Chimney Crisis!

"That was my idea! And we've called our house Montague! That's Duck's other name!"

- The little boy

Chimney Crisis! is a magazine story.

Plot
One day, Thomas puffs by a small building site where they are erecting four new houses. The painter tells Thomas that they are only waiting for the chimney pots to completely finish them off. Thomas replies that he's heading to the docks to collect them and he'll deliver them that afternoon.

At the harbour, Thomas sees the chimney pots being unloaded. Suddenly, the corner of the pallet hits a stack of bricks and they all crash to the ground. The crane driver is a worker nicknamed 'Clumsy Colin' who, knowing how urgent the chimneys were, has an idea. Colin rushes to phone the clay pits manager who is happy to help.

Thomas takes a potter to the new houses where a family is already starting to move in. The potter asks what sort of chimney pot they would like. Just then, Duck puffs by and the children of the family decide they'd like a chimney just like Duck's funnel. The potter thinks that is a great idea and asks Thomas to take him around the island to see the engines with the best "chimneys". Soon, the potter arrives at the mountain railway where he is most impressed with Rheneas' funnel.

The potter takes his drawings of the engines' funnels to the old pottery at the clay pits and starts work on the new chimney pots. The next week, Thomas is sent to the pit to collect a truck full of four special chimney pots, packed safely in straw. The first chimney to go up is just like Duck's. The little boy of the family says that they have named their house "Montague" after Duck's real name. Replicas of Peter Sam's and Skarloey's funnels are the next to be put up, but the boy doesn't know who the last chimney is modelled after. Thomas says it's easy to work out because the fourth house is named "Rheneas".

Characters

 * Thomas
 * Clumsy Colin
 * The Potter
 * Duck
 * Rheneas
 * Skarloey
 * Peter Sam

Goofs

 * The engines' funnels are referred to as "chimneys" throughout this story.