Felix The Railway Cat

‘Miaow!’ The cat’s cries sounded more urgent now, so Angela started looking around for her properly. She searched in the station manager’s office and in the team leaders’ room; she checked Felix’s bed in the shower closet and called for the cat in both the male and female locker rooms. These were a favourite retreat as they offered peace and quiet … and copious comfy bedding options. She caused absolute havoc in the men’s room because the team often left their spare uniforms in there, and Felix would bed down in the cosy clothing and get cat hairs all over them. Once, a team member forgot to lock his locker, and when he came back the door was wide open and there was a cat all rolled up in his smart jacket inside the metal cavern: just two emerald eyes peeping out. Well, he thought, I can’t be mad with her; it’s way too cute! As well as sleeping in the lockers, Felix was also known to doze on the snug wooden shelves in the ladies’ locker room, or even on top of the locker units themselves: she had a perfect view out to the town of Huddersfield from the summit of the lockers in the men’s room, and it was one of her favourite spots.

But as Angela searched for her high and low, there was no sign of the cat in the locker rooms today.

‘Has anyone seen Felix?’ she asked. But no one had. ‘Where are you, cat?’ Angela wondered aloud.

‘MIAOW!’ Felix replied, as though trying to tell her. By now, the chorus of mews was impatient and demanding. Felix was quite patently saying, ‘Let me out! I’m stuck!’ but Angela had tried all the usual places and Felix was not in them.

Angela scratched her head and stood quite still, hovering by the customer-information point, always a popular place for Felix, and where, opposite the desk, the stable door of Angela’s lost-property office lay half-open.

‘MIAOW!’

Where is she? Angela wondered. She listened more closely as Felix called again.

That’s odd, she thought, as she edged towards the noise, it sounds like it’s coming from my office …

She opened the stable door and stood on the threshold of her room. There was her desk: no Felix. There were the shelves packed full of all the abandoned items: no Felix. Angela walked in and marched up and down those shelves, moving things around in case Felix had got stuck behind a suitcase or caught up in a cagoule.

‘MIAOW!’ (‘I’m right here!’ Felix seemed to be yelling.)

Angela slowly turned round and stared again at her desk. I wonder … she thought.

She walked over and pulled open the big bottom drawer, and out leapt Felix, looking ruffled and a little bit dazed to find herself freed from her dark and unexpected prison. Angela had never seen her move so fast. She was off!

As Angela shut the drawer again behind Felix, it was obvious to her what had happened. Greedy Felix, wanting more treats, had tiptoed into the big drawer, wondering if she could somehow help herself to the bag of Dreamies located teasingly in the middle drawer above. The big drawer had been roomy and looked a rather fun place from which to plot her cat burglary. But the cat criminal, having silently stepped inside, had then found herself trapped when Angela had unwittingly shut the drawer on her.

Well, thought Angela, watching Felix dart away up the platform, very glad to be free at last, that will teach her not to try and get treats on her own!

As Felix approached her third birthday, however, her plots to get more food grew more complex. Cats are very, very clever creatures. Their brains are more like ours than those of dogs – and Felix certainly had human levels of cunning when it came to the thorny question of how to hoodwink her colleagues into feeding her more.

The answer seemed an obvious one, given Felix’s experiences the year before. Diva Felix was required to make another unforgettable appearance in the limelight: acting was clearly the way for this drama queen to go. It was once more time for the railway cat to tread the boards with her white-capped paws.

The first Angie Hunte knew of the scheme was when she came on shift one morning. The team leader on the night shift was supposed to feed Felix, but as Angie bustled into the office and wished everyone a cheery good morning, the canny cat was waiting for her with a heart-rending complaint to make.

Felix staggered up onto Angie’s desk the moment the team leader sat down in her chair and boldly pushed her way into Angie’s eyeline.

‘Miaow!’ she mewed, terribly feebly, as though she could barely muster the energy to call out, so weak was she from lack of food. She fluttered her eyelashes and blinked her mournful green eyes at Angie. Out came one velvety white paw, which she pressed desperately to Angie’s skin, begging her to help her. She had been left alone all night with this other, mean team leader – and it was only Angie who could save her now.