OLD STUCK-UP

Spencer felt humiliated - he had run out of water on the hill and had to be rescued by, of all engines, his inferior cousin. The engines all laughed when they saw him, and Spencer was looking forward to going back to the mainland after the welcome party was over. However, the Duke and Duchess had other ideas.

"Your engine was splendid," the Duchess said to the Fat Controller, "We would've been stranded without him."

"And he knows when to fill up on water," the Duke added briskly, glaring at Spencer. Spencer looked away, ashamed.

"If the rest of your engines are as magnificent as that one," the Duchess continued, "We'd like to formally meet the rest of them and extend our visit." The Fat Controller was flattered.

"Yes, of course. I assure you, all of my engines are really useful. You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like." Spencer did his best not to groan - that was the last thing he wanted to do, but he, of course, had no say in the matter.

"Excellent. We'd like to start with a tour of the railway, but we'd prefer to use that lovely Gordon instead, if you don't mind," the Duke said, "Show us how you Sudrians do things." The Fat Controller grinned.

"Indeed! I'll go and make the arrangements right away!" Spencer was speechless.

Gordon soon came to collect the Duke and Duchess in a special private coach owned by the railway. He smirked at Spencer.

"Well, fastest engine in the world, eh? Fastest engine to run out of water, more like!" Gordon laughed at his joke and puffed out of the station, carrying his very important passengers. Spencer scowled.

"Just how could this day get any worse?" he grumbled. A few minutes later, he heard a diesel's horn and groaned.

"A diesel? Ugh, this railway's a pigsty!" A large, green diesel engine backed down onto Spencer, looking slightly offended.

"I beg your pardon?" he asked. Spencer snorted.

"You heard me. This dratted island's all wrong. No one treats me with the respect I deserve! I'm Spencer!" The diesel chuckled.

"Never heard of you." Spencer's eye twitched.

"And I've never heard of you, mister…" Before Spencer could think of some sort of insult, the diesel interrupted.

"The name's BoCo, actually. The Fat Controller sent me to take you to the sheds." Spencer's eyes widened.

"T-The sheds?"

"Why yes, of course. Surely, such a celebrity like yourself would want a rest after your long journey." Spencer stammered in horror, but he could do nothing as BoCo started pulling him along. Spencer looked down at his buffers; he wasn't looking forward to seeing the engines.

BoCo rolled up to the water tower beside Tidmouth Sheds, a red-in-the-face Spencer being towed behind him. The engines snickered.

"Fill up all you need, Spencer!" jeered James, "You may never know when you tank might start leaking again!"

"He'll run out before making it into the shed!" Henry grinned. Spencer gritted his teeth, having to bear more and more teasing as his water tank slowly filled up. At last, BoCo was uncoupled and rolled onto the turntable.

"Come on, Spencer," he called back, "A nice, dry shed should cheer you up." Spencer glared.

"What would cheer me up is me being back home, away from all you peasants!" The engines were stunned, but Spencer continued.

"Why does your controller insist on keeping you horrid lot around? You're filthy, both your paintwork and your manners!"

"We're not filthy!" Percy protested, although his dusty paint said otherwise. Spencer rolled his eyes.

"Exactly. Interrupting a high-class engine like me simply isn't proper. You public engines wouldn't understand, but we private engines have standards. Back home, your lot are treated properly. I go somewhere, I'm greeted with a hero's welcome, and they always make a road for me, no matter what," Spencer smirked. BoCo was furious.

"Stay outside then if you're so proud about it," he snapped, "I'm going to join my friends." BoCo reversed from the turntable into a berth. Spencer scoffed but said nothing.

"High-class, my tender," James fumed, as quietly as he could manage so Spencer wouldn't hear, "I hope it's cold out tonight so hail can come and fall on that dratted boiler of his. Old Stuck-Up…"

The engines found it hard to sleep that night, as their visitor outside frequently could be heard making some sort of gripe, particularly when Henry left the shed and wheeshed steam at him while going to fetch the Flying Kipper. At last, morning came, and the engines still in the shed were being prepared for work. Spencer yawned and opened a sleepy eye.

"Have fun with your menial jobs," he sneered, "I'll be out and about with the Duke and Duchess, hopefully going back home." The engines were too tired to argue and resorted to simply ignoring him. At last, the engines one by one left the shed to collect their trains, all giving a nasty glare to Spencer as they passed, James the worst of all. Spencer growled.

"They treat me so poorly!" he complained, despite no one being around anymore to hear him, "How could the Duke and Duchess possibly be interested in… them?" Spencer nearly gagged at the thought. He yawned and closed his eyes, smiling at the silence.

"Mmm, that's better," he sighed, "How can an engine rest with all that talking?"

Spencer continued to sleep for most of the day, unaware that in the yard, the Duke and Duchess were being introduced to all the engines. The Fat Controller gestured to BoCo.

"This is BoCo. He's versatile, a true mixed-traffic engine." BoCo smiled modestly at the praise, ignoring James' jealous glare.

"Your engines are wonderful, Topham! We simply must come again," the Duchess smiled. The Duke checked his watch.

"Goodness, it's almost six o' clock! We have to get Spencer prepared to take us home!" The Duke, now in a panic, ran to fetch Spencer's crew. The Duchess followed calmly, waving goodbye to the engines.

"Well, they were nice, at least," Percy spoke up meekly. James was still cross.

"They better leave Old Stuck-Up locked in his shed next time," he grumbled.

Meanwhile, at the sheds, Spencer was still dozing, unaware of his crew running up to him.

"Wake up, Spencer!" cried his driver, "The Duke wants us home by midnight!" Spencer jumped but quickly regained his composure.

"Of course, sir," he said with a great air of self-importance, "Get me polished so I can look my best, though that shouldn't be too hard given all those other engines." The driver scanned the sheds; in one of the berths was a crate filled with polishing rags and a bucket of water.

"Well, would you look at that? They've left all this here for us. How nice of them," the driver remarked. Spencer scoffed.

"How nice indeed…" he muttered., "Let's get this over and done with before they return. If we hurry, no one will know I'd been." Spencer started to move forward towards the shed. He rumbled over the turntable and tried to stop just in front of the berth, but he couldn't!

"What's going on?" he demanded, "Stop me, will you?"

"I'm trying!" cried the driver hastily. Little did Spencer and his driver know that James had just been polished that morning, at his own request of course, and the job had left water splattered all over the rails. Spencer slipped on the wet rails, the back wall of the shed approaching nearer and nearer.

"Horrors!" he wailed. Spencer shut his eyes and, with a despairing whoop of horror, he crashed through the back wall of the shed. The dust settled, revealing scattered bricks on the gravel lot behind the shed and a very embarrassed Spencer. Then, Spencer heard footsteps and looked back in horror to find the Fat Controller, the Duke and the Duchess walking up to the shed. The Duke looked around.

"Ugh, I swear you can't leave Spencer alone for five minutes. Where is he?"

"Why is there a draft?" the Duchess asked suddenly. The Fat Controller and the Duke shared a look before gasping at the scene of the accident. The Duke promptly put his face in his hands.

The Fat Controller quickly called BoCo to the site of the crash to pull Spencer back onto the rails. BoCo couldn't help but be amused by what he saw.

"You just can't stay out of trouble, can you?" Spencer wisely remained silent. A strong chain was attached between BoCo and Spencer's tender and BoCo pulled with all his might. It wasn't long before BoCo managed to bring Spencer back to safety. Spencer looked down, avoiding the withering glare of the Duke.

"How long is it going to take to repair him? We're supposed to leave soon!" the Duke demanded.

"He's not too badly damaged, it seems," the Fat Controller observed, "but he will need a night at our Steamworks for us to be sure." Noticing the Duke start to pace back and forth, he quickly continued.

"But, while he's being mended, I can have Gordon take you back home, and I'm sure we could arrange for an engine from the Other Railway to take Spencer back when he's ready." The Duke sighed.

"Thank you, Topham. It would be nice to have a reliable engine at the helm for a change." He glared at Spencer. He didn't say anything, but Spencer knew he was in for an earful. The Duchess gave a glance to the Fat Controller, who sheepishly nodded and walked backward to outside the shed as the Duke started vehemently scolding Spencer.

Once the Duke had finally ended his tirade, BoCo pulled a very ashamed Spencer away to be mended. As the sun started setting, the engines started returning to the sheds.

"Why is there a hole in my berth?!" James exclaimed furiously. The engines started laughing, much to James' fury. BoCo rolled up with some workmen to start patching the hole, trying not to chuckle himself.

"Spencer crashed straight through," he explained, "He hasn't been lucky, has he?" Duck chuckled.

"He must've slipped on all that water you left behind, James! Seems you both have 'leaky tanks', eh?" James growled.

"Shut up! It's not funny; he ruined my favorite berth!"

"Just be glad that the dreadful draft is the worst thing about this," Duck retorted, "Besides, it got rid of Spencer at least."

"Quite right! Old Stuck-Up became 'unstuck', did he?" Henry chortled, "I can only imagine what the Duke must've said to him when he found out!" BoCo smiled wryly.

"I couldn't hear all he said, but I didn't think it sounded very polite."

Author's Note: What's this? Well, it's the start of a series of Railway Series adaptations, of course! I was initially going to lump these in with the other rewrites of alread existing episodes, but that didn't feel right to me so I made another "story" for them instead to keep things more organized. A friend suggested I adapt some of Christopher Awdry's stories, and I figured it made sense to do that since I don't think many of them were... the best. The first one is Old Stuck-Up, because while researching I found out that the story in the book was based off an event that happened to an A4 so I connected the dots and wrote this. I know doing this means the original diesel isn't canon to my universe, but I'm not exactly super upset about that. Taking place shortly after Gordon & Spencer, this was a lot of fun as I dove more into how Spencer felt towards the engines when he first came to Sodor, along with some characters that didn't get a lot of attention in Season 7, particularly BoCo (who I'm having a lot more fun writing than I ever thought I would). Come back tomorrow for the next adaptation, Fire-Engine!