Once upon a time there was a little Steam Engine named Susie. Now, I know what you're thinking: steam engines are quite antiquated, somewhat dangerous, and less environmentally friendly than their modern counterparts. Children, there's such a thing called the 'willful suspension of disbelief,' and if you stop accepting it, your beloved Pooh will knock Christopher Robin's head off and gnaw on his bloody rib cage like a dog with a squeaky toy. The police will then come out and pump him full of bullets, because in real life bears don't go to jail.
We don't want that to happen, do we? Then hush, children. Just listen to the story.
Little Susie began her day at the Bobbletown orphanage.
"Do you really think you can get these children up to Hubtown," Asked Mother Turntable. "They are so very excited to meet their new adopted parents."
Little Susie was somewhat concerned at this juncture. Not only were her cars not rated for human transport, Nubtown was also across Plot Point Mountain, the highest, meanest, and only mountain in the whole county. But Little Susie loved the orphans and said she would.
Next she stopped at Lucky Pierre's Baguette Shop.
"Allo Susie," said Pierre, "I hope joo can geet my baguettes all the way to Nubtown toodee. My weef and I are geeng to huv a beebee und ve need ze profits to buy heem cheese and wine."
Little Susie thought long and hard. This would mean running yet another car all the way over to Hubtown and across the icy Plot Point Mountain. Still, she dearly loved Lucky Pierre, and his bread didn't weight that much, so she said yes.
Finally, she stopped at Old Angus's School for Urchins and Ragamuffins.
"Och," said Angus, "I mee bee just an ol' cultural clichee, but I'm hopin' on my shillelagh that ye kin run this load of poopy across the Plot Points t' Hubtoon."
"Er, uh, poopy?" asked Susie.
"Aye," said Angus. "Fifteen toons of eet. Een canvas sacks. Y'see th' constable checked oor ordinances, an' we're na' zoned to dispose of urchin poopy, so we sell it t' Hubtoon for a profit."
"Um, what do they do with fifteen tons of kid crap?"
Angus shrugged his shoulders and tugged on his pipe in a particularly stereotypical fashion. "So kin ye do it er na'?"
Susie was really getting pissed off by this point, but she loved Angus, and was willing to take one for the team.
As Angus's was her last stop, Susie left Bobbletown and began her slow, meandering descent through Rolling Valley. Dew on the tall yellow grasses glistened in the morning sunlight and the red and golden maples danced in the soft breeze.
"Wow," she said, building up speed. "I'm feeling really good today. I think I can do this!"
Susie was feeling pretty good as she entered No Regrets Tunnel at the foot of Plot Point Mountain. It was a steep grade, a bit of a climb, but Susie just kept remembering the Orphans and the Urchins, and Lucky Pierre and his ambiently glowing wife.
"I can do it!" Susie said. "I know I can!"
A wintery wind whistled as it whipped snow down on to Susie as she broke out of the tunnel and for the first time she saw the steep climb up Plot Point.
"I've come this far." She said. "I know I can do it and I just won't look back!"
The grade grew steeper and the air grew colder as she continued to climb. She wasn't going as fast now as her wheels slipped in the ice and snow and she was getting tired.
"I've got to think of the little orphans and the urchins and Lucky Pierre's little baby," She said. "I can do it, I know I can!"
The climb was steep now, and she knew she was entering Impasse Pass; the most dangerous point in the whole mountain. The wind howled through the pass, and so did the giant dire wolves that raced down the mountain.
"Well, I'm just a train! They won't -- OW!" Susie cried as one bit her right in the piston. "WTF?? That really hurts! Why would a wolf bite a train?!"
Soon the whole pack was gnawing on her pistons and couplers and wheels, trying to drag her back as she struggled to make her way through this last, hardest part of the mountain.
"I've got to think of the orphans," she gasped. "The orphans need me, Lucky Pierre too. I can do it, I know I--"
Just then Little Susie died.
I know she's a train, and you're probably saying to yourself "Oh, well, she can just be fixed," but STFU. Seriously, she's dead. Don't think so? Don't think I'd do such a thing? Just sit back and watch me work, you little crap-factories.
The orphans screamed as Little Susie tumbled backwards down the tracks. Their world was suddenly inundated with flying, pelting baguettes and frothy bits of poo. They picked up incredible speed as they shot through the tunnel; such speed that the g-forces exceeded their frail human capacity, and they lost consciousness.
As you shall soon see, children, they were the lucky ones.
It was a sunny day back in Bobbletown. Birds were tweeting, people were out buying bread, and urchins were playing hopskotch on the railroad tracks. It was such a nice, and sunny, and generally bubbly day that they had no warning at all when Susie (now dead) came plowing down the tracks at 1500 miles per hours.
If you'll, for a moment, imagine a party balloon filled with meat and brains (and a lot of blood,) being popped, that is exactly what it looked like when she ran into the children playing hopskotch.
They didn't scream so much as squeak, and that was the last anyone ever heard or saw of them, though they were sprayed a bit on the couples having a picnic with their parasols and straw hats.
The car full of orphans came dislodged at this point and plowed like a battering ram right through Lucky Pierre's house. Many would say his wife, who just then had a roller in her hands, never got to finish painting the nursery, but they were wrong. That nursery was painted red.
The car plowed through his shop, and spun into his courtyard like a dradel that happened to be flinging orphans from the windows and massacring people eating bread like an enormous, dull lawnmower blade.
Lucky Pierre lived up to his name. Trapped under a small mountain of cream puffs from which the authorities later extricated him, Pierre never quite got over the death of his unborn child and took to drinking and surliness, but being that he was French already, no one really noticed or cared. Bobbletown already had enough to think about, yeah?
At any rate, Little Susie continued her swan dive, barreling down the tracks into the orphanage, which she plowed into at nearly 2,000 miles per hour. Some of the kids probably would have survived, but being that she was a steam engine a fire broke out, and the poop and bread in her cars exploded, killing everyone in a quarter mile radius.
Never try, children. Never try.
