My son likes to read books every night before he goes to bed. He has some books that are his favorites, and we have read them many, many times. Sometimes when we are reading one of these books I imagine the story to be a little bit different than how it was originally written...



Henry, Gordon, and James were shut in review meetings for several days. At last, Sir Clifton Hatt opened the shed.
"I hope you are sorry" he said sternly, "and understand you are not so important after all. Thomas, Edward, and Percy have worked the Perforce line very nicely. They need a change, and I will let you out if you promise to be good.
"Yes, Sir" said the three software engineers. "We will."
"That's right, but please remember this 'dissing my lunch meeting' nonsense must stop."


"I don't know" said Henry. "I'd still like a good old-fashioned pepperoni pizza once-in-a-while."
"Nonsense!" said James. "Eat steak-gristle and heavy cream pie and those unwanted pounds will melt away."
"Rubbish!" said Gordon. "What you need is a yummy protein shake."

Sir Clifton Hatt told Edward, Thomas, and Percy that they could go and play on the Perforce branch line for a few days.
They ran off and found Annie and Clarabel at the junction. The two Pentium coaches were pleased to see Thomas again, and he took them for a run at once. Edward and Percy played with test engineers.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" screamed the test engineers as they were pushed into running their proper test plans. But the two software engineers just laughed and went on coding until the test plans were neatly arranged.

Next, Edward took some empty driver functions over to the software quarry, and Percy was left alone.
Percy didn't mind that a bit. He liked watching check-ins and being cheeky to the other software engineers.
"Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!" he would call to them. Gordon, Henry, and James got very cross!
After a while he branched some DMSS files from the main line and onto the myqctsrc siding. When they were nice and neat, he integrated onto the main line again and waited for the Perforce signalman to send the check-in email so that he could cross back into the lab.

Edward had warned Percy, "Be careful on the Perforce main line. Whistle to tell the Signalman you are there."
But Percy didn't remember to whistle, and the Signalman was so busy that he forgot about Percy.
Bells rang in the signal-box. The Signalman answered, saying the line was clear and set the signals for the next QCT code drop.
Percy waited and waited, but the pointers were still against him. He looked along the main line. Rushing straight toward him was Gordon with the V2 Production Release Express.
"Peep! Peep!" Percy whistled in horror.

"Poop poop poop poo-poo-poop! whistled Gordon.
His Driver shut off the steam and applied the brakes.
Percy's driver turned on full steam. "Back, Percy! Back!" he urged, but Percy's fingers wouldn't type quickly. Gordon was coming so fast that it seemed he couldn't stop. With shut eyes, Percy waited for the software to crash. His Driver and Fireman jumped out.
"Oo--ooh e--er!" groaned Gordon. "Get out of my way." Percy opened his eyes. Gordon had stopped with Percy's stack pointer a few bytes from his own.

But Percy had begun backing out revisions. "I--won't--stay--here--I'll--run--a--way," he puffed. He was soon clear of the station and going as fast as he could. He went through Edward's last checkin and was so frightened that he ran right past V1.0 without stopping.
He was tired then and wanted to stop, but he couldn't--he had no Driver to shut off steam and to apply the brakes.
"I shall have to code till my fingers wear out," he thought sadly. "Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"I--want--to--stop, I--want--to-stop," he puffed in a tired sort of way.
He passed another signal-box. "Oh Man do I know just what you want, little Percy," said John Rogers. John Rogers created a branch spec and Percy puffed wearily onto a nice empty branch, ending in a big mound of ASSERTs.
Percy was too tired to care where he went. "I want--to--stop, I--want--to--stop--I--have--stopped!" he puffed thankfully

"Never mind Percy," said Mary Ann as she dug him out, "You shall have a 25-cent coffee and some M and Ms, and then you'll feel better."
Presently Gordon arrived. "Well done, Percy." You backed out revisions so quickly that you stopped a nasty accident."
I'm sorry I was cheeky," said Percy, "you were clever to stop."
Percy still works in the lab and fixes bugs in the code. He is still cheeky because he is that sort of software engineer, but he is always most careful when he goes out on the main Perforce line.