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Edward woke up one summer morning to the sound of children giggling. He opened his eyes to see his driver standing in front of him with his two grandchildren.
“Good morning old boy.” Charlie smiled.
Edward perked up when he saw the two children hiding behind his driver’s back, “good morning driver, who might they be?”
“Remember how I was telling you about my grandchildren?” Charlie asked.
“Why yes, I do! Did you finally bring them to visit today?” Edward looked at the two children.
His driver smiled, “yes, since their mother is running some errands today, I got permission from the fat controller to bring them out here.” he gave the oldest girl a gentle nudge, “this is Sofie, and the youngest is Eddie.” he held up the little toddler for Edward to see.
“Aw… he’s so cute.” Edward coo’ed, “how old are they?”
“Eddie is turning two this month,” his driver turned to Sofie, “do you know how old you are?”
Sofie shyly held her hands behind her back and looked down at the ground.
“She’s a bit shy.” Charlie remarked.
“That’s okay, it can be a bit intimidating at first to meet an engine.” Edward stated calmly, “remember when your daughter first met me? She was so shy that she hid her face in your overalls.”
Charlie chuckled, “I do! She was such a sweet kid.”
“Speaking of which, how has she been?”
Charlie sighed, “she’s gotten a nursing job on the mainland, she’s planning on moving there before the kids start school. I’m going to miss her.”
“Me too,” Edward lowered his eyes, “I remember when she was little she used to come visit the sheds on the weekend to polish me and tell me stories.” he paused and looked over at the buckets and rags in the corner of the shed, “do they want to give me a wash down? I know I was just cleaned yesterday, but if they want to…”
Charlie knelt down in front of Sofie, “do you want to clean grandpa’s engine?”
Sofie twisted in her spot before giving a small nod.
“Okay, let’s go get the buckets and the brushes, I’ll show you how to wash an engine.”
Charlie and his grandkids came back with the supplies, they set the buckets down and Charlie gave little Eddie a brush. He led him up to Edward’s buffers.
“Okay, take your brush and give the buffers a good scrub.” Charlie directed Eddie to Edward’s buffers. Eddie placed his brush on the buffers and scrubbed them in circles.
“Good job Eddie! You’re doing a fine job!” Edward watched the little toddler slop warm soapy water all over his buffers. Eddie looked up at him happily as he played with the water dripping down from the running board.
“Can I do it?” Sofie asked after watching her brother play with the soapy water.
“Of course,” Charlie handed her a brush, “you can do his running board, here, I’ll help you up.”
Charlie placed Sofie onto Edward’s running board, he kept one hand on Sofie’s back to make sure she didn’t slip. Sofie happily sloshed soapy water all over Edward’s running board. Edward couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re both doing a splendid job.” he laughed as he watched Eddie take a handful of water and pour it onto Edward’s wheels, most of the water got onto Eddie’s blue overalls. “Do you both want to work as cleaners? You can come here every morning and wash all of us engines down.” Edward joked.
“Nuh uh.” Sofie shook her head as she scrubbed Edward’s boiler.
“Are you sure? You’d do better than most of the other cleaners here.”
“It would probably be a good idea to not have them be cleaners.” Charlie commented, “they would cause our water bill to triple.” he watched as Eddie splashed around in the dirty water with his brush, trying to make as many suds as he could. Half of the water spilt out onto the shed floor, most of the soap and water was getting on Eddie than Edward.
Sofie dunked her brush into the bucket and began scrubbing Edward’s face with her stiff, coarse brush.
“Sofie, don’t use that brush to do his face, here.” Charlie handed her a small, soft brush, one that was used for brushing horse faces, “use this one. Try not to get any soap in his eyes.”
Sofie took the brush and drowned it in her bucket, she gently washed Edward’s face, it tickled a bit, but it felt nice. Sofie did get some soap in Edward’s eyes, Edward didn’t complain, he closed his eyes until his driver climbed up and wiped the soap out of his eyes with a towel.
Eddie managed to get a big handful of suds, he patted them and tried to shape it into a cake, the candle kept on drooping over, he gave up and scooped his soap cake into his hands.
“Fo’ you!” He held up the cake to Edward.
Edward pretended to be surprised, “for me? Oh thank you so much! It looks great!”
Eddie continued to hold up his cake in front of Edward. Edward looked back at Charlie confused.
“He wants you to eat it.” Charlie explained.
“I’m sorry Eddie, I can’t eat it,” Edward said.
Charlie knelt next to Eddie, “he can’t eat your cake honey.”
“But you can set it on my running board, I can look at it instead.”
“Yeah, why don’t you go put your cake on his running board, he can look at it. Right here.” Charlie patted the spot on Edward’s running board. Eddie reluctantly placed his sud cake onto Edward’s running board, he shook the excess soap off his hands and went back to splashing in the bucket.
“He’s such a cute kid.” Edward grinned.
“He is! Takes up after his father.” Charlie laughed, he went back to helping Sofie who was now drawing flowers onto Edward’s boiler with the water, “I can’t help but wonder, if you weren’t an engine, would you want kids?”
Edward thought about it for a moment, “I don’t know, I really don’t know much about raising a kid… I like kids though.” he sighed, “I just don’t know enough about kids to answer that question.”
Charlie nodded, “I thought you’d might say that. There’s a lot to raising a kid, of course you have to provide the basic necessities, there’s a lot that you wouldn’t really understand.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Edward agreed, “what is it like to raise a child?”
Charlie thought for a moment, “well, sometimes it’s like making sure that Bill and Ben behave, but you have to do it every day, every hour, with no breaks.”
Edward shuddered at the thought of looking after Bill and Ben day after day. Sofie stumbled slightly when Edward shuddered, Charlie caught her before she fell.
“Careful there.”
“Sorry about that.” Edward apologized.
While Eddie was licking his wet, soapy hands, Sofie poured whatever was left in her bucket all over Edward’s boiler, the now cool water washed down Edward and all over his running board and splashers. Sofie knelt down to smear the water across the boiler. She noticed the welding marks on Edward’s side.
“What’s that?” she put her finger on the raised weld mark.
“That’s where my side got messed up,” Edward explained to her simply, “I had to pull a big heavy train home one day and my crank pin snapped. It damaged my side and the workers had to mend it. It’s my scar.”
Sofie gently ran her finger across the scar, even though it was smoothed down and painted over, it’s still noticeable.
She pointed to a scratch on his side, “is this a scar?”
Edward smiled, “no, that’s a scratch.”
Sofie stopped and crawled back over to Edward’s face, she began scratching his cheek, she didn’t have any finger nails, she was mostly kneading his face with her fingertips.
“Is this okay?”
Edward grinned, “yes it does, it feels very nice, thank you, you are so gentle.”
Sofie grinned proudly.
“I’m surprised at how well you are with children.” Charlie remarked, fixing his hat.
Edward chuckled, “I guess it just comes with years of experience. We get a lot of children who are fans.”
“That’s right! I almost forgot about that! Sir Topham is still trying to figure out what he’s going to do with all those letters.” Charlie remarked.
“I heard about that,” Edward said, “I heard that he has an entire room filled with boxes and boxes of fan letters. I think I heard that he wants to do some kind of display for our anniversary.”
“That would be nice for the public to be able to see all those letters.” Charlie commented, “there’s some really nice art included in some, I heard that Percy has received a ton of scarves over the years.”
Edward laughed heartily, “oh he has! He’s received so many scarves that sir topham had to put out a statement saying, “no more scarves!” We do keep some of the prettier ones. I can never get over just how crafty people can be, not only people have mailed us scarves, but I heard that Duck has been receiving fan made mugs with the phrase, “there are two ways of doing things, the Great Western Way™, and the wrong way.”
“That reminds me,” Charlie helped Sofie down, “I forgot to ask about the others, what’s the gossip?”
Edward smiled, “Charlie, you know how I feel about gossip and spreading rumors.”
“Gossip is okay as long as you know all the facts and they come from a reputable source and are not based on rumors and here-say.”
“Absolutely,” Edward replied, “I got word from Croven’s gate that Duncan has gotten into another scuffle with some passengers.”
“What happened?” Charlie listened in.
“There was an old man who was taking his time getting onto the train, he was a very old man, about, oh, 95-ish. He was slow to board and Duncan was growing impatient. He cussed out the old man and hissed steam at him.”
“Daddy, what’s cussing?” Sofie asked innocently as she made little pebble mounds in front of the trickling water.
“Erm, it’s when an adult says some very mean words that hurt people.” Edward answered before Charlie could, “erm, so Duncan hissed steam at the man, the poor chap began coughing and coughing, and Duncan went off on him telling him to stop and his coughing is disgusting. During his tirade, the poor Man keeled over and had a heart attack on the platform.”
“Oof, I don’t think that boded well with the thin controller.” Charlie cringed.
“It did not,” Edward continued, “Duncan has been sent to his shed and from what I heard, is on goods trains. Honestly, I know he didn’t intentionally cause the man to have a heart attack, but also he could’ve had more tact when it comes to handling passengers.”
While the two were talking, Charlie took his attention off of Eddie for a few seconds. Eddie was still playing in the bucket of dirty water with his sister. He splashed the water around and tossed handfuls of dust into it, watching it float.
Eddie then grabbed onto the rim of the bucket and rocked it back and forth. With all of his toddler strength, he tipped the bucket backwards onto himself. Edward and Charlie turned just in time to see the brown, soapy water drench Eddie. Both Edward and Charlie gasped.
Eddie stared down at his soaked clothes, he shook his wet hands off and set them in the dry dirt resulting in dirt sticking to his hands, He looked down at his now dirty hands and proceeded to wipe them onto his shirt.
“Uh…” Edward watched, mildly horrified.
“Eddie.” Charlie scooped up Eddie right when he started licking his dirty hands. Charlie sighed and looked at his son, “what a mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
Sofie giggled loudly, “He’s all wet!”
“He is,” Charlie gently pushed Eddie’s hands away from his mouth, “I’m going to have to take him home and change him into some dry clothes. Don’t need him catching a cold.” He turned back to Edward, “I’m sorry Edward, we’ll have to cut our visit a bit short.”
Edward was disappointed, “That’s too bad.”
Sofie was even more disappointed, “aww! Can’t we stay?”
“I could watch Sofie while you clean up.” Edward offered.
Charlie thought for a moment, “I suppose so,” he looked at the scattered buckets and brushes, “We did make quite the mess, didn’t we?”
While Charlie picked up the brushes, and Eddie sat in the now giant mud puddle forming at the front of the berth. Sofie sat on Edward’s running board and listened to his stories.
“Are you really that old?” Sofie asked in awe.
“Yes I am! The other engines used to tease me and called me old iron because they thought I was so old and slow.” Edward recalled, “But I was able to show them that I was way more than just old iron.”
“How did you do that?” Sofie leaned against Edward.
Edward smiled kindly, “well, there’s another engine on this railway, his name is James, he’s a mixed traffic engine, meaning he could pull both coaches and trucks, just like me. He used to tease me about being old, especially when my parts began to rattle and clank. But then one day, James’s driver fell ill. While his fireman went to get some to come take over, two naughty boys climbed into James’s cab.”
“Were they very naughty?” Sofie asked.
“They were very naughty boys.”
“Did they say mean things to their mum?”
“Probably.”
“were they also smelly and gross?”
“They were very naughty boys who got into James’s cab.” Edward continued, “they fiddled with James’s controls, and sent James rolling down the mainline without anyone in his cab. The boys had jumped out when James started moving. James raced dangerously down the mainline. An inspector had the idea of using a shunting pole, and a lasso to catch the runaway James.”
“Me and my crew raced after James with the inspector standing on my front precariously. After a long chase, I was able to catch up to James. I honestly thought I was going to fall apart into bits.” Edward chuckled, “The inspector then used the shunting pole to get the rope around James’s buffers. It took several tries but he was able to get the rope around James’s buffers.”
“They were able to slow James down, and we went back home side by side. James was extremely thankful of me for saving him from a potential accident, I accepted his thanks and he apologized for his teasing. The fat controller was really proud of me, he sent me to have my old parts repaired. It was a very happy ending, James’s driver recovered in the hospital, the three boys were arrested and were punished by their fathers, and I earned everyone’s respect.”
Edward gazed out into the yard thoughtfully, “in the end, the respect didn’t matter. What mattered was that I was able to save one of my friends, it would’ve been easier for me to not do what I did due to my age and worn parts, and James’s teasing, but I chose to do so anyways, I think that’s the real lesson of the story, it’s easy to not want to help someone who was mean to you, but when you choose to help someone who has hurt you without a second thought because it’s just the right thing to do, that is real bravery.”
Edward looked down to see that Sofie was curled up on his front fast asleep, snuggled as close to him as possible. Edward smiled gently down at her and relaxed.
Charlie came back with a muddy Eddie in tow. Edward gave a quiet “shush”, and gestured with his eyes down at the sleeping Sofie. Charlie melted at the sight. He quietly went up to Sofie and gently nudged her awake.
“Sofie dear, time to go.”
Sofie yawned and rubbed her eyes. Charlie carefully slid her over his shoulder and carried her out to the car with little Eddie toddling next to him.
Sofie cracked her eyes over and blew Edwards a sleepy little kiss, “Bye Edward. I love you.”
”I love you too Sofie.”