Кейт Мур - Full Steam Ahead, Felix

Concerned, Angela pushed open the door that led to platform one. The cat wasn’t sitting on the former customer-information point, but as Angela emerged she noticed Felix almost at once. And she wasn’t on the benches or by the bike racks – she was somewhere she hadn’t gone for a very long time. Felix was on platform four – sitting underneath Billy Bolt’s memorial bench.

When Angela saw her, taking shelter under its weather-beaten wooden slats, she felt tears pricking at her eyes. Angie had told her that Felix had been shocked by Bolt’s arrival, and Angela knew she must have been frightened, too. Where had the cat gone when she felt so scared and unsettled? She went to the place she had once been happiest, to the person who had always been hers. She was laid out under the bench on a bed of green moss that grew there, seeking comfort and support from a station ghost. She looked over at Angela when she called, but she did not move. She was with her Billy, and he would see her right.

29. A Confident Cat

For the first week or so after Bolt’s arrival, Felix kept her distance. She came in to eat and sleep, but the rest of the time she avoided the new kitten as studiously as she could. He was spending most of his time in the team leaders’ office, where he had a fleecy brown cat bed about ten times his size. Felix would consistently do a double take every time she saw him, as if she still didn’t believe that this particular parallel universe could possibly be permanent. She would walk past the doorway, swivel her head to look in, and then continue on her way, almost shaking her head in disgust, her fluffy tail flicking haughtily.

Angie Hunte was very patient with her. Some of her colleagues were saying, ‘Oh, what a shame, Felix doesn’t like him,’ but she knew that wasn’t the case.

‘You’ve got to remember that someone has come into her domain. Everything she’s ever known here has always been hers . She’s thinking, “We’ve got a little intruder here.” Of course she’s on edge. Of course she doesn’t like the situation. But it’s not that she doesn’t like him . We’ve just got to give her time to adjust.’

In keeping with expert guidance on integrating cats, Angie declared that each cat would now have their own personal, defined space. Bolt would live in the team leaders’ office, while Felix occupied the ladies’ locker room. Bolt was not allowed to place one tiny paw over the threshold of Felix’s room, so the senior pest controller always had a safe and undisturbed space to go to whenever she needed peace.

In fact, Felix had the run of most of the station, at least for the time being, as Bolt was so young that he was being kept strictly in the back offices. This was partly for his own protection, too – for ever since his new role had been announced, his instant fame had made him in demand. Within five days of his arrival, his first Facebook photo had garnered 7,000 reactions and hundreds of comments and shares. Meanwhile, cat fans rushed to the station in person to request an audience with Huddersfield’s cat crown prince.

Well, Bolt was only nine weeks old. (No one knew exactly when his birthday was, but a best guess put it around 6 July.) He was far too young to be meeting strangers. He hadn’t yet done a single day of training, either! The team needed to get him settled calmly and safely – and that meant no visitors. A polite message went up, requesting that people did not ask to see him, and the team were advised not to share any personal pictures that might whip up the social-media storm. TPE promised to post the odd ‘official’ portrait of him on Felix’s Facebook page, but otherwise his introduction to the wider world had to be slow. The team decided that they would keep Bolt largely under wraps until the new year at the earliest, so that he could have a chance to settle into his new home.

Yet, truth be told, Bolt already seemed right at home. Angie had never seen such a confident cat. Nothing seemed to faze him; he took everything in his stride. He loved the office environment and took to transforming every administrative detail into a game. A laptop case became a ski slope he could slide down; a clipboard became a sledge. A rolled-up train ticket was an instant wonky football for him, while a stack of papers transformed into a tumbling trampoline.

One of his favourite tricks was to surprise Angie Hunte. She would walk in and put her small handbag down on the desk while she got herself settled. Imagine her surprise when she later went to fetch something from her purse – and who should be inside but a little black station kitten? Bolt’s khaki-green eyes would merrily twinkle with mischievous amusement. Bolt soon took to climbing in regularly; he would scurry inside the bag and then snuggle down until not even his ears poked out of the top. He was the perfect fit – for the bag, for the station, for the team.

It wasn’t long before his personality started to show itself even more assertively: Bolt, it turned out, was playful and cocky, energetic and fun. And he was full-on, too, the complete opposite of the laid-back cat that Felix had become. That promised another difference, Angie anticipated; while Felix had always sat out on the platform and waited for her audience to come to her, Angie suspected that Bolt would perhaps actively go looking for his – once the time was right.

The differences between the two cats became clearer as they continued to meet each other in the corridors behind the scenes at the station. In the early weeks, the size difference was striking. Bolt, who could curl up almost in the palm of your hand, looked like a David meeting Goliath as the huge, fluffy Felix loomed into view.

Bolt seemed aware of the situation. As Felix glared at him and hissed, he would shrink back into an inversion of his usual confident self. Yet Jacqui characterised his cowering as not motivated by fear, but by an awareness of the current state of play. Felix was far too big for him to take on at the moment, but give him time and he’d be up for it. He didn’t seem scared at all – in fact, he became rather wily.

One afternoon that September, Felix came stalking down the corridor, her movements hallmarked by the grumpy, disconsolate moodiness that was her current default state. Recently Angie, Jacqui and the others had begun to open the office door for the kitten, so that he too could get a run in the corridor. Bolt lost no time in stretching out his long, gangly legs. He was gaining confidence and control by the day and no longer wobbled when he walked. But as he strolled into the corridor that September afternoon and laid eyes on Queen Felix, he very possibly felt a little wobble inside as her glowing green eyes focused firmly on him. Everything about her was dripping with disdain.

As Angie Hunte watched the pair of them, Bolt did the most remarkable thing. It was as if he was reading the situation and knew instinctively that he had to endear himself to his difficult boss.

Queen Felix tossed her head regally as she glared at him. Every move she made asserted her right to be there, her right to rule the station. For seven years, she had reigned supreme, uncontested. If this little upstart planned any kind of coup, her flashing eyes communicated, Queen Felix was determined to crush it. Her glare was a timely reminder that the kitten should not even dare to try usurping her authority.

Yet a coup was the furthest thing from little Bolt’s mind – something to which his tiny black body soon bore witness. For in response to Felix’s laser-like stare, Bolt – slowly but surely – lowered his head to his front paws before her.

The crown prince bowed to his reigning monarch.

As he did so, the queen drank in his submission, as though she was sipping from a golden goblet, and she clearly savoured every single sweet mouthful. Perhaps this kitten wasn’t quite as stupid as she’d thought.