Sodor High School: Thomas & Friends
Written by: ThomasZoey3000/SF64Rules91/SodorMatchMaker/DaveMan1000
Episode 52: The Feud
(Based on the Stories 'Thomas, Percy and the Coal' and 'Drip Tank')
On when temperatures were at low enough to create frost, Thomas, his sisters, Emily and Percy were playing a game of Uno in the living room. However, Percy seemed to be distracted and wasn't playing properly.
"Percy, that's the third card you've put down that you shouldn't have," said Emily.
"Huh? Oh sorry, I just have alot on my mind lately."
"James?"
Percy nodded. The room went silent. It had only been a week since James left with Molly, but the group, like everyone at Sodor High School, were still feeling down.
"At least he's not on his own," said Annie, breaking the silence.
"Indeed," agreed Clarabel. "He's got Molly with him, and that's what counts right?"
Emily groaned and got up in anger, nearly flipping the card table over.
"This isn't right! This isn't fair! When I first came to Sodor High, we were all the best of friends, and now, it seems like we're all at each other's throats. What's happened to us?"
Thomas got up from his seat, went over to Emily and wrapped his arms around her in a hug.
"I just want to go back to the way things were," she quietly sobbed.
"We all do, but it'll take time before things get back to normal," he said calmly.
Percy leaned back into his seat, "Thomas is correct there Emily, and he should know, he and I had a falling out a long time ago."
"You did?"
"Well it wasn't as bad as what's going on with James and the others," said Thomas as they walked back to the card table, "but it was similar. Remember the story of how I helped that girl? AKA, you?" Emily nodded. "Well a lot happened before then."
"Well since we lost who's turn it was," pouted Annie, "you might as well tell the story before the next game."
The others all agreed while Clarabel gathered up all the Uno cards.
"Well, it all began when I was only eight," smiled Thomas, and this is the story he told...
Thomas had just gotten a hair cut, and was feeling very pleased with it.
Toby and Percy were at a small cafe called the Awdry Corner when Thomas arrived.
"Morning Thomas," Percy called out, "you look splendid!"
"Indeed I do," he boasted. "They didn't take too much off the top, but didn't leave anything out of place. Best haircut in the world if you ask me."
"Oh I don't know, I like my hair-cut," smiled Toby.
"I've always liked mine, I wouldn't want anything else on the top of my head," added Percy.
"This haircut," Thomas said firmly, pointing to his head, "is the only hair-cut for someone really splendid, every one should know that by now."
And he went inside to get a smoothie. Percy said no more, but he did grin at Toby.
"You know something's bound to ruin that hair-cut at some point," said Toby with a bit of worry.
"Maybe, and if it does, I wouldn't mind seeing it," Percy chuckled.
Every morning, the local brings coal down to Ffarquhar for the engines that work the branch line. The coal trucks are ususally at the end of the train, and upon arriving, the local engine had to take them off the train and park them on a siding. This siding sat beside the station near the bike stand where the kids can leave their bikes.
Usually, there's no trouble, but today would be different.
Thomas had just arrived on his bike. He was getting his lock out when he saw Percy riding over in his direction.
"Be careful around those corners Percy!" Thomas warned, "they can be very sharp!"
"Thanks Thomas, but I think I know-"
But Percy didn't finish as some troublesome truck gang members rolled by, cutting him off and making him go flying down the road towards Thomas.
The Driver of the train was startled to see Percy. He slammed on the brakes, bringing his engine to a stop. But the trucks themselves didn't stop. They weren't coupled up to the engine, so they rolled on and bumped into the buffers.
The force knocked a latch loose and within seconds, an avalanche of coal fell all around Thomas.
"HELP! HELP!" he cried. "Get me out of this!"
Percy thankfully stopped and looked on at where his friend was.
As the dust settled, Percy sighed with relief, then he couldn't help but laugh. Thomas' once proud blue hair and clothes were covered in coal dust from head to toe.
"You don't look so splendid now Thomas," he chuckled. "You should look at yourself, you look more like a disgraced boy to me."
Thomas' teeth gritted, "I am not disgraceful!" he choked. "If you hadn't been a distraction to the crew, this wouldn't have happened. You did this on purpose! Now get me out."
Percy pretended to think, but then smirked and said, "don't think so. Bye bye." And he rode away as workmen arrived to help the eight year old Thomas.
It took quite a while, but soon Thomas was out of the coal. He went back home, grumbling the whole way. He was still grumbling as he got in the bath. In the end, he got cleaned up, but the bath-tube was a different story.
Thomas blamed Percy for some time afterwords for ruining his hair, and his clothes. Toby thought it was funny at first, but Percy was annoyed with Thomas. They ended up in arguments, which made Toby worry.
"Okay lads, maybe we should all calm down," he said wisely.
"I'm sorry Toby, but I won't calm down from this," snorted Percy. "Fancy a kid like Thomas blaming me for him becoming a disgrace to our town."
Thomas gritted his teeth, "just you wait Percy, one day the tables will turn."
"Yeah right," scoffed Percy. "That will never happen. And as for what happened, I wouldn't have missed it for the world."
"Why would you laugh at Thomas' predicament?" Emily asked, interupting the story.
"I was young then, and quite the foolish lad. That, and I thought it was funny at the time." Percy looked over to Thomas, "you have to admit though, you did look funny."
"Maybe a little," chuckled Thomas, "though I will admit that for weeks afterwords, I swore I had coal dust stuck in my ears."
"I think you did," replied Annie.
"You did shout a lot during that time," added Clarabel.
Thomas shrugged, "that would explain a lot, now where was I? Oh yes, now I remember..."
Over several few days, the feud got worse. Thomas still believed Percy got him into that mess on purpose and Percy was furious at Thomas for thinking that way. It resulted in them not talking to each other.
"Oh dear, this is quite the predicament," Toby said to James as the young lad was visiting for the day, "they've had arguments, but nothing like this."
"They're just being a pair of hot-heads," snorted James. "Just leave them be. They'll soon forget what happened and be back to being friends. After all, that's how I fix all of my problems."
But Toby wasn't sure.
Then one morning, it happened. Percy was riding along on his bike towards the station again. Thomas stood there, talking with the Driver and fireman of the E2 tank engine. He glared coldly at Percy.
Percy ignored him and prepared to stop, but to his horror, his breaks weren't working.
"Oh no!" he cried.
He jumped off, but he chose a poor place to do so. As he jumped off, his bike landed on the street, and he landed in a pile of coal behind the buffers. He was covered from head to toe in coal dust.
The crews ran to help him, but Thomas, who had seen everything, just laughed.
"Now it's your turn to look disgracreful Percy," he chuckled and walked away.
Percy was furious, and became determined to pay Thomas out.
"Wait a second, why would you want to do that?" Emily asked. "Thomas didn't cause your accident?"
"My thinking at the time made him the bad guy cause his pressence distracted me from stopping sooner," said Percy. "As for the coal, before you ask," he paused, noticing that Emily was going to ask another question, "it had spilled out of the hopper. If I remember right, there was one worker who was quite clumsy."
"Oh yeah I remember him," said Thomas, "Richard I think his name was. He was a good sort, just couldn't help it. Though he was better that Dud-"
"Uh Thomas, maybe we should finish the story before the girls ask anymore questions."
"How do you know we've got more questions?" Emily asked.
"I can read facial expressions," Percy simply answered. He looked back to Thomas, and without wasting a second, Thomas continued the story.
Following Percy's accident, he kept his distance from Thomas. He would talk to anyone in Ffarquhar from Toby, to Terence, Duck when he visited, Bertie and so many others. Thomas did the same thing, but kept insisting that his incident was caused by Percy.
One morning, Percy was heading off to school. He was growing tired with the feud and wanted to be friends with Thomas again. He had had a good start to the day, and was looking forward to telling both Thomas and Toby about it.
As he rode on though, he didn't notice a tree branch hanging low over the road. Too late, he saw it and banged into it. It sent him flying off his bike onto the hard ground. The bike itself rolled forward and got crushed under the tree branch as it broke off.
"Oh that's just great," groaned Percy. "My bike's ruined, I'll be late for school and...ouch, my knee."
He looked down to see a nasty scratch from his fall.
He wrestled with the tree branch for a bit, and hurried as fast as he could.
It wasn't fast enough, and he arrived at the school late, but when the staff learned of his incident, they decided not to punish him. They even tended to his injury.
Thomas was not sympathic to Percy.
"It was your own fault you ended up in that mess," he grumbled. "You need to keep your eyes open, Stupid! I have no patience with you!"
Percy was hurt, and rather than amending things with Thomas, he spoke with Toby.
As the week went on, Percy continued his refusal to speak with Thomas.
One day, as class was finishing for the day, he decided to talk with Toby about something, "do you know what a drip is?"
"Uh, water falling off something? Is that what you're asking about?"
"No," Percy said, shaking his head, "on my way to school today, I heard James calling Diesel that. I'm sure he's not water that falls off something."
"That's different," said another voice. Both boys looked to see Thomas. He looked like he was getting tired of being ignored, "being called 'A Drip' is an insult. James must've thought Diesel was being a coward, silly or being a spoiled sport."
"I must admit, I've never heard of that before," Toby admitted. "How did you know Thomas?"
"Father told me once."
Percy was curious by this statment.
"So if," he suggested reflectively, "if you stopped me from being nice to you, would you be a Drip Thomas?"
Thomas stepped back in shock from this.
"You're the DRIP!" snapped Thomas, and he stormed away.
Toby looked back to Percy, "you really shouldn't have said that."
"Just telling the truth," Percy shrugged and walked away.
Toby pinched the space between his eyes, "good lord those two, will this madness ever seize?"
Sighing unhappily, he grabbed his bag and left the classroom.
It had been raining earlier in the day, but now the sun was shining, it's rays were shining on the puddles on the ground. Thomas payed little attention to them as he rode his bike, grumbling the whole way.
"That stupid Percy, calling me a Drip. I ought to give him a new nickname when I next see him, see how he likes it. Maybe Green Catapillar with Red Stripes?"
He was so busy thinking on the best insulting name, that he didn't notice the giant puddle ahead. His tires went into it, and without warning, he started losing control.
"WHOA!" cried Thomas.
He swerved to the side, and within seconds, he was in a mud puddle. He tried to get out, but it was no good. The mud was thick, and he couldn't get out.
"HELP! HELP!" he cried out. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
His cries were heard down the road, and as luck would have it, it was Percy who heard. He rode on ahead to the scene, and was surprised to find Thomas in the mud.
"Percy! Thank goodness! Please help me out!"
Percy however was still cross.
"Why should I help you? You called me a Drip. You can jolly well stay there and Drip yourself!"
He started to paddle away, but stopped when Thomas called out to him.
"I'm sorry I was rude to you! I was just mad cause you called me a Drip! But if you don't help me, I'll be stuck here for a long time! Please Percy, help me!" He looked at his friend with the desperate look in his eyes.
Percy was going to retort, then ride away, but he was finding it hard to with Thomas looking at him with that look.
After a minute, he finally gave in.
"Alright, I'll help you out."
He walked over and reached out. Thomas' hand grabbed his instantly.
"You'll have to work with me, I can't pull you out alone."
Thomas nodded, and on the count of three, they gave their first attempt. But Thomas was really stuck in the mud, and he didn't move. On the fourth attempt however, there was some movement.
"Keep it up Percy!" Thomas grunted. "We're doing it! We're doing it!"
"We will do it! We will do it!" cried Percy. "On Three Thomas! One! Two! Three!"
Percy pulled and Thomas pushed aganist the mud, and at last, Thomas was free from the mud.
"Oh thank you Percy! Thank you!" panted Thomas.
"No problem, not bad for a Drip, would you say?"
"You're no Drip, I'm the Drip. Those puddles sure turned me into one."
"Yeah they did," Percy chuckled.
They both laughed, until they noticed that Thomas' bike was stuck in the mud.
"We'll come back with our parents and get it out later. Looks like you need a bath," Percy chuckled, and still laughing, they headed off for their homes.
"And the rest you know as how we first met as kids," Thomas said to Emily. "Percy and I patched things up, and both learned to be careful around coal."
"And mud," added Percy.
"And Mud," Thomas chuckled.
Emily couldn't help but smile. "Well thank you for telling us that story. Hopefully the situation with James will end in similar way to yours."
"That's hard to say," said Thomas as he looked out to the window, wondering if James was doing the same thing. "Only time will tell for sure."
Out somewhere in the English Channel in the middle of the night, a large, old-fashioned pirate ship was sailing towards the United Kingdom in search of adventure, having sailed the waters of the Norwegian Sea, bits of the North Atlantic Ocean, and even the Mediterranean Sea. On board the deck, several crew members were busy either scrubbing or partying. One of them was a 25-year old, burly-looking fellow with short black hair with locks, wearing an olive green plaid bandanna, a blue and white striped armband on his left arm, clear rectangular goggles, brown overalls with a white sash with no shirt underneath, and a yellow satchel. He was one of the three commanders of the crew.
"This is life! Sledge is loving the open sea!" The burly young man said jovially, gulping down his drink, "Drink up, everyone! This is the perfect night to celebrate!"
Some of the crew members cheered and raised their wine-filled goblets. At the ship's helm was a young 18-year-old woman with neck-length, fiery red hair, decked out in a white and blue striped shirt with the word 'GOLD' sewn onto it, a pair of orange shorts with two white rings on each side and orange high-heeled gladiator sandals. She was currently the newest member of the crew, but had worked hard enough to be elevated to one of the crew's three commanders despite her young age—having abandoned her old, boring life back at home.
"Hey, Laura!" The burly young man called out, causing the young woman to scowl, "This night is the best, isn't it?"
"Oh yes, Sledge, I know how happy you and the crew are," grunted Laura, as she was named, in an irritated manner. She seemed to speak with a Ukrainian accent, "It's the third time you've said that in the last ten minutes."
"Aw, lighten up, Laura!" complained Sledge, as he was named, "Sledge knows you're not old enough to drink yet, but…" As he rambled on, Laura listened while frowning further, "…it doesn't mean you can go and be a total party pooper!" He wrapped his right arm around the shoulders of one male crew member and raised his goblet, "Is Sledge right, everyone?!"
The crew members cheered again as their party resumed. Laura growled to herself, wanting to go over and smack Sledge for being annoying towards her—it didn't help that she already found Sledge's habit of talking in the third person to be annoying. Alas, it was currently her turn to steer the ship, so there was nothing she could do but try to put up with him. Before long, the door leading to the captain's quarters opened, and walking outside was a 21-year old young man with short, thick blonde hair with part of his bangs covering his left eye, who's attire consisted of a black, double-breasted black suit with golden buttons and a light-blue necktie, a pinstriped long-sleeved buttoned shirt, and matching dress shoes. He was one of the three commanders and the leader of the trio who liked to think of himself as the captain's right hand man, being most loyal to the cause. The young man walked up the staircase towards Laura and started speaking to her.
"Oh, Leon! What did the captain say?" smiled Laura, "What are my further orders?"
"The captain told me to let you know to keep going in the direction we're heading," answered Leon, as he was named, speaking in a slight German accent. He and Laura then looked out into the waters ahead, "If my hunch is right, we'll reach land, along with our destiny, at dawn."
"That destiny being gold, jewels, and the likes," The voice of Laura gushed. She sighed dreamily and closed her eyes for about three seconds before opening them with her bad mood from earlier being lifted, "It's so close I can almost see it already—my old life in the Ukraine was nothing like this."
"LAND HO!" A voice (male) shouted from above.
Leon and Laura, along with the celebrating and/or busy crew, looked upward to see a young boy, about 12-years old, skillfully jump from the crow's nest and slide down a loose rope onto the deck. He was dressed in a white jacket with blue stripes down the arms, dark blue pants, black shoes, and around his neck was a matching blue neckerchief.
"Stay on course, Commander Laura," The young boy said, "Coastline is within sight."
"Aye!" obeyed Laura enthusiastically.
Several of the crew members, including Sledge, rejoiced in the background over the good news.
"Shall I inform the captain?" offered Leon.
"No need, I will do it," The young boy answered.
"Very well," shrugged Leon nonchalantly, "Seeing as you're the first mate."
Making his way through the crew, the young boy calmly entered the captain's cabin. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew, even Laura herself, all continued to cheer and celebrate the fact they were closing in on land, where they would begin searching for treasure—treasure their captain claimed would make them all rich beyond their wildest dreams.
(inside…)
Once inside the quarters, the noise of the crew was completely drowned out, with the only sounds being the creaks of the ship. In the middle of the room, sat a large table with a map strawn out across it, was the ship's captain charting with a pair of compasses. There was also a plate of a meal three-fourths eaten, and a goblet of wine that was half empty.
"Good evening, captain," The young boy began, saluting, "I bring you some good news; land is in sight. We should dock by dawn."
The captain put down the pair of compasses and turned around to face the boy. He was an old-looking man at the age of 58, with a thin gray box beard, who was dressed in a dark blue long jacket that most pirate captains seem to wear, with a gray undershirt, black baggy pants, boots, and a white sailor hat.
"It's to be expected under my leadership," The captain smiled to himself, before standing up and approaching the young boy, "Skiff, my boy… Our journey has taken us to so many places throughout Europe and North Africa, but soon, very soon, we will find the lost treasure of the feared Pirate Lord from centuries ago, Captain Calles…" He picked up a large scroll from the table and looked through it, "When we do, I, Captain John Silver, will have my dreams fulfilled, becoming as famous as my ancestors before me!"
Skiff, as he was named, was excited in helping his captain (also potential Father figure) and the rest of the crew in finding such legendary treasure. Captain John, meanwhile, continued to grin deviously as he looked at the writing on the scroll, which described the legendary lost treasure he was seeking.
(outside…)
And so, the pirate ship continued to sail on its way for possible land. Who was he, Captain John? And what was this 'lost treasure' of Captain Calles that he and his crew were searching for? Stay tuned to find that out.
Greetings my fellow readers, this is ThomasZoey3000 with good news, and a bit of sad news. The good news is that now, after 11 years, Season 2 is done. The sad news, I will not be writing as many Sodor High School episodes in future, as I have a busy life and other projects keeping me busy. Rest assured though, the series will continue, but from this point on, with the exception of a couple of times I'll come in, Season 3 and onwards will be done by SF64Rules91, DaveMan1000 and SodorMatchMaker. For sure they'll bring you Season 3 a lot faster than I did with Season 2, and before you ask, the next set of episodes will be posted with the others here on Fanfiction. It's been fun, but it's time for me to step back from this series, but be sure to check out my other stories, which are also available on DeviantART and FimFiction. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to seeing the next season with all of you. :)