Кейт Мур - Full Steam Ahead, Felix

Someone else didn’t notice her either: one Percy Pigeon, who was gaily grabbing what crumbs he could as he paraded in front of those self-same suitcases …

Felix spotted him and froze. Even as she watched, Percy let out a contented coo as he gobbled down some tasty morsel. Felix’s green eyes narrowed, and tension slowly spread through her limbs.

To her back was the Coffee Xpress concession. This concentrated the boundaries of her stalking field, as though she was in a bunker or a foxhole, with only the enemy ahead.

An enemy who could not see her.

The cases provided the perfect cover. As the family excitedly chattered away above her head about their upcoming holiday, Felix took a single, slow step forward, being very careful to remain behind the shield of their suitcases. The family had unwittingly parked them up in an ideal configuration, allowing her to plot her attack and make her advance, while still keeping eyes on the pigeon.

‘Coo, coo!’ called Percy happily.

Behind the suitcases, Felix took another step forward.

‘Coo, coo!’ he called again, with no sense of the terrible danger he was in.

Like the calm before the storm, Felix paused for a pregnant moment, gauging strike distances and speed and space. Her brain whirring, in a few short seconds she had completed the complex calculations that she hoped would see her succeed. Never before had she had such an opportunity. She knew, all too well, that she might never get such a one again.

There was a slim gap between the cases ahead. Felix eyed it with interest and intent. She knew she had one chance to get this right; she had to dart through that gap, before which the pigeon pranced, and at just the right moment pin him down with a swipe of her perilous paw.

‘Coo, coo!’ called Percy, as though encouraging her. Bring it on. Felix was ready to answer.

She gathered her legs beneath her till her muscles quivered. She was right beside that all-important gap, her velvety black nose almost poking out from her lair, trying as hard as she could to keep her whiskers still so that she did not give away her position. If Percy looked her way right this minute, he would see her: game over.

But Percy was far more interested in pecking at the crumbs on the platform. He did not turn his head.

In her mind, though she did not know the numbers, Felix must surely have been counting down, choosing the right moment to strike. But little did she know: time was running out. For, above her head, the orange digits of the station display board moved on. The Manchester Airport train would soon be here. Which would make its move first: the locomotive or the lion-like cat who was even now hunting her very own Huddersfield ‘gazelle’?

Three, two, one …

A scream tore through the station.

4. Famous Felix

Felix pounced. She succeeded. Her claws latched on to the pigeon’s back and a flurry of feathers burst into the air as though a pigeon-down pillow had exploded on the platform. The holidaying family, having known nothing of Felix’s plot, screamed loudly in alarm, completely terrified, as feathers puffed fulsomely into the air. There was little immediate sign of where they had come from or what on earth had caused this peculiar phenomenon; utterly startled by the explosion, the family scattered, leaving their luggage unattended, and all eyes turned as one to the commotion.

Then, as though echoing their cries, there was a heroic squawk from the pigeon. Amid the flurry of feathers, Percy was still alive and he was flapping, flapping, flapping to try to tear himself free! With an almighty screech and a muscular ripple of his wondrous wings, he somehow managed to pull away from Felix’s clutches, even though her claws had most definitely snagged him. He may have left half his feathers behind, but – to the railway cat’s frustration – he had somehow lived to fly another day. He retreated to the iron girders above to lick his wounds while Felix looked up in absolute disbelief, sitting in a sea of feathers and abandoned cases.

As the feathers slowly drifted back to earth, the family returned to their luggage, their hands to their mouths. No longer scared, now that they realised what had happened, they found themselves laughing instead, giggles escaping them as they took in the unusual scene. Poor old Felix! Denied again!

‘Not to worry, my girl,’ said Angie Hunte later that day, as she watched the whole episode back on the black-and-white CCTV, having been alerted to it by a colleague who’d been present. ‘I love you just the way you are.’

And Angie Hunte was not alone in that. As the summer of 2016 drew on, Felix’s popularity continued to soar as her Facebook friends followed her adventures online. They loved to log in and find out what the railway cat had been up to each day. As only a handful of fans actually made it to the station in person, the man behind the page found he had his work cut out for him to keep the online followers fulfilled. Always there was a hunger for new posts, new pictures and new videos. But he was more than happy to deliver.

His name was Mark Allan, and he was a mild-mannered commuter in his fifties who worked in Manchester five days a week. He commuted through Huddersfield station, catching the 6.40 service each weekday morning. He and Felix had become friends in spring 2015 and he had set up Felix’s page for her shortly thereafter – mostly as something of a creative outlet, given his job in finance was a very serious one. Her subsequent online success had come as a wonderful surprise. Now, with 87,000 Facebook fans (and counting) hanging on the railway cat’s every post, he was rather enjoying the challenge of coming up with new ideas. He found he was always thinking about what he and Felix could do next, and he would mull ideas over even when he wasn’t at the station – just as he did one August day that summer, as he was clearing out a wardrobe in his Huddersfield home.

‘What’s this?’ he muttered, as he reached into the back of the cupboard and pulled out a sorry-looking mess of multicoloured plastic. ‘I remember this …’

It was a blow-up globe – something he’d bought for his children years before to show them the locations of all the countries of the world. He pressed his lips to the toggle and with a series of determined puffs fully inflated the globe. Oh yes , he thought, I can have some fun with this … Given Felix’s fans came from all across the world, from America to Hong Kong and everywhere in between, the globe seemed a particularly apt prop for this global superstar to play with.

The following morning, on 22 August 2016, Mark got to the station around 6.30 a.m. As usual, despite the early hour, there were still a fair few commuters already on the platform, rustling newspapers as they caught up on current affairs and nursing cups of takeaway coffee. It was a rather windy morning and people glared crossly in the direction of the railway tunnels, which were causing the wind to whistle down the platforms towards the King’s Head. Though it was allegedly the height of summer, that bitter wind was a hint that, in Yorkshire, winter is never far away.

Ignoring the weather, Mark walked with increasing excitement towards the customer-information point, already anticipating Felix’s reaction to the blow-up globe. It seemed she was excited too: as she did most days, she was already waiting for him on ‘their’ bench, close to the Head of Steam pub, eager to see what treats he had brought for her today. The pub staff had got there early that morning as well – already, they had their advertising A-frame hoardings out on the platform, promoting the jazz night they were holding in two days’ time.

‘Good morning, Felix,’ Mark said to his little friend, bending down to stroke her as she arched her head into his now familiar hand. Then, without further ado, he whipped out the blow-up globe and proceeded to inflate it with a series of short puffs, attracting a few bemused looks from his fellow commuters. Once the globe was inflated, he popped it down on to the platform, soon followed by a Dreamie to encourage Felix to investigate further. Mark chuckled to himself as he set the scene he hoped to photograph. He could just imagine it: Felix checking out her world domination, looking for the locations of all her many fans. He had already come up with the caption: ‘My global appeal is growing.’ He hoped it would go down a treat.