i can already tell you it ain't in the back, either

“I hardly think so!” Toby’s disagreer, a large A4 Pacific, looked left and right, then lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “Hasn’t your driver read you the papers once in a while? Don’t tell me you’re stuck in the 1910’s, because I certainly am not.You, Toby, should know better than anyone else what trouble they can be!” 

“What do you want to do about it, Gordon?” asked Henry, to his left. “Have another strike?”

“Nonsense. Activism takes many forms.” “Alright.” Toby took a calming breath. “What did you have in mind?”

In terms of potential allies, the tram was well aware that he wasn’t Gordon’s first choice. But he was there, and you’re an engine in need, sometimes you must take the engines around you for what they offer. At least he was feigning care. “Organize a meeting, for a start.”

Henry’s eyes darted left and right. “W-What do you call this, then?”

“With the Fat Controller, I mean.”

“Tough luck, big G.”

This was the factual, unbothered voice of his driver, stepping up to the sheds on cue. Clean, spotlessly dressed, and ready for the day ahead, in spite of whatever state he might find his engine in. “I asked the station master to remind him to stop by today, but it's no good. He’s as tied up as ever. You know how it is around this time of year. You’ll just have to bring this up to him at the station.”

Gordon grumbled. “Excuses.” As the decades progressed, and Sodor gradually gave up more of its scenic beauty for towns and industry, the biggest boon of the island was still its vacation appeal. And the railway was instrumental as the island’s top transportation system. There had been a time when a Fat Controller would come at once when his engines called for him. But that was decades ago. Back when Sodor’s rail network was small, segmented, and broke. A pinch of fortunate circumstances, combined with decades of talented leadership, had changed all that. Now the NWR was one of the most unexpectedly successful railways in the entire world. 

But on a busy, world-class railway, calling the Fat Controller to the yards on a whim was a privilege, and not always granted. The very success that gave Gordon his fame was working against him. “Ridiculous,” he said as his gaze shifted left. He was just far enough out of the shed that, from his peripheral, he could just about see the shape of Tidmouth station in the distance, and Topham’s top floor office. The man was right there, able to look down and see a tiny glimpse of Tidmouth yards whenever he chose. Gordon would’ve stormed over the stones and demanded his answers face to face, if he only had legs. “To think of the decades of loyal service we’ve put into this railway. You’d think we were trying to call down a monk from the mountain!”

“If you really want to get his attention,” said James, “you’ll need to do something big.”

Gordon scraped his eyes off his strained view of the tiny spot he believed to be the office window. He knew better than to entertain such a statement, but if he knew James well enough, the red engine would explain himself whether or not Gordon asked. “Such as?”

“Mm, chain yourself to a tree. Charge down the main line in a marching row.”

The image of happy, healthy furs being suddenly uprooted by a line of engines crashed through  Henry’s mind, and he ‘TOOT TOOT’ed on his whistle in horror. “Not back to back, you mean!” 

“Don’t be absurd!” He wasn’t stupid enough to repeat such a miserable failure (although he’d be dead before he admitted it to be such). Besides, even if it did come to something so drastic, a strike with the three of them didn’t quite spell out the same problems for the railway that it did over thirty years ago. Not when the fleet had quadrupled in size since then. “I went to him once, years ago. I asked him humbly—“

“Well, now we know you’re lying,” said Toby, momentarily finding a smile. 

“—Annd! I pleaded for a sincere statement on the matter. And he promised me that they will never take over this railway! Now, here comes news that at least one of the newcomers will be another—” “I think you might get on with her, Toby,” cut off James. “You’ve dealt with them enough.” “So has Percy,” Toby asserted. “And Thomas, too.”

“Bah.” Gordon was so thrown off by this pointless interjection that he missed the familiar ‘peep peep’! of a former yard switcher. “Percy will welcome the newcomers regardless, engine-pleaser that he is. And Thomas is keen on anything that rattles the coals—!... Oh… speak of the devil…” 

“Don’t stop on our accord!” 

As Gordon's aggravation-made steam lifted, the ‘devil’ in question reached the turntable. “Aww. Someone’s purple under the eyes!” said Thomas. “No sleeping in today?”

“You are having a go at me? While you look like… THAT?”

“You started it!”

“And it serves you right,” called out Gordon’s frustrated fireman. “For ranting and raving since daybreak about things that are beyond your control. Been watching your pressure for an hour, it’s a wonder you haven’t blown your safety valve. Ah, nevermind. We’ll be leaving soon.”

“What brings you two out here?” asked Henry. 

“Rescuing Toby,” said Percy. “Seeing as you haven’t let him sleep.” 

“Don’t worry about me. I slept in alright,” Toby remarked quietly. “At least until the 

“Gee, wish we could relate. Clouds of soot had settled along his and Thomas’s tanks and boilers, and dark splotches powdered their age-thinned cheeks. 

“We double headed a late coal delivery,” Thomas finally answered Henry. “Every last station on the main line. What’d you think we were up to?” “That you’d taken third shift jobs as miners,” remarked James.

“I think the Fat Controller said it's your turn next.” Percy muttered this darkly, just behind Thomas. “Left the torch and pickaxe at the entrance for you.” “They’d be too small for me if they fit you two!” 

As the tanks were uncoupled, Thomas sized up the bigger blue engine in a way a little engine only would do to a large engine with decades of history between them. “The least you could do is say it to my face.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, what did I do to make you cross? At least give a former shedmate a chance to defend himself before you go slinging mud about him to everyone else!”

Gordon became flush. “Believe it or not, Little Thomas, you are not a staple of everyday conversation.”

“You said my name! I just heard you!”

“The topic,” he said icily, “was concerning something else.” 

“I thought you wanted as many engines up to speed on this as possible!” Henry shouted at Gordon. 

“‘In on’ what?” asked Thomas. “What’d we miss?” “Gordon’s an activist, apparently.” Henry’s fireman called out, lifting his cap to scratch the side of his head. 

Thomas yes shifted suspiciously from Henry, to Gordon, to the tram. “Alright, Toby, what are the Three Size Kings pitching a fit about today?”

The small engines were delighted by matters that rattled up the mighty mainliners—particularly when it came time to discover these matters were, usually anyways, trivial. And anything that so much as chanced to throw off routine was a crisis to Gordon. Heaven forbid a tender engine from having to fetch their own coaches again, in this year of our Lord, A.D.!

But Thomas’s cube-shaped comrade did not seem thoroughly amused in the way a trite complaint should have made him. “It’s—”

“—Nothing to be done about it.” Gordon cut Toby off. “It’s a personal problem.”

“Oh, really?” Thomas looked to the other engines for a rebuttal. But despite the amount of ‘we’s he’d heard earlier, no one denied it.

“Yes. And I was just venting. So I suggest we leave it alone, and let you and Percy catch up on some sleep.”

“If whatever it is upsets you this much, I won’t.”

Gordon gave the tank engine a skeptical once-over. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you’re trying to sound as if you care.” 

“I care that you’re about to leave today fit to burst, with an unreliable safety valve! You wanna be responsible for the first lethal train accident on Sodor because you were too proud to tell a couple of tank engines something is bothering you?”

“I believe I have enough notes of acclaim on my shelf without that one, but I do so thank you for the consideration, Thomas.”

Then the table stopped, and Thomas began rolling backwards into his berth. Long ago, they had agreed to help each other in times of trouble, and clearly, Gordon believed this was one. But the devil comment put Thomas off sentimentality. “Just out with it, would you? We’re all going to find out sooner or later.”

Gordon exhaled meditatively. It figured that the little chatterbox roller-skate who took absolutely nothing seriously—including the wonder that was Gordon’s existence—would have an unannounced homecoming at Tidmouth today. Of all days. 

Fed up with Gordon himself, Henry took the liberty of pouring the tea. “This started yesterday, when we overheard several former firemen have returned as certified drivers. And the Fat Controller’s brought on about fifteen brand new firemen to train.”

“That’s a lot. All at once?” Percy’s thoughts were punctuated with a loud yawn. “Won’t they have to share us?”

“I doubt we’d be so lucky,” muttered Thomas’ driver, shaking his head as he leapt from outside the cab doorway. All the extra jobs the engine elected to do, mostly to rub it in the big engines’ faces, extended to the men as well. This wouldn’t be an issue, except that relief men were spread thin these days. Extra drivers would mean someone else might get to discover what it’s like to get knocked off the footplate by the engine himself.

“The drivers,” Toby elaborated reluctantly, “are needed, because the fleet’s expanding again over the summer.”

Percy's sleepy eyes momentarily widened. “More engines?”

“And we don’t need them!” interrupted Gordon once more. “The Construction Company’s picked up enough of the work that would otherwise go to fine engines like… some of us, anyways. Percy can handle the mail himself—” 

“Well yeah, I guess if we’re assuming—!” 

“—Duck and the twins are settled into the Little Western. All that happens when we bring on more diesels is chaos. Timetables get moved, the branch line trains get knocked back, which knocks back the main line—”

“Back up! BACK UP!” Thomas shouted loud enough that Gordon actually paused. “What do you mean ‘more diesels’?”

“And who said we don’t need more help?” asked Percy. 

“At least one’s a diesel,” Henry told them. “That we know for sure.”

Thomas let out a mocking, long ‘phew’ of a whistle. “That’s it? That’s what all this fuss is about? And here, you actually made me wonder for a second if we had a real emergency on our buffers!”

“Laugh all you’d like, Little Thomas,” said Gordon. “Go on and laugh yourself straight into the foundry.”

“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”

Henry sighed. “That first one’s coming today, and well, Gordon suspects it’s the diesel.”

“So what? New kinds of engines show up every time the Fat Controller starts a new expansion project!" argued Thomas. He looked back at Gordon. “Why are you acting as if these latest engines are going to be delivered by a spaceship?”

“You truly don’t see the problem?” asked Gordon.

“The only ‘problem’ I see is that Percy and I were up all night filling the main line coaling stations to make your ungrateful lot's lives easier! And when we stop back here for a rest, we find your three sitting here, burning your tenders empty, steaming up a bunch of gossip! And you have the nerve to say we don’t need a little extra help?!” 

“I don’t see how anything you have to say to the Fat Controller would make a difference anyway,” Toby told Gordon. “She’ll be at Knapford by 1. It’s too late.”

“Wait.” It felt like a wet blanket had been thrown over Thomas’s fire. “Knapford? Really?”

“And the Fat Controller wants Gordon to show her the line!” shouted James, unable to contain the secret any longer. “GORDON! To give coach lessons on the main line! Can you even imagine?”

Gordon sniffed. “Yes. Well. Not everyone can be trusted with such an important task. Least of all not someone who has had an accident for every spoke in their wheels.”

“Well, I don’t care if it’s a diesel,” Percy stumbled into the conversation, “a girl… a… diesel girl, or a combat helicopter—that’d be nice, maybe.” He was thinking of Harold having competition. “But I can’t call on Duck to help me with my jobs anymore, now that he’s got so much work of his own. Anyway, I’d like more help!”

“And if the Fat Controller is trialing her,” added Thomas, “there has to be a good reason!” 

“Such as when there was a good reason to give Daisy the branch line?” asked Gordon.

Percy winced, remembering the days following Thomas’s repair, and Daisy’s temporary takeover. 

Thomas was lucky enough to not have worked alongside Daisy in her training days, so he took his counter swing. “Daisy bailed us out when we needed her.”

“When you needed her,” corrected Gordon.

“The railway needed her! Anyway, what difference does it make? She’s decent, now!”

“Decent, perhaps. If I understand correctly, the only reason she stayed is because she knocked off her ‘fitter’s order’ nonsense and fell into line.”

“Surprised you know so much about that.” There was a rarely heard edge in Toby’s voice.

“Same here,” said Thomas. It wasn’t wise to talk to shunting engines about ‘falling in line.’ “You sure care a lot about what goes on on the branch lines all of the sudden. What about Mavis? She busts axles!”

“She may work hard, but she’s a pill.”

“How would you know? You never work with her!”

“Neither have you!” Gordon answered immediately.

“Mavis was… something else,” admitted Toby, albeit looking annoyed while doing so. Perhaps because the Ffarquhar Quarry diesel was someone Toby had grown an affinity for since those first headaches. “But she’s matured since we brought her on.”

“Only because of you,” Gordon was quick with this, “as I understand it.”

“What about BoCo?” pointed out Percy. “He’s a diesel, too!”

Gordon hesitated. His fondness for his particular engine stemmed from an incident years ago. To that very morning, he fully believed BoCo was the sole reason he was not a barnacle encrusted, sunken engine at the bottom of Brendam Bay. “He is a rare exception.”

“And then there’s Salty!”

“That’s right! And…” Just then, Thomas scrunched up his eyes. “Hold the shovel. This isn’t about her being a diesel at all, is it Gordon? You’re afraid this new engine’s here for your job!” “DING DING DING!” And James whistled thrice in affirmation. 

The engines nearest to him heard Gordon’s fireman let out a gasp before he staggered backwards, just in time to save the toes of his boots. As if kerosene had been tossed into Gordon’s firebox, the fire doubled in size, almost lapping the floor of the cab, and then died back down just as quickly as it had grown. But not before the reflection of the flames appeared in the dark of his eyes. “I will be glad to inform you that as of today, I still HAVE a job to do—which is something I’m afraid will not last forever, especially for those who take their positions for granted. Furthermore, I won’t tax my passengers' comfort just to rush back to Knapford and look after a teething engine.”

“So, what? You’re just going to… what? Shunt off the whole job?

“Proper engines do not ‘shunt off’ their duties. But the time to make the turnaround is cutting it close, and I cannot guarantee that we won’t encounter some sort of delay on the way back.”

“Crackling coals, you ARE scared!” Thomas’s eyes were as wide as they could be.

“I AM NOT ‘SCARED’!”

“Whatever! Where’s Edward today? He’s never ‘too taxed’ to play babysitter!”

“Him? Sleeping, I hope,” James supposed out loud. “I’m to meet him at the docks and take a special trip up home together tonight.”

“Oh… well.”

Gordon was letting off steam left and right. “‘Hmph.” Then, an idea danced on the edges of Gordon’s flames. “You’re so adamant about this, Little Thomas? You go do it, then.”

The tank engine blinked. “Me?”

“Why not? You look after passenger trains as well, don’t you?” The great engine smiled with delight. “Unless, of course, the prospect of showing a diesel how to do your job is a little too… scary.”

That struck the match. “Is that a bet?”

“Only if you’d like to be.”

“Thomas, be sensible,” his driver hissed, leaning out of the cab. “Your train leaves in an hour, and your only chance to nap is in between day runs.” He then dragged a finger along the outer wall, creating an obvious line in the soot. “And you need a bath!”

“Bother the kip. Surely we’ll save some time that way.” He’d planned on sleeping at Ffarquhar with the coaches after the morning trip, but making a big blue doofus choke on his words was more important. “We’ll send word along the main line so the signalmen aren’t confused. Proper engines don’t let a new engine go off track on her first day! Come on, Percy! Leave it to a pair of branch line engines to do the main line engines’ job yet again—Percy?!” When he looked over, the saddle tank’s eyes were closed, and in the moment of quiet, a gentle snore and airy whistle could be heard. A few moments later, Percy’s driver peered out of the cab, flustered. “Uh, Matt? Thomas? My lad’s got a goods train this afternoon, and we can’t get him back up to steam. He’s been going since tea time yesterday and needs a good sleep.” He rubbed his eyes, and staggered backwards on uneasy feet. “And so do we.” “Well, well! Percy’s always doing us favors. And after all, helping out friends is most important, supposing that there is time to spare.” Driver Matthew pointedly tapped the outside of his engine’s cab. “Isn’t that right, Thomas?”

The tank engine peeled his eyes off the peacefully dozing Percy, and let out a sigh. “Alriiiight. We can do both. Might as well leave now.”

Despite his reluctance, it took just a few shovelfulls of coal to get him back under pressure. Thomas trundled back over the turntable, thinking satisfyingly of this afternoon as he headed towards an unavoidable bath.

“You’re really going to let him take this job from you?” asked the big green engine. “Aren’t you worried what Fat Controller will say?”

Gordon waited until Thomas was far out of sight before a smile crossed his lips. “Dear Henry, you forget I lead by example. I find the most useful way of learning is not with talk, but with action. Furthermore, I have a deep well of patience. Something of which a certain tank engine lacks. Are you understanding me?”

“Not in the least. Continue.”

“Just wait.” Gordon let off steam and began to crawl towards the turntable. “If she truly is a new-build, then Thomas will be in over his dome. One afternoon in his class, and she’ll be burning rubber to get me reinstated as her mentor.”

As their smoke trails thinned and disappeared south, the yard fell quiet, aside from some odd… almost snickering sounds. Henry glanced leftward, to find James with his teeth sunk into his lower lip. “What are you laughing at?”

“I— I can’t believe it! Gordon’s even got Thomas convinced, too!” “Can’t believe what?” 

“I never get to learn anything first!”

“We’re late, James.” His driver, trailed by his fireman, crossed the sleepers, swung around the side of his cab and hopped in. “Edward’s already strung your train together, and I don’t want to keep him waiting any longer. We need to go. Now.”

“What do you mean?” Henry’s eyes shifted from Gordon, disappearing on the horizon, to James. “Learn what? What’s so funny?”

“Just—just wait and see,” James said as his wheels turned, and he let off a healthy steam just outside of the doorway. “Don’t say anything. It’ll be worth it.” “What’ll be worth it? James!” asked Henry, watching James chuff away quickly. Leaving him with horrifying anticipation and questions that could only be answered by his own imagination. “WHAT’LL be worth it??”

Henry’s only company was a dead-to-the-world Percy, and Toby,. “I think we’re missing a piece of the picture.” To be continued... *** In supreme annoyance of FF.net being a wild west playground for spambots, I'mma leak another of my unfinished TTTE story projects here on tumblr again.