Bedtime story

Evan likes routine. He likes the same thing every night. Previously it was the Singapore Flag song. And then the Singapore Flyer song. Now he's into stories. He's had his favourite from books but one night I told him that if he settled down, I would tell him a story about Thomas the Tank and that stuck. The problem is I made it up as I went along but he wanted the same story. So I've had to remember details and rehash the thing over and over every night. Since I was making it up, I took a great amount of creative liberty.

And to remember the details, I'm recording it here for posterity.



















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Once upon a time, on the island of Sodor, in the town of Tidmouth, there was a train shed. In the train shed, there were many trains of many colours. There were blue trains, red ones, green ones as well as brown ones. Every train had a specific job to do and every train had a name. There was a blue train named Thomas and he was the cheeky one. His job was to help Bob the Builder, especially when Bob had jobs in far away places and needed Muck, Scoop, Roley and Dizzy transported. Percy was the green train and he made sure that the mail got delivered on time. He would be very busy during Christmas, delivering Christmas cards and Christmas presents to people all over Sodor. That was his busiest period, followed by Valentine's Day where most of his mail was made up of pink or red envelopes with hearts.

Then, there was Gordon who was red. (I know Gordon isn't red but Evan insists he is). Gordon often helped to deliver farm produce to and from Farmer Pickles' farm. On this day, Gordon was supposed to deliver a carriage of eggs to Farmer Pickles. But when he came out of the train shed and looked at the sky, he saw that it was dark and cloudy with a south westerly wind blowing in. It made him stretch and yawn. Looking at the clock, he decided that there was time to take a nap before he went off to deliver the eggs. Emily, who often helped him with his deliveries didn't look very pleased when Gordon reversed back into the train shed.

She said, "Gordon, what are you doing? You need to deliver those eggs!"
Gordon replied sleepily, "It's such nice weather for a nap. I'm going to nap first. There's plenty of time to do the delivery after I wake up"
Emily shook her head, "I don't think it's a good idea though. I think you should deliver the eggs and then come back and take your nap."
Gordon didn't look too pleased with what Emily said so he stubbornly replied, "No. I'm sleepy now. I'm going to nap. I'll send the eggs when I wake up. There's plenty of time."

So, that was the end of that conversation and he reversed into the train shed and had the shutters come down.

When he woke and looked around, he realised that it was all dark. That was when he panicked. "What time is it? This can't be right. It can't be night time already." he wondered. His heart sank when he looked at the clock. It was already 5 o'clock in the evening! And the eggs were supposed to have been delivered to Farmer Pickles by then.

"Oh no! Oh no oh no oh no!!" He exclaimed. " I need to go. I'm very late! I need to go very fast! If I go very fast, maybe I'll make it there by 6 and won't be all that late." So, he pulled out of the train shed and sped down the tracks at a very fast speed. "Chugga chugga chugga chugga, choo choo, Chugga chugga chugga chugga, choo choo!"

He was going so quickly, he didn't realise that Emily was coming down the tracks in front of him till it was almost too late. By the time he noticed her, he had to come to a screeching halt so that he didn't hit her. Because he was moving so quickly and had to stop so suddenly, ALL the eggs in the carriage flew forward and made a LOUD SPLAT on the walls of the carriage.

Both Gordon and Emily heard the hundreds of eggs go SPLAT at the same time and both went "uh oh!"

Gordon knew that he was going to be in trouble and asked Emily to help him think of a plan to get him out of trouble with both the Fat Controller and Farmer Pickles. Emily looked at him and said "see, I told you not to take a nap! Now you're really in a pickle!" But then, she added in a kinder tone, "ok, both the Fat Controller and Farmer Pickles both like scrambled eggs. How about we clean up the eggs from the carriage, since your carriage was clean anyway, and cook up a big batch of scrambled eggs for them?"

Gordon thought that was a splendid idea and they set about cleaning up the carriage of all the eggs.

Back at the train shed, they started cooking the eggs. Too make it even yummier, they added some tomatoes, ham, onions, red peppers, yellow peppers, cheese, pepper and even some bacon bits. Once it was ready, they brought it to the Fat Controller.

The Fat Controller was surprised that Emily and Gordon brought him some supper. "What have I done to deserve this?" Then, he narrowed his eyes in suspicion and asked "What have you done?"

Gordon stuttered and stammered and finally admitted what he had done. Of course, the Fat Controller was furious and gave him a big lecture about getting his work done first instead of napping. Gordon apologised and was on the verge of tears, knowing it was plainly his fault and no one else. The Fat Controller saw that he felt bad so he decided to accept the scrambled eggs. However, the Fat Controller told Gordon that he still needed to face up to the consequences of what he had done. So, instead of staying for supper and then going to bed, he was going to have to work through the night and deliver the eggs to Farmer Pickle's as promised. Gordon didn't like going out at night because he was afraid of the dark but he knew he didn't have a choice.

So while all the other trains settled down to his scrambled egg supper, he set off quietly and sadly to Farmer Pickles. Next time, he reminded himself as he braved the dark night, deliver the eggs first and then nap!

The end.

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For some reason, the boy loves the story, with the sound effects and the idea of scrambled eggs and Gordon being naughty. So every night, he gets the story and holds on to this red train, his ONLY Thomas train that I bought for him from 7-11, and listens with rapt attention.

Boys will be boys.

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