//------------------------------// // Percy and Harold // Story: Thomas and Friends: The Retold Adventures // by The Blue EM2 //------------------------------// Life at the new construction site of Knapford Harbour was immensely hard. Percy and Pinkie Pie worked constantly whilst there, working alongside Thomas, Twilight, Toby, and Flash Sentry (or Brad, as some people had taken to calling him for some reason). Toby was mainly used to support Percy, but sometimes the loads were simply too heavy for the old tram engine, and Percy had to go and fetch them himself. One day, Thomas came to speak to Percy. "Nice work Percy!" Thomas said. "Sir Toppham Hatt is very pleased with us." "If we keep working like this," Twilight added, "we'll have the harbour finished in next to no time!" "Classic Twilighting," Pinkie replied casually. "Classic Twilighting?" Twilight asked, confused. "You made my name into a verb?" "Yep!" Pinkie replied. The line to the docks runs alongside an airfield, which was home to many light aircraft. Percy heard them flying overhead almost every day, but the noisiest of all was a machine that Pinkie told him was called a helicopter. It flew straight over them, producing quite the racket. "Stupid thing!" Percy exclaimed. "Why can't it go and buzz somewhere else?" One day, he stopped at the airfield, and got a good look at the machine. It had a long front, and two sliding doors on the side. The cockpit was mounted high up, and the machine had a long boom behind it. It also had a strange pair of arms mounted atop and behind it, which confused Percy. He was painted completely white, and had red lining. "Hello!" called Percy. "Who are you?" "Hello old chap!" the helicopter replied. "My name is Harold. Would you perhaps be so dashing as to tell me your name?" He spoke with a clipped English accent typical of RAF pilots in World War 2 movies. "My name is Percy," the engine replied. "What great big arms you've got." "Those aren't arms," added an American voice. "They're called propellors." The voice belonged to a boy with light blue skin and dark blue hair, who currently wore a flight suit with blue colour and yellow lines running down it. "They provide upward thrust to allow Harold here to hover." "What's your name?" Percy asked. "I'm Soarin'," the boy said, smiling. "I'm Harold's pilot. My real name's Simon, but nobody calls me that except my parents." He looked at Pinkie. "What's your name?" ā€œIā€™m Philomena Petricia Diane Julie Pie!ā€ Pinkie exclaimed. "But call me Pinkie if you want." "Wouldn't you like to hover?" Harold asked. "No thank you!" Percy exclaimed. "I like my rails, thank you." Harold smiled. "Well, I know you chaps helped keep the RAF supplied during the war, but it remains a fact that you wouldn't be able to fly as fast as me. Soarin' is a good pilot, you know." Soarin' hopped into the cockpit and started Harold's engine. His engines began to whine, and then roar, as his propellors began to revolve with increasing speed. As they reached top speed, Soarin' lifted the elevator column, and Harold lifted into the sky, soaring forward and off into the distance. "Whoa," was all Percy could say as he watched in amazement. Later on, Percy fussed into the quarry, where he found Toby and Flash shunting trucks in a siding. "Hey, Brad!" a workman shouted. "We need some more trucks over here!" Flash sighed. "The name is Flash Sentry." He glanced over to Pinkie. "Do you have any idea where that comes from?" "No," Pinkie sighed. "It seems rather silly, to be honest." "That's funny, coming from you," Toby snorted. "ANYWAY," interrupted Percy, annoyed at the constant digressions, "that stuck up whirlybird, that Harold, and his pilot Soarin', think I'm slow and out of date!" "He's right on the slow part," Flash admitted. "You only have a top speed of 35 miles an hour, compared to his 101 miles an hour. But the helicopters and their pilots aren't too bad. There were several in Norfolk when I worked there, and I got on well with the pilots and their helicopters. There were even a few jets, which was a little alarming!" Percy paid no attention to what Flash was saying, but instead banged into his trucks, was coupled up by the yard foreman, and set off for the harbour. Toby sighed. "That may not have been the best of things to say, Flash." "Why?" Flash Sentry asked, as another workman began to wave them down. "Percy prefers not to give the image that railways are slow, as it damages his pride." Flash shrugged his shoulders. "Well, one day he's gonna have to swallow it, or else something bad will happen." He released the brakes, and backed Toby toward the waiting trucks. Percy rocked and wobbled along the line as he sped up the track. Although he tried his hardest to keep going quickly, the truth of the matter was that he hadn't been built to handle such trains on branch lines. Indeed, he'd been built predominately for shunting, and as such lacked the tractive effort to pull these trucks smoothly, hence all the wobbling as he sped along. Suddenly, Pinkie Pie called out. "UP AHEAD!" she cried. "HAROLD!" Sure enough, there was Harold, hovering around as usual, nobody entirely sure exactly what he was doing. "Let's race him and his pilot!" "Yes, let's!" Percy cried, and started to speed up down the branch. The trucks rocked and swayed as they flew down the poorly maintained track. Pinkie then seemed to stall. "What was I supposed to say at this point?" she asked. "I vaguely recall something about a bell, but then again there may have been something about the parakeet!" Pinkie, can you please stop breaking the 4th wall! "Oh, I remember! Well, I'll be a ding dong dang! There's Harold now!" Sure enough, the Westland Whirlwind was flying down the narrow cutting ahead of them, having to be careful due to the rotor clearance. "GO FOR IT PERCY!" Pinkie whooped. "YOU CAN BEAT HIM PERCY!" Percy was having the time of his life as he flew along. This was the fastest he'd ever been allowed to go in a very long time, and made the most of it he could. Pinkie then checked behind them and saw a truck had vanished. "That's wierd." "Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" Percy cried, as he pitched back and forth like a ship on bad waves. The trucks shuddered and groaned as trucks always do, complaining as they did so. "We don't want to! We don't want to!" they cried, as Percy's rear driving wheels flew off the track, rerailing themselves a moment later. Pinkie checked behind her again to see the missing truck had returned. "If only the coach in a few episodes' time would do that," she sighed. "Pinkie!" Percy snapped. "Stop being ridiculous!" "Awww, but I'm so good at it!" Harold roared overhead, his engine thundering furiously as he tried to keep pace with Percy, who was weaving back and forth across the track and through S-bends. As he gained height to try and clear the valley up ahead, there was a loud brushing noise in the cockpit. "Ouch!" Harold cried. "I do say old boy, you wouldn't mind not scraping my fuselage against the trees and other such objects? It tends to be terribly inconvenient." "Sorry Harold!" Soarin' replied. Just ahead, the distant warned Pinkie Pie that the harbour was near. "VEGGIE SALAD! VEGGIE SALAD!" she shouted loudly. "What?" Percy replied. "Brakes, quickly!" Pinkie slammed the brakes on, and the train began to slow down. Luckily, due to the heavy weight, the train was entirely being run using fitted stock, but it still took them a while to slow down. They came to a stop and Pinkie took the opportunity to tighten up Percy's left hand cylinder, relative to the driver. "You know, the producer should have spotted that goof," she said cryptically. Percy paid her no attention. "Oh dear," he sighed. "I'm sure we've lost." Pinkie then shouted excitedly. "WE'VE WON! WE'VE WON! OHMIGOSHOHMIGOSHOHMIGOSHOHMIGOSH WE'VE WONE! HAROLD IS YET TO LAND!" And there he was, Harold still hovering overhead trying to locate a suitable landing point. Pinkie laughed and began to sing; "Said Harold helicopter to our Percy you are slow; your railway is out of date and not much use you know; But Percy with his stone trucks did the trip in record time, and we beat the helicopter on our own branch line!" "With the help of some odd cutting," she added. Percy was happy, even though his eyes abruptly froze in place. He liked the last one best, and worked especially hard from then on.