Thomas & Friends Season 12 Reimagined

Best Friends

Thomas was shunting rubbish trucks and hating every moment of it.

Percy stopped by. He had been busy all day and was feeling all puffed out. He perked up when he saw Thomas, though.

"Hello Percy!" tooted Thomas, also feeling a little better seeing his best friend.

"Hello Thomas!" peeped Percy, "What is that smell? Is it coming from your trucks?"

"Yes," said Thomas weakly, "they're full of rubbish. Whiff has just had to go in for repairs and Sir Topham Hatt chose me to finish his work for today."

Percy could tell Thomas was struggling with such a smelly job. He decided he would help.

Time flew by as the two tank engines shunted all the rubbish trucks into place. They were soon ready to head off.

"Thank you, Percy," puffed Thomas, "you didn't have to do that."

"Of course I did," laughed Percy as he did his best to hide his exhaustion.

The next morning, The Fat Controller came to Tidmouth Sheds with important news.

"Allicia Botti is putting on a concert at Great Waterton this evening. Thomas, you are to collect Miss Botti and take her to Great Waterton. Her ship is arriving at Brendam Docks at noon."

As The Fat Controller left, Thomas began jabbering away to Percy about his special job. However, Percy seemed sad and seeing this, Thomas couldn't really feel excited anymore.

"What's the matter, Percy?" Thomas asked.

"I would've loved to take Allicia Botti to her concert," wheeshed Percy, "we're friends, you know."

Thomas thought about Percy helping him with the rubbish trucks yesterday. If Percy could help him, he could help Percy.

Without saying a word, Thomas puffed away to find The Fat Controller.

Finding him was easy; convincing him to let Percy take Allicia Botti to her concert wasn't.

"You still have to help with the rubbish trucks," The Fat Controller said, "and Percy has lots of jobs to do today. If Percy pulls Miss Botti's train, he will also have to do your other work. He won't have time to do all of his work after pulling the train."

"No Sir, please Sir," said Thomas. He didn't want Percy to have to deal with the rubbish trucks again, "I can still do my work and I can cover for Percy. I know I can!"

The Fat Controller wasn't convinced. He dismissed Thomas so that he could tend to his other duties.

Thomas was flabbergasted.

"I'll prove I can do it all," he whispered to himself.

He quickly found Percy and told him that he could pull Miss Botti's train. He then sped away before Percy could even thank him.

Thomas soon reached his first lot of rubbish trucks. He knew he would struggle to take them all on his own but there was no-one to help him now. He decided to take half of them and then come back for the other half.

As he rattled along the tracks towards the rubbish dump, his thoughts began to spiral. There was a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

Thomas reached the dump and dropped off the first half of the trucks but he barely even noticed himself stop. He was starting to feel like he was just continuously moving.

The day droned on. Thomas sped back and forth, pulling trains of rubbish trucks from all corners of the island. He had no idea what time it was or how much work he still had to do.

Eventually, he made his last trip to the dump. His driver told him that his next job was to go to the forest to be Henry's back engine.

Thomas set off for the forest, going faster than ever.

"Slow! Down!" his driver shouted.

Thomas was shocked. He immediately slowed down and paid attention to what his driver was saying.

"I've been trying to get through to you all morning, Thomas," his driver said, "you've been so frantic today, you've forgotten to fill up on coal or water. You ought to fill up now."

Thomas found a coal hopper on his way to the forest.

"I know the forest has a water tower," he said to his driver, "I'll fill up with water there."

Unfortunately, he soon found that the forest was too far. As he was travelling along the track, he felt himself go slower and slower. Very quickly, he went from frantically dashing about to no longer moving at all.

"Well, that's done it," murmured his fireman.

Soon, word reached Henry and he came to push Thomas to the water tower.

Thomas' driver and fireman knew from the phone call they had made to get this help that The Fat Controller was very angry but they didn't have the heart to tell Thomas.

"Just calm down," Thomas' driver said, "you can still get your work done."

"This is a great place to calm down, alright," said Henry's driver.

Thomas remained silent and took in the beauty of the forest and the soft sounds from the swaying trees and the singing birds.

After a few moments, Thomas felt ready to start working again.

For the rest of the day, he worked at a steady pace. It was a little frustrating at times and the day always seemed to go by faster than he did. However, he knew he couldn't rush or panic.

Thomas' last job of the day was to take scrap metal from a warehouse at Tidmouth to the smelters yard. By the time he was ready to do it, it was already dark.

Knowing he had no choice, Thomas rolled into the smelters shed and found just the right place to leave his trucks. As he was uncoupled, he could hear the sound of wheels turning and pistons pumping.

It was Percy.

"Percy!" said a shocked Thomas, "What are you doing here?"

"I've been looking for you!" replied Percy, "I've had nothing to do all day so I thought I could spend more time with you but I've struggled to find you."

"You've had nothing to do?" Thomas said, almost to himself. In his rush to get all this work done, he'd never considered that Percy might want to keep busy.

He told Percy about his day over the sound of clanging metal.

"Why do all that just so I could have your special?" Percy asked, "You didn't have to."

Thomas just gave a sort of shy smile. He knew he had overstretched himself and he knew The Fat Controller would probably have stern words for him later. He didn't even know if it had all been worth it.

After a few moments, Percy smiled back at him.

"Well, thank you," he said, "Allicia Botti was very pleased to see me and seeing the venue for the concert all decked out was very nice."

Thomas thought for a moment.

Then, he asked Percy, "Would you have minded working with rubbish trucks after dropping off Allicia Botti?"

"Blurgh!" cried Percy, "Of course I would have minded!"

"Well, there you go, then!" laughed Thomas.

Percy, knowing he had been beaten, joined in with the laughter. He couldn't complain about having a friend like Thomas.