The Sleepover

"I hope you two are happy, Percy and James! Both of you have caused confusion and delay by ruining my very first sleepover! The repainting, the firebox heating, Truth or Dare, the truck fight? I mean, is there ANYTHING ELSE THAT CAN POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!!?"

-Thomas scolding Percy and James

The Sleepover is the first episode of the sixth season.

Plot
It's raining in Henry's Forest and Henry and several other engines are chuffing down there. Jack and the Pack are pruning trees to avoid damage to the forest. Even James helps out, but his contribution to the cleanup effort involves making topiary out of the loose tree branches. This puts him at odds with Percy, who insists on Oliver taking the branches down. When James voices his disapprooval of Percy for suggesting such a silly idea, rain starts to fall, much to James' further displeasure.

Percy suggests that James would go into a shed to shield himself from the rain, but James refuses out of an unwillingness to get his paintwork muddy. As the two engines argue even more over their situation, the rain and wind pick up speed. Thomas, noticing the two caught in the storm, offers them shelter in Tidmouth Sheds until the storm passes.

With Nia away on the Mainland helping the experimental engines, Thomas is alone for the evening, and sees this as an opportunity to have his very first sleepover party. James and Percy are far from eager to spend the whole evening in each other's company, but find themselves unable to leave due to the worsening storm. After a brief argument about mud paintings, they agree to try and get along so they don't ruin Thomas' very first sleepover.

Thomas is oblivious to Percy and James' silent bickering, checking off each game in his notepad as they're played. However, for each game played, the two grow more and more frustrated with each other.

During ghost train stories, James and Percy suggest stories that allude to why they don't like each other before Thomas tells the legend of the Smokeboxless Engine, succeding in scaring both of his friends. James shunts Percy as he sickens James on purpose by burping black steam from his funnel when they try to heat up their fireboxes. And in a game of Truth or Dare, Percy and James only dare each other to do humiliating things, such as Percy daring James to get his shiny red paintwork wet in the rain for 5 minutes and James daring Percy to be repainted blue all over.

Thomas, now sensing conflict, tries to move things along. Unfortunately, the conflict comes to a head during the next game: a truck fight, which in no time turns into an all-out truck war between James and Percy. Caught in the middle and bombarded with trucks, Thomas suggests that they call it a night and go to bed.

Percy and James' petty arguing continues even when the engines try to go to bed. Exasperated by their constant back and forth and fighting over the shed door, Thomas awakens, and at last decides to intervene and voices how upset and angry he is that James and Percy are fighting too much to have any fun, thereby ruining his sleepover completely. Just as Thomas, feeling stressed, asks if anything else can go wrong, a nearby tree is hit by lightning and begins to topple towards someone else's shed.

Percy, not heeding a warning from James, pulls the falling tree and instead of stabilising it, sends it crashing through Thomas' berth in Tidmouth Sheds. James focuses on cleaning up the mess of books and Percy tries to shunt the tree back out of the window while Thomas desperately searches through his sleepover book for a section on dealing with fallen trees in the middle of the sheds.

When Percy fails at moving the tree out on his own, he eventually apologises to James for criticising his attention to detail and convinces him to focus on helping with the bigger task instead. He gets James to not worry so much about getting his paintwork dirty. James uses Rocky to help turn the treetop into tiny bush sculptures, clearing the shed at the cost of getting dirt all over himself. Percy, at James' insistence, proceeds to gently toss the broken tree trunk out of the window.

With the storm and their differences finally settles, Percy, James, and Thomas are finally able to have fun, rounding out the evening with a game of Hide & Peep. Percy and James exchange apologies, and in the end, Thomas officialy declares the sleepover a success, to James and Percy's delight. Percy and James learn from Thomas that it's possible to get along with someone who doesn't look like you if you embrace each other's differences. He proposes another sleepover the following night, and his proposal is met by two trucks shunted his buffers. The episode ends as the sky clears up, revealing a bright sunny day, to the three engines' delight.

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Henry
 * James
 * Percy
 * Emily
 * Duck
 * Mavis
 * Rocky
 * Jack
 * Alfie
 * Max
 * Monty
 * Oliver the Excavator
 * Kelly (cameo)
 * Nelson (cameo)
 * Gordon (cameo)
 * Diesel (cameo)
 * Harvey (cameo)
 * Salty (cameo)
 * Dart (cameo)
 * Edward (cameo)
 * Toby (cameo)
 * Sidney (cameo)
 * Lightning McQueen (cameo)
 * Rosie (cameo)
 * Nia (mentioned)
 * Lexi (not named; mentioned)
 * Theo (not named; mentioned)
 * Merlin (not named; mentioned)

Trivia

 * This episode's plotline is the same as the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic S1 episode, Look Before You Sleep, where Applejack (Percy) and Rarity (James) go to Twilight Sparkle's (Thomas) house (shed) for a slumber party (sleepover) on a rainy day, but end up getting into big arguments.
 * The scene where James shunts Percy and Percy burping black steam while saying, "Aww, James! You just made me wheesh!" is a reference to the 2003 Disney/Pixar movie, Finding Nemo, where Tad (James) pulls Pearl (Percy) back after looking at the bottom of the Drop-off, which causes her to squirt ink while saying, "Aww, you guys made me ink!"