Felix The Railway Cat

The clock ticked on, and Dave Rooney completed his shift. As he handed over to Billy in the afternoon, he gave him an update – and top of the agenda was that Felix was missing. The old-timer had shaken his head incredulously at all this fuss over the kitten; he was sure that the cat would turn up.

Yet as the hours passed by and Billy did his own searches of the station, and completed his own security checks, he realised he had been wrong. For there was not a hint of a whisker to be seen.

The sun set, and cold night settled like a blanket on the station. Billy, despite himself, began to worry. He often moaned about the cat, as he did everything else, calling her a ‘fleabag’ or a ‘waste of space’ or simply ‘urgh, that cat!’, but despite his mean-sounding words there was always a warmth to his tone. He really hoped she was all right.

The station clock kept time as accurately as always, and all too soon the digits turned to 8 p.m. and Angie arrived for her night shift. Billy knew she would be worried sick at the news he had to share which is why he had tried to break it to her gently by saying, ‘Now, I don’t want you to panic, Ang …’

Sitting in the team leaders’ office, having now heard the full account of the drama from Billy, Angie was panicking.

‘Have you searched?’ she grilled Billy, leaping to her feet and pacing the office. ‘I mean, properly?’

‘I’ve searched, Ang,’ he told her.

‘But have you checked underneath that disused carriage, on Platform 2? Because she likes it under there, she sometimes goes and hides there …’

‘I know, Ang,’ Billy said. Everybody on the station knew the kitten’s favourite places better than the backs of their own hands. ‘I’ve searched.’

‘And the bicycle racks?’

‘I’ve searched.’

‘And the shower?’

‘Angie, I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not here. She’s gone.’

A big lump suddenly appeared from nowhere in Angie’s throat and hot tears pricked her eyes.

‘Ang, she’ll turn up. She’ll get hungry, she’ll come back. It’s what cats do.’

‘But she’s never been gone this long,’ Angie said in a wobbly voice, sinking into a chair for support. Her poor little kitten.

She was glad, at least, that it was Billy who had told her. They went back a long way, and if anybody was going to see her upset, she wanted it to be him. As a team leader, you couldn’t show your emotions out on the station floor – her job was to lead, to sort out problems, to get things done, and crying didn’t come into that. But Billy had always understood her. Angie’s pet niggle about herself was that she couldn’t always find the right words to say what she meant, but if she and Billy were in the same meeting together and she was floundering about, trying to express herself and failing, Billy used to clear his throat and say, ‘I think what Angie means is …’ and he would get it absolutely right. ‘Yes, that’s it, that’s it,’ Angie would say, and he’d nod at her in his gruff way, not wanting her thanks, but knowing she was grateful anyway.

Billy stood up, ready to head home. He placed a rough, weathered hand firmly on her shoulder as he went. ‘I’m sure she’ll turn up,’ he said.

After he left, Angie sat in the office alone. She felt absolutely devastated. She didn’t want to do any work; she couldn’t do any work. She couldn’t think of anything but Felix, out there, somewhere, in the dark winter’s night.

Who knew what had happened? Had someone taken her? Had she decided she’d had enough of her working life on the station and called it quits? Had – God forbid – she roamed onto the tracks and been hit by an express? Billy had told her that Dave Chin – who was PTS (Personal Track Safety)-certified and wore the all-over orange hi-vis uniform of those who could walk on the tracks – had looked all over the railway lines for her, and there’d been no sign, but even so … What if she’d wandered into one of the tunnels?

Angie felt sick. Felix wasn’t even a year old. She was absolutely frantic about her.

Every minute felt like an hour. So, when the team leaders’ mobile phone rang ten ‘hours’ into her shift at 8.10 p.m., Angie’s nerves were already shot to pieces.

‘H-H-Huddersfield station?’ she answered tearfully.

‘Oh, Huddersfield station,’ said a male voice on the other end of the phone, as though something now made perfect sense. ‘I work for Domino’s Pizza.’

Domino’s Pizza? thought Angie. We haven’t ordered any pizza.

But then he said, ‘I think we’ve got something that belongs to you.’

Suddenly, the broken pieces of her world fell neatly back into place. Angie gasped. ‘Is she black and white?’ she asked joyously.

‘Yes!’ the man replied with a laugh.