented as a result.
"Oh, the indignity!" he groaned. The Fat Director found himself struggling not to laugh.
"I shall charge your driver for the repairs, as to teach him how to control his engine better," he said when he recovered. "After all, we can't have engines, um, "smashing" around like they're in some kind of derby."
Gordon's driver was fuming.
"Thanks for that, idiot," he growled. "Now I'll have to deal with my wife again!"
"And what about me, huh? My buffers are damaged and now I have to do my own shunting!" Gordon complained.
"Screw you, sausage!" snapped the driver.
"I miss my old crew," moaned Gordon.
Shunting wasn't as hard as Gordon could have thought, though with his damaged front buffers, it did mean he had to do so with his tender. The trucks had the expected reaction. Gordon was running late when he turned around after bringing the coaches into the platform.
"How ridiculous is this!" he snapped. "Running late for teaching that selfish tank engine a lesson, it's disgraceful!"
The guard blew his whistle, and Gordon set off, hissing in great discomfort.
His water pressure dropped several times during the journey, and the fireman couldn't tell if he was doing it deliberately or not.
"Come on, Gordon!" he called as they climbed his hill. "Give us more effort!"
"My fire is dying as we speak. Give me more fire and I'll give you more water," snorted Gordon. The fireman rolled his eyes.
Gordon managed to make up the lost time when he got to Crovan's Gate. Rheneas was there.
"Everything alright, Gordon?" he asked.
"Quite the opposite," Gordon growled. "Damaged buffers, running late, and made to shunt my own trains!"
"Shunting's not so bad," said Rheneas.
"Of course you'd say that: you're a tank engine!" Gordon snapped.
"And you need to actually think for once," retorted Rheneas.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Gordon huffed.
"Have you ever tried thinking not only of yourself, you big oaf?" asked Rheneas. "There are others out there, you know."
"Nobody matters on this planet more than me," snorted Gordon.
"Not even your maker?" countered Rheneas. "I heard his name was Sir Bagel Ginsley."
Gordon was furious.
"It's Sir Nigel Gresley, stupid!" he shouted.
"See? You must think he's highly important to be outraged by that," said Rheneas.
"Of course he is, he designed me," said Gordon. "The only person who matters other than me."
"So, the Fat Director doesn't matter?"
Gordon had had enough.
"What would you know? You don't work for him! Now shove off, little bugger!"
The signal dropped, and off Gordon went.
However, it wasn't long before the steam pressure dropped like a stone, and Gordon began to feel sick. He cheered up as the tunnel came into view.
"I'll taunt Henry as I pass him!" he shouted, and his steam pressure began to rise once more. Henry came into view, then…there was a loud crack! And with a great burst of steam he began to go slower and slower. The train stopped inches before the tunnel. "What has happened to me?" Gordon asked. "I feel so weak!"
"You've burst your safety valve," said his driver. "You can't pull the train anymore."
"OH botheration! We were running so nicely too!" Gordon grumbled. To make matters worse, Henry had started laughing.
"Shut up!"
The Fat Director, who had been on the train, stepped over to the cab.
"Humph! I've never liked these big engines," he said. "Always going wrong. Send for another engine at once!"
While the guard went over to Vicarstown to find one, Gordon was uncoupled, and ran into a siding out of the way.
The only engine the guard could find was Edward.
"I'll have a jolly-good try," promised Edward.
Gordon was skeptical of Edward when he arrived.
"That's no use," he said. "Edward can't pull the train."
"And you're unable to climb hills," Edward retorted as he backed down onto the first coach of the train. Gordon subsided.
But I'm sorry to say the A0 was right: Edward puffed and pulled, and pulled and puffed, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move the heavy coaches.
"Whew!" Edward panted after a while. "I sure haven't pulled a train this heavy for a while!"
"Hah! I told you so, I told you so!" boasted Gordon rudely. "Why not let Henry try?"
"Yes," said the Fat Director, "I will."
He walked over to the front of the tunnel Henry was in.
"Will you help to move this train, Henry?" he asked. Henry was so happy he smiled from buffer-to-buffer.
"Oh sir, yes sir!" he said excitedly.
So with that, the Fat Director called some plate layers while Gordon's driver and fireman went into Henry's cab and started to steam him up. Once the plate layers arrived, they immediately started to relay the old rails and take down the brick wall.
By the time they finished, Henry's steam was low, but enough to get him moving and he slowly steamed out of the tunnel.
"Ooh, I'm so stiff! Ooh, I'm so stiff!" Henry groaned.
"Then have a run to ease your joints and find a turntable," ordered the Fat Director kindly.
When Henry came back, he felt much better and had a full head of steam. He buffered up to Edward and the fireman coupled him on.
"Peep, peep," whistled Edward, "I'm ready."
"Peep, peep, peep," whistled Henry, "so am I."
"Pull hard; pull hard; pull hard," puffed Edward as they set off.
"We'll do it; we'll do it; we'll do it," puffed Henry.
"Pull hard we'll do it. Pull hard we'll do it. Pull hard we'll do it," they puffed together.
The heavy coaches jerked and began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster.
"We've done it together! We've done it together! We've done it together!" cheered Edward and Henry.
"You've done it, hurray! You've done it, hurray! You've done it, hurray!" sang the coaches.
All the passengers were excited. The Fat Director leaned out of the window to wave to Edward and Henry; but the train was going so fast that his hat blew off into a field, where a goat ate it for tea!
At last, they reached the end of the line. Everybody thanked Henry and the Fat Director strode up.
"A fine piece of work, Henry," he said. "I'm proud of you. As a reward, you shall have a new coat of paint."
"Oh thank you sir!" said Henry happily. "Can it be blue and red please? Then I'll be like Edward!"
"Why certainly!" smiled the Fat Director.
Afterwards, Edward and Henry returned to Gordon and helped him back to the sheds.
Gordon said nothing, but he was clearly slightly humbled.
At the end of the day, the Fat Director had news.
"Tomorrow, Lily shall return from Horwich," he told everyone. "And while that's going on, Henry will be having his repaint, as a reward for helping with the train."
Gordon was quick to cut in.
"If Henry's getting a repaint, I'm getting one too!" Gordon shouted. "I refuse to let him outshine me!"
"Since you'll need a new safety valve and repairs to your buffers anyway," interjected the Fat Director, "I'll allow."
"Give me the same colour Henry's getting so I can outshine him," said Gordon.
"Of course," said the Fat Director. "I'll be sure to make the arrangements."
And with that, the Fat Director walked away.
"I didn't know you liked the colour blue," intervened Emily.
"Blue? What're you getting at?" asked Gordon.
"Oh you didn't hear?" Henry asked cheekily. "I decided to get repainted blue so I could be like Edward. Seems you care for the old guy after all, Gordon."
Gordon spluttered furiously, as everyone else laughed.
Next morning, a familiar whistle got the attention of everyone. Lily steamed onto the turntable, and looked at all the engines.
"Uh, hey, how's it going?" she asked awkwardly. "And who are these new guys?"
"Welcome back, Lily. There's lots you need to know," Edward told her.
(Author's note: Thus, we finally reach the end of the Henry's Tunnel Saga, where he gets painted blue after coming out. Gordon also gets painted blue, but not by intention. Our next story will be an original but will take inspiration from the Garre Montparnasse derailment that inspired "A Better View for Gordon" in Season 5.)