Кейт Мур - Full Steam Ahead, Felix

30. Sparks Fly

‘What collar shall we get him, Angie?’ asked Jacqui as she scrolled through some options online. Bolt was too young to wear a collar yet, but she was already planning for the future.

Angie clapped gleefully. ‘A sparkly one!’ she cried. ‘Let him get his sequins on! Let’s get him a diamanté one!’ Angie loved a bit of sparkle; it matched her sparkling personality.

‘No,’ replied Jacqui, bluntly. Diamanté was definitely not her personal preference.

‘Just a little bit of sparkle?’ Angie pleaded, crestfallen.

‘No,’ said Jacqui again.

‘ Please …?’

In the end, it was Jacqui who caved. Bolt the junior pest controller was duly ordered a jet-black rhinestone collar and a very smart name tag. The latter was circular, its front yellow enamel with a silver lightning bolt, the back engraved with Bolt’s personal details. When the time came for him to go outside, he would look hot to trot.

Orders were also soon placed for more official items – such as Bolt’s official TPE name badge. This would say ‘BOLT’ in big letters in the middle and then underneath – cementing his position as a trainee learning on the job – ‘APPRENTICE PEST CONTROLLER’.

Bolt was not the only TPE apprentice – although he was certainly the most famous. TPE actually ran a very successful apprenticeship scheme whereby young people could join them for two years, in partnership with Manchester College, and gain experience and qualifications while working in role. TPE offered apprenticeships for those looking to get into careers including customer service, commercial, train planning and engineering – and, now, pest control too.

Bolt’s name badge hadn’t yet arrived, but Angie couldn’t wait to see it when it did. In the meantime, she hoped that the two pest controllers could soon begin working together. But as Bolt grew more confident, his ceremonial bows began to lessen – and then the sparks really started to fly.

Bolt was, frankly, a bit of a lunatic. He was so full of energy that he always wanted to play – with anything and anyone. And that included Felix. To Bolt, she had the potential to be the perfect playmate. His previous interactions with other cats – such as with his fellow kitten Romeo at Jacqui’s house – had been fun, fun, fun, and now that he had settled in at the station he wanted to let the good times roll. Literally roll. Ideally, all over the corridor in a wrestling match. He just had to get Queen Felix to join in …

Bolt started inviting Felix to play with him – sometimes after he had bowed to her, as though this was a formal precursor to his game, just as two sumo wrestlers will respectfully acknowledge each other with a bow before beginning a bout. Having made the introduction, Bolt would begin bouncing about playfully. Cheekily, he would dart up to Felix, as though he was a boxer, edging near to her on his tiny toes and then bottling it at the last minute and bouncing back.

Felix looked at him as though he had gone quite mad. Blithely, he dallied and danced around her. She wasn’t angry at him any more; she was perplexed. There was something deeply thoughtful in her expression, as though she was trying to figure him out. ‘What on earth are you doing, you foolish kitten?’ her green eyes asked, but he did not answer. Eventually, she would turn away, almost rolling her eyes at his ridiculousness.

That was when Bolt would strike. He had no fear. He would literally launch himself at the adult cat, gymnastically hurling himself at her like a wild wrestler. He would sneak up on her and jump on her back. He would tumble over her. He would stretch out a paw and try to touch her, or force a face-to-face encounter by popping up suddenly between her two front paws, having tangled himself into a neat knot between her legs.

Felix would pull away from him sharply, horrified. If he leapt up in her face, she would stretch her neck back artfully, as though he was a paramour attempting an unwanted and unwarranted snog and she was recoiling from his garlic breath. She tolerated him for longer than anyone might have expected, usually with a disdainful shrug. There was very much a sense of her not lowering herself to his level; she would expend no more energy on him than she absolutely had to.

Eventually, Bolt’s tireless entangling with her came to a head. She had to show him who was boss. So out popped her white-capped paw – and she boshed him on the head.

It was only a light tap – just hard enough to remind him of the pecking order. It made Bolt desist for a moment – but then he would bounce back. ‘Young and dumb’ Angie called him; for no matter how many times Felix physically told him ‘No!’ he did not learn. Again and again he’d get a light knock on the head – because every time he came back for more.

Whether she knew it or not, Felix was handling him just how her mother, Lexi, had once handled her as a kitten, when she and her four brothers and sisters had got out of hand with their unruly games. Just like Felix, Lexi had endured her kittens’ mum-centred gymnastics for a while, but then she’d issued a backhander or grabbed them by the scruffs of their necks to keep them in line. Perhaps Angie Hunte’s hope that Felix would discover her maternal side was not so far off the mark, after all.

As the weeks passed, Felix persevered with her boxing-based discipline, wearily hoping it would one day bear fruit. She reminded Angela Dunn of a world-weary big sister having to chastise an annoying little brother. Watching her apprentice, Felix would often toss her head, superiority shimmering through every hair on her body, as – for example – Bolt gaily skidded head-first into a door, too caught up in his game to notice he was running short on space.

But while Felix was taking some time to appreciate his talents, for the rest of the station the newcomer was a bona fide hit. Andy Croughan proudly posed for a photograph with his newest employee; it looked almost as though he and Bolt were formally shaking hands in the shot, as Andy welcomed him to the station.

For Jacqui, watching her fellow team members interact with the kitten was a revelation. Their instant affection for her little boy showed a softer side that she had not known they had. One brusque Yorkshire lad in yellow hi-vis almost visibly melted; Jacqui was amazed to hear him cooing at the cat as though he was talking to a baby.

Bolt also had ‘inductions’ with all the team leaders, including Geoff. Perhaps predictably, the kitten didn’t get a very good report from the latter as the energetic kitten ran Geoff ragged. Back when Bolt was confined to base and the team leaders’ door was constantly shut, Bolt had kept escaping to the corridor on Geoff’s watch. Geoff could not figure out for the life of him how Bolt was doing it, and he kept having to chase after the kitten and bring him back – a game that Bolt enjoyed immensely! It turned out that the tiny kitten had been hiding behind a disused doorstop, and as soon as Geoff opened the door Bolt would dart out from his hiding place and make a run for it. He was so quick and so small, Geoff never spotted him. Bolt’s Houdini skills were smashing even those of Felix!

Geoff had a few words for Felix now that the kitten had arrived. As their TPE colleagues bustled around Bolt, and Felix stared scornfully at all the fuss being made of him from afar, Geoff would call out to her. ‘I told you, Felix: you should have stuck with me. Look at them all now. There’s only me that cares about you, Felix.’

Of course, that wasn’t true. Lots of people cared about Felix and were sensitive to her situation. Foremost among them was Jean Randall, whose return to work after more than a year off sick could not have come at a better time for the original station cat.