--Bertha Oneshots--

Roy Has Something

This week at Spottiswood and Co, Bertha is making toy cars. TOM and Roy are checking each car to make sure they are all right before passing them to Nell and Flo who packed them in bright boxes. Ted was near Bertha's control panel, writing down how much cars she has made in total on his clipboard. The beeping and clicking of the 50 year old machine can be heard throughout the whole factory. Whilst Bertha is considered 'old' by the foreman she is the best machine in the factory.

The apprentice and robot were busy at work monitoring the quality of the cars. TOM, the little robot was testing the cars by rolling it on the floor trying his best not to break the toys. Roy, however, was not doing the same thing as the robot. After each car was made he would pick up each of them and whirl the wheels around repeatedly. Nell was the first to notice what Roy was doing. She nudges Flo gently and pointed at the young lad, who only looked backed to Nell shrugged shyly in response. Nell finally spoke up.

"Roy, may I ask you a question?"

Roy was too focused on his work but listened. "Sure, I don't mind Nell." he answered. Nell thought carefully before answering back. "Are you sure you are testing the toy cars? ..Well, I'm not saying you aren't; it's just I've never seen cars being checked like that before." Roy clenched one of the cars and looked at Nell, puzzled. "Well, I guess my method is rather different to TOM's, but it still works." he said, trying to spin the wheels on the next car. Strange. The wheels don't seem to move at all. "Ted, stop Bertha!" He called out. After hearing his assistant, Ted rushed over to the lever and stopped the machine.

He went over to the lad to see what the matter was."The wheels on this car is stiff Ted, see?" Roy told him. He gave the toy to Ted who tried to slid the car on Bertha's conveyer belt. The car struggled to move. "That's funny." Ted answered, "The wheels shouldn't be stiff." Ted examined the faulty toy for a closer look. "Hmm, I think some oil on the axis should fix this. Now, where did we put that oil can?". "It is probably in the dispatch department. Last time I've checked, we haven't used it in a while." Flo suggested, still packing the remaining boxes. Roy said that he will go look there. "Thank you Roy." Ted replied back, "And bring TOM along too, he can help find it."  With that being said, Roy headed off with TOM happily beeping behind him.

In the dispatch department it is awfully busy, especially for Panjit the forklift driver. He has all those boxes to stack up and organise for the shops. Roy and TOM walked into the department, looking for the oil can that is seemingly cleverly hidden amongst the crates. Suddenly a loud noise echoed down the room. TOM seemed to like the noise and  spun in circles at the sound, but poor Roy was rather shaken. What an awful noise! As the noise got nearer it had revealed to be coming from Panjit's forklift truck. Panjit saw the two and stopped the truck at once, jumping off from its seat and walking towards them. "I'm very sorry that I startled you both, are you okay?" Panjit asked. Roy was still upset by what happened but answered. "Y-yes, we are both fine. I'm just that I'm not used to hearing your forklift sounding like that, but I will get used to it though."

"I see, well Mr Duncan said that my forklift horn is 'too old and quiet' so I bought a new one and installed it onto the truck. You are right, it is a bit loud but Mr Duncan says it will help make sure there won't be anymore accidents." Said Panjit. "Now, do you need me for something?" Roy nodded. "We need the oil can for the toy cars but we can't find it. Is it in here?" TOM instantly got bored of the talking. They will never find it if they keep it up, he thought and wandered off to find it himself, unknown to both Roy and Panjit. The two of them looked in each high shelf for the can, scanning under every crate and searching over several boxes. It really was cleverly hidden. Where could it be?

Smash!

The two looked around for what had smashed. Panjit turned to Roy who was panicking a little, his breathing rapidly increasing. "Are you alright?" Panjit asked him, concerned. "I'm fine." Roy assured, half lying. "The noise was just so...sudden. I get startled by sudden noises." They both then decided to investigate where that noise came from. Just as they were about to walk ahead, TOM quickly dashed towards the two, holding the missing oil can in his pincer arms. He handed the can to Roy sheepishly, but Panjit hadn't forgotten about the noise so he went ahead, despite the robot's little protests. Soon he discovered why TOM is so antsy: He made a massive mess of the place he already stacked up. There was glasses smashed all over like a cat tipped them over and paint splattered everywhere, creating a massive colourful explosion. Boxes and crates were scattered everywhere too and not neatly seated on a shelf like they're supposed to be.