//------------------------------//
// Drip Tank 
// Story: Thomas and Friends: the New Adventures 
// by The Blue EM2 
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Percy the Small Engine headed back from Knapford Harbour one wet, miserable evening. The evening wasn't the only thing that was miserable.

"Aww, c'mon Percy, what's the problem?" Pinkie Pie asked her engine.

"Thomas and I have fallen out again," Percy replied sadly. "He wouldn't stop talking about me looking like a green caterpillar with red stripes, especially when all that treacle and hay had got stuck to my boiler. I told him to stop, and it devolved into a shouting match from there. But I'm tired of all that. I just want to put it behind me and be friends with him again."

"Friends do fight," Pinkie observed, "especially best friends. But it's not the falling that defines a person or engine; it's how you get back up afterwards."

Suddenly, Percy saw an overhanging branch that hadn't been cleared from the lineside properly. "Help!" he called. "Get that branch out of the way!"

Pinkie began waving a machete around to cut it, but she couldn't get at it in time. The branch smacked into Percy's face and broke apart, falling on the floor as it did so.

"Ouch! I don't like stuff hitting me!"

"Don't you worry Percy, at least it's not chocolate this time."

Percy's face was still sore when he got back to Knapford, but he was more startled than hurt. Even so, there was little sympathy from Thomas.

"You should have kept a better lookout," he said, unsympathetically. "I've no patience for engines unable to do their jobs properly. After all, a wrong move could put us all at risk."

"Thomas, I know that you helped save the Island from the Storm King," said Percy, "but there's no need to be such a nasty engine. You're utterly full of yourself." He decided to talk with Toby instead. Flash was still oiling Toby round to ensure his parts wouldn't seize up the next morning. "What's a drip?" he asked, suddenly and completely out of nowhere.

"A what?" Flash asked, as he completed the work and got his coat, ready to head home.

"A drip," Percy replied.

"Well," Toby replied, "a drip is something that comes through a hole in the roof when the rain gets in, which keeps my mind from wandering where it will go. Often you don't have proper time to mend it."

"Well," Percy replied, "I heard a boy call his friend a drip whilst on the platform today. I'm sure he didn't fall through a hole in the roof."

"Well, Apple Bloom found Duke by falling through a hill."

"Are you calling Apple Bloom fat?" Toby asked.

"That," said Thomas loftily, "is not what the boy meant. He was calling his friend a coward."

"Does that make you a drip?" Percy asked.

Thomas' safety valve would have gone if he had any steam in his boiler. "Shut up and go to sleep, like a sensible engine!" he snapped.





The next day, Thomas was exhausted as he puffed along his branch line. Henry had arrived late due to overruning engineering works on the main line, and Thomas was desparate to make up lost time. As he blasted along, his eyes struggling to stay open, there was a loud bang, and something impacted with the bottom of his left hand water tank (from the driver's point of view, at least).

"Ouch!" Thomas replied. "What was that, even?" He came to a sudden stop in the middle of nowhere.

There was a sound of running water, and Twilight hopped out to take a look. "Oh, of all the things to happen!" she exclaimed.

"What's happened?" asked Thomas.

"One of your siderods broke apart, and the rear section swung up and punctured the water tank. It hit the tank at the point where the water feed over, so water is now draining out of both tanks. We're not going any further. I need to throw your fire out before any damage happens." As she climbed back aboard, Thomas looked out miserably.

"What a gloomy day," he said sadly, as the rain swept in.

At Ffarquhar, Percy and Pinkie were busy shunting, in the yard, and Paxton was most certainly not a rock. Suddenly, the station master appeared. "You two!" he called. "Leave those trucks immediately, and head back down the line towards Ellsbridge. Thomas has had an accident, and his tanks are leaking. He won't be able to get to Ffarquhar on his own, and needs another engine to tow him back."

Percy was unconvinced. "I won't," he said crossly. "Thomas called me a drip the other night. He can stay there, drip, and make the entire countryside soggy for all I care."

Pinkie was shocked! "Honestly Percy!" she said. "What about Twilight, and Thomas' passengers, stuck out in the rain? Do they deserve to be stuck there all night too?"

Percy immediately forgot to be cross, and his face fell. "Oh," he said. "I hadn't thought of them. We shall have to go and resuce them, in case they become drips too." And with that, he set off bravely down the line with a good head of steam and full water tanks. When he arrived, the passengers cheered. Pinkie linked Percy up to Thomas, who looked glum.

"I'm sorry for all that happened," he said sadly. "And there was no call for me to call you a drip," he added. "If you never want to speak to me again, I entirely understand."

Percy smiled, as he drew Thomas into the platform. "Of course we can," he said, with a smile. "It was silly, in the end, but as friends we can move beyond it and become better friends than ever before. Just be glad there were no mountains of boxes falling on you!"

Thomas snorted. "That sounds like the plot of a special episode of some children's show. Besides, the joke's on me. I was the drip, in the end. Or rather my tank was!"

Both engines began laughing at this, and I am proud to say they are better friends than ever before.