Zipp first noticed something was up when a trampoline rolled past her, as trampolines normally do not. "Well that's something you don't see everyday," she said to herself.

And then even more things began rolling past. Deckchairs, signs, even a few ice creams floated past her. Who was eating ice cream at this time of year was something of a mystery, but Zipp brushed that thought aside.

"Excuse me?" asked a voice. Zipp glanced over to see a man looking at her.

"Yeah?"

"Have you seen a trampoline anywhere?"

Zipp indicated over her shoulder. "I saw one going bouncing that way."

The man nodded. "Did it have a child inside, by any chance?"

"No. Should it have?"

The man paused. "Potentially." He then continued on his way.

Zipp shook her head and continued to follow the objects as they bounced along. They all seemed to be going in the same direction and generally in a straight line. "So, that rules out wind," she said to herself. "Wind rarely blows anything in a perfecly straight line."

She rounded a bend and looked up into the sky, and what she saw shocked her. Open in the skies was an enormous cream rift, and things were being pulled into it. "This is not normal."

"Somebody is stealing all our things!" somebody said. "They've placed an enormous vacuum cleaner in the sky and are pulling things away from us!"

"But who? Or perhaps it's not somebody but something?" Zipp ventured.

"This has the handiwork of the Illuminati all over it!" the person replied.

Zipp sighed. "There's a distinct lack of ungirevel or cartchy tuns for it to be them. And a worrying lack of dipractions."

Suddenly, her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out to see the notification. Her WhatsApp was live, and a message was there from Sunny in the group chat.

Top floor of the lighthouse, quickly!

As well as a succession of replies from her friends.

GLITTER! GLITTER! Sorry, that was meant to go to Sir Rubbish!

On my way.

On my way!

HopefullyNotAPortal!

Zipp nodded, then placed her reply.

Might wanna hold onto something. This wind is pretty strong!

Upon arriving at Sunny's house, they all had to run to the top of the stairs as the lift was broken. Once at the top, they walked past the crystal chamber and out onto the balcony, which gave them a clear view of the problem.

"This is pretty bad!" Sunny said. "All of the objects around us are being sucked up and we have no idea why!"

Zipp pulled her goggles out and put them on. "There seems to be some sort of energy rift up there in that cloud," she said. "But where it goes I have no idea."

"It's been a while since you used those," Pipp said.

"I hadn't really needed them," Zipp replied. "Somebody down below suggested the Illuminati as being behind this, but I doubted it."

Hitch looked up. "The lack of Exarserdray lollipops is a bit of a giveaway."

"Way to revive an old meme!" Pipp said. "That was all over the internet last year."

"I mean, the jokes do write themselves," Hitch smiled.

"Wait a moment," Pipp said then. "I vaguely recall something like this from a bedtime story. Something about a big cloud that sucks things up and takes them back in time!"

"It may be an offshoot of the Magic Railway then," Misty said. "We know it allows for time travel as those cowboy engines arrived in our time, for example."

"Come on! Let's go and find out where this leads!" Zipp said, as she stepped forward. There seemed to be an energy beam forming on the top deck of the lighthouse, and without hesitating she stepped into it.

Sunny frowned. "You're just gonna step into a random beam which has no clear destination? Sure, why not!"

But they all did, and after a period of time they found themselves flying along a rainbow tunnel at great speed.

Zipp looked back. "Can anybody hear music?"

"I can!" Izzy said. "Seems like it's time for a musical interlude! That or the author needs to pad out the wordcount!"

Izzy, I would never do that.

Zipp led off.

"I see that twinkle in your eye!
You've got a million-dollar smile!"

"Zipp, the UK uses pounds," Sunny said.

"Pound doesn't scan properly!" Zipp protested.

Pipp cut in before anybody else could argue.

"So shiny, diamond-kind of fine!
We're glowin' up to cloud ni-i-ine, yeah!" (yeah)

Zipp then resumed her vocal line.

"I grab my buddies and away we go/
No more playin' small, we're flyin'!"

Then Pipp joined in.

"Higher, and higher, and higher!"

Pipp then switched to soloing duties.

"Different folks from around the world/
All together, now we're shinin'!"

Before they reentered together.

"Brighter, and brighter, and brighter!"

Then the chorus arrived, and they all began to sing together in harmony.

"Magic, colorful moments/
I'm locked in a new world/
Is this for real? Or is this a dream?
Don't wake me up if this is a dream!
Is this a dream?"

The portal abruptly dropped them off in a room filled with machinery, which surrounded them on all levels. The room was lit by a set of oil lamps, and a large machine sat in the middle.

Sunny looked about. "This place looks familiar," she said. "I think I saw an illustration of it in a book once?"

"If this is a place Sunny knows, then maybe it's somewhere important?" Hitch ventured. "Which book precisely did you see it in?"

Sunny shrugged. "I can't remember. But I do remember the picture!"

Misty was looking at some drawings on a desk. "Well, there's some sorts of plans here. For something called a locomotive. But it's the strangest engine I've ever seen!"

Sunny walked over and looked at them. "Oh, that's the plans for the Coalbrookdale Locomotive," she replied.

"The what?" Pipp asked.

"It was the first engine designed by Richard Trevithick," Sunny started, but she trailed off when she realised the implications.

"Sunny?" Hitch asked.

Sunny glanced from the plans to the machine in the centre of the room, then back again. "We must have travelled through time!" she said. "Look at the year on the calender!"

"1802."

"That's the year given for its construction, but historians have debated whether an engine was actually built. But there it is, in front of us! This is proof the Coalbrookdale Locomotive actually existed!"

"I knew you're busy nerding out, but how do we get back to our own time?" Hitch asked.

"Maybe we need to fix something here?" Izzy suggested.

Misty peered closer at the strange engine. "Perhaps we need to complete it before we can return home!"

"Let's do it!" Sunny said.

And so, they got to work. And the song from earlier resumed.

"I got a magical mind!" Zipp started.

"I make my dreams come alive!" Pipp replied. "Well, technically this is the dream of a friend, but you know what I mean!"

The two sisters then dueted. "It's like I do it all the time!"

Before Pipp resumed solo vocal duties.

"No higher mountain I can't climb!
So I grab my buddies and away we go/
No more playin' small, we're flyin'!"

Before all of them sang together.

"Higher, and higher, and higher!"

"Different folks from around the world!
All together, now we're shinin'/
Brighter, and brighter, and brighter!

"Magic, colorful moments/
I'm locked in a new world!
Is this for real? Or is this a dream?
Don't wake me up if this is a dream/
Is this a dream?"

But with the passage of song, the last parts were fitted, and the engine was complete. Sunny glanced from the plans to the engine and back. "This looks pretty much like how the plans look," she said, casually wiping some grime off her fingers and onto a table.

"Hopefully we don't have to drive it now!" Pipp said. "I wouldn't have the first clue how to operate this thing!"

"That's a lot of levers," Hitch said. "And I thought Rebecca was complex to drive."

Suddenly, the vortex from earlier appeared again, and they all got sucked into it.

Once the vortex had vanished, a door opened and a man stepped in, stooping to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe. "So, once the machine is fin-"

He trailed off as he saw it.

"Is everything alright, Mr Trevithick?" asked another man, considerably shorter.

"Perfectly, Mr Derby," replied Richard Trevithick. "One of my oil lamps is in a slightly different position to how I left it, that's all. Here is the finished engine, ready for your company to use."

"Excellent!" Mr Derby replied. "Expect the full payment for your work in the next few weeks."

Trevithick was amazed, though. How had the machine been finished whilst he was out?

Sunny and her friends got deposited onto the ground near the Lighthouse. "Well, that was wild," Zipp said.

Sunny turned to her friends. "I can only sense that was the beginning, in both senses of the word. If we were taken back in time to fix the first steam engine, who knows if we'll encounter others?"

Little did she notice that on the table behind her a book was open. A book with a depiction of a very old engine indeed.

Author's Note

This chapter is an adaptation of the Tell your Tale episode Where the Rainbows are Made. It also incorporates elements from the Thunderbirds are Go episode Tunnels of Time.

As the inventor of the steam locomotive, Trevithick should need no introduction, but an astonishing number of people are unaware of his contributions to steam power. The son of a mining captain, Trevithick was a skilled engineer and focused his efforts on developing high pressure steam technology. Amongst his creations included the Puffing Devil (which blew up), the Horseless Carriage (which was retired after demolishing some railings in London), and the Coalbrookdale Locomotive (more on that below).

The Coakbrookdale Locomotive was designed to work at the Coalbrookdale Ironworks in Shropshire, but there is a debate amongst historians as to whether the engine was ever built. The plans, however, are used as a reference point for the later Penydarren locomotive, as no plans for the latter exist.