One morning, Rebecca was in the workshop. Her paintwork was currently being removed using a variety of tools, working back to the original bare metal.

"I hope this won't take too long!" she said. "Being without paint is a bit weird for an engine!"

Salty looked over. "Aye," he said. "But getting a new coat of paint is probably like getting new clothes for a human. I had sat in that green for years, I had, so this new red coat is quite the reminder of how things have improved."

"True that," Rebecca replied. "I'd spent so long in pieces that they hadn't had a chance to properly repaint my parts. I've been in this shade of green since the 1990s, you know!"

"And the Light Pacifics did carry quite a few different colours during their working lives," Salty said. "Sunny told me so. Now then, how about we discuss it with our drivers over there?"

Just then, Izzy brought a forklift to a stop. The pallet mounted to the top was covered in paint cans. Having secured the vehicle in position, she jumped out and lowered the forks to the ground. "This is all the paint I found!" she said. "There's a surprising amount of it."

"Why do we have so little blue?" Hitch asked. "Charles reminds us ad nauseam that blue is the only proper colour for an engine."

"Well," Zipp said, "we did use an awful lot of blue and yellow, not to mention red and black, when the workmen mixed Charles and Sophie up and painted them in each other's colours."

"That was a confusing day!" Izzy said. "But then again, we seem to have a lot of confusing days around here."

Hitch studied the paint cans closely. "OK then," he said. "We have malachite green, black, brunswick green, sunshine yellow, monastral blue, and some other shades that work as lining. But not enough of each individual colour to fully repaint Rebecca. Hmm... this is annoying."

Rebecca had overheard the conversation, and perked up. "Well, a different shade could help me a bit," she said, "but it may confuse the passengers. Enough people think I'm a diesel- they'd confuse me for Charles if I was painted blue?"

"Apart from being a completely different shape and having a different wheel arrangement and making different noises?" Izzy asked.

"You'd be amazed at how easily the general public mix up locomotive types," Hitch said. "Once I saw somebody swear up and down a Black Five was Gordon. No, that's Henry you dummy."

"Hitch! That's offensive to dummies!" Izzy said.

"Well, it could be worse," Hitch said. "What if the paint has other effects?"

"Like me flying?" Rebecca asked.

"Don't be daft," Hitch said. "That sort of thing only happens in cartoons. And besides, James should have been brought to a stop by AWS at the previous red signal. The people who wrote that stuff had no idea how railways actually work."

"I've got an idea!" Izzy said.

"Is it a good one?" Rebecca asked.

"If we don't have enough paint for one livery, why don't we paint Rebecca in every single livery the Spam Cans have carried... at once?"

Pipp strolled along the line of dancers and performers with a smile. "Those new costumes from Rarity have worked a treat!" she said. "Speaking in my official capacity as an official person, I just want to say you all look splendid!"

"Thank you!" said Rocky. "I do have a sideline in dance, so this suits me pretty well."

Pipp sighed. "Now where is Misty?"

Just then, the door opened, and Misty walked in. "Sorry I'm late Pipp, I was chatting with mom and..." Misty trailed off as she saw how everybody was dressed. "Uhh, aren't we a little overdressed for a trip into town?"

Pipp looked in surprise. "Misty, have you forgotten what day it is?"

"Saturday?" Misty replied.

"Today's the day we're shooting a music video for my YouTube Channel!" Pipp replied. "I thought you wanted to participate!"

"I didn't think I'd need to dress up!" Misty said. "I thought I was working backstage. You know I freeze up in front of a camera, and to be honest I look ridiculous dressed like an 80s popstar."

Pipp nodded. "That's OK, Misty. Sound equipment is over there- I thought you'd be ideal for mixing the audio given your mixes make my stuff sound fab!"

Jazz leaned over to Rocky. "Why is Pipp talking like somebody from the 1960s?"

"I have no idea," Rocky replied. "Next we'll be dressing up as Thunderbirds characters."

Pipp glanced back. "You've given me an idea for another music video!"

Misty took her seat behind the mixing desk as Pipp continued. "But you have no idea how exciting an opportunity this is. Coldplay giving me the opportunity to cover Higher Power is such a thrill, and the space age imagery gives us so many chances to use exciting special effects! We're just waiting on the prop crown I ordered!"

There was another knock at the door, and Thunder entered with a big box. "I have no idea what you've got in here," he said. "It's a heavy box and I had to drag it every flipping foot!"

"All in the line of duty, Thunder," Zoom reminded him, who had appeared behind him.

"Of course, boss."

"Thanks, Thunder!" Pipp said, who opened the box with a boxcutter and looked inside. "Yes! The prop crown I ordered! This looks so stunning!"

Pipp pulled it out of the box and popped it on- and nearly collapsed under the weight. "Uh, Houston, we have a problem!"

Work on repainting Rebecca was going well. The undercoat was on, and the outer coats were being applied. Hitch looked carefully at his slide rule and ran the lines along. "The yellow lines must be horizontally perfect," he said to himself.

Meanwhile, Izzy had a somewhat more freestyle approach! "This blue shall be bluer than the blue bricks of Buckfastleigh!" she said.

"Have you seen the blue bricks of Buckfastleigh?" Zipp asked.

"No."

"So Rebecca will be bluer than something you have never seen?"

"Yep!" Izzy switched to orange lining paint.

Zipp sighed. "Izzy, you are one of the eternal mysteries of the universe."

"So, it's too heavy for you to stand up," Misty said. Her eyes then lit up. "I know! When a train is too heavy, you just drop some of the weight and come back for it. So if we lighten the prop crown, you should have an easier time dancing!"

"How are you going to do that?" Pipp asked.

"Easy. Dad's been teaching me welding, so reducing the weight should be easy!"

And so, Misty got to work in her workshop. She started by removing the excessively heavy parts on the crown, then melted them down. Once they were melted down, she recast them in an alloy with a lighter metal which allowed them to look just as good, albeit with a considerable weight saving.

Pipp tried it on, and grinned at the result. "Great work, Misty! Now we can get this party started!"

She took her position on the stage, and Misty took her seat behind the desk. "Ready when you are!"

Pipp nodded. "Three, two, one!"

"That looks... awful," Hitch said.

And he was right. The blue, greens, and yellow and orange all clashed horribly with one another. Not helped was the somehat haphazard application of paint in some areas, which made it look rather like a small child had been painting.

"Hey, at least we didn't try painting Rebecca silver," Izzy said. "That would have been very difficult to keep clean. Not to mention she'd start defying the laws of physics."

"Izzy, please try and be serious," Zipp said. "Rebecca cannot go into traffic looking like this! She looks like a Jackson Pollock painting on wheels!"

Hitch sighed. "Let's scrape it all off and start again. I'll put in an order for some malachite green."

"Malachite green?" Rebecca asked. "I'd quite like that."

"Yep," Hitch said. "Loads of other spam cans are in Brunswick green, after all. Let's get to work!"

You've got a higher power/
You've got me singing every second/
Dancing any hour!
Oh yeah, you've got a higher power
You're once in any lifetime/
I'm going a million miles an hour!

"When for so long/
I'd been down on my knees!
Then your love song saved me over and over/
For so long I'd been down on my knees!
'Til your love song floats me on, ee-on, oh oh!"

The music faded out as the filming came to an end. "That's a wrap, guys!" Pipp said, and took the crown off. "Thanks for the help, Misty!"

"No problem!" Misty smiled. "Always glad to help out a friend- or should I say, a sister."

Pipp simply beamed.

A few days later, Rebecca re-entered traffic, painted once more in magnificant Malachite green with sunshine lettering. Everybody agreed she looked splendid. And after the most recent paint incident, Rebecca knew there was no colour she would rather be.

Author's Note

This chapter combines the rough plotlines of the Thomas and Friends episode of the same name with the Tell your Tale episode Heavy is the Mane that Wears the Fruit Crown (an absurdly long title if you ask me).

Each of the liveries mentioned in the story are all real ones the Bulleid Light Pacifics carried during their working lives. Below are images depicting these liveries:

(SR Wartime Black)

(SR Malachite Green)

(BR Brunswick Green)

(BR Blue; the above image is from Train Simulator as very few colour photos exist of the engines running in blue)

The commentary on mixing up engines is based on the moment from the original episode where a passenger mixes up James and Edward... somehow.

Higher Power is a song from the Coldplay album Music of the Spheres, released in 2021. Its bouncy, upbeat energy makes it an ideal fit for Pipp in my opinion.