Full Steam Ahead, Felix

5. Cat Burglar

As the autumn of 2016 unfolded, Angela found her services were in demand – but not always needed. Lucky customers sometimes had to look no further for Felix than the serving counters at which they bought their tickets.

Felix liked to hang out in the booking office. When open, it was always staffed, so it was the perfect place to chill out if she wanted company. She could often be found sharing a shift at a serving window, sitting proudly up on the counter. She had even been known to inspect customers’ discount railcards for validity, her green eyes going over every detail.

Another favourite perch was the top of the printer where the tickets came out. Here her fluffy tail would frequently get in the way of the output of those cream-and-orange train tickets. Funnily enough, no one ever seemed to mind.

There was much to explore in the ticket office. Sometimes Felix simply wandered about the place, sniffing out what was new. That year, a life-size model of the railway cat was one such – perhaps surprising – new addition. Back in the summer, Felix had completed a 5k charity ‘fun run’ (via a GPS tracker on her collar) for the children’s charity Fairy Bricks – which donates Lego sets to children’s hospices and hospitals, brightening the lives of sick children – and in gratitude for the £5,200 she raised, the charity arranged for a life-size model of Felix, made from Lego, to be built and given to the station. It had immediately taken pride of place in the booking office. And as Felix’s popularity had continued to grow throughout the autumn, it now formed the centrepiece of a sort of ‘Felix gallery’, in which ceramic cats and children’s sketches of Felix joined the big Lego model.

Goodness only knew what Felix thought of it all as she investigated each new addition with a sniff of her velvety nose. What did she see as she stared into the life-size model’s plastic eyes? What did she make of all these ‘other’ cats – who were actually only representations of her own spectacular beauty? Felix’s reaction was not completely out of character; after a full study, she tended to turn her back, curl up and go to sleep.

The booking office was a favourite location for a snooze. Here she slept on top of the Delay Repay forms, or among the lever-arch files on the metal shelves, or even on the black-plastic photocopier, which could get nice and toasty after it had been used. A super spot was the shelf right above the electric fire. She would curl up there contentedly, near the kooky sign that read: ‘A very spoiled cat lives here’.

There was perhaps no one who spoiled Felix more than TPE’s maintenance man, Dave Chin. Not when it came to cuddles, at least. Dave – a weather-beaten chap who had big rough hands and an easy smile – was not based at Huddersfield but roamed all over the railway network, wherever his services were required. If anything went wrong, a cry would go up for Dave, and Dave would come, practical and handy in his orange hi-vis suit. He had once spent a fair amount of time at Huddersfield, as he used to do all his paperwork in the station buffet on platform four, but with a lot of the records now going digital, he came to the station far less frequently.

But, when Felix had been a kitten, he’d spent a lot of time at the station getting to know the railway cat. So close had they become that Dave had become known as the Felix-whisperer. Felix had quite the reputation when she wanted to throw a strop – and plenty of staff members had the scars to prove it. Never did Felix want to throw a strop more than when she had to travel in her carry case. (The irony of a railway cat who hated travelling was not lost on anyone.) She would fight every journey with all she had. Due to their closeness, for a long time it was only Dave who could get the reluctant cat into her carry case. There was something about the maintenance man that made Felix putty in his hands. Even at the great age of five and a half, Felix would allow him to cradle her like a baby: on her back in his arms with her belly exposed and a silly-sausage expression stuck to her sweet fluffy face. If Dave had been willing, she’d have let him walk round with her all day like that.

So imagine her delight that autumn when her long-time partner in crime called by to see her one afternoon. Dave found her in the booking office and before too long Felix was blissfully luxuriating in a lovely long cuddle in his arms. As Dave tickled her toes and stroked her belly, she flung her head back in feline ecstasy. Jean Randall, a dark-haired old-timer who was working in the office that day, rolled her eyes indulgently at Felix’s flagrant surrender.

Well, who should come to the desk that day but Mark Allan, Felix’s Facebook manager? He knew all about Dave and his cat-whispering skills, of course, having documented them for Felix’s followers. The cat’s loyalty to the maintenance man was legendary up and down not only the railway but also the social network.

I wonder … Mark thought mischievously that afternoon. I wonder how far her loyalty really goes?

Though he and Felix were close, Mark knew that he was no match for Dave in Felix’s affections. But Dave versus Dreamies? Now, there was a challenge.

As had become habit by now, Mark happened to have a packet of cat treats in his pocket. Like a Boy Scout, he thought it always best to ‘be prepared’ when it came to Felix. You never knew when she might do something fabulously funny so Mark liked to keep the tools of his trade about him just in case. Now, looking at Felix behind the counter in the booking office, stretched out in Dave’s arms and seemingly lost to the world, he felt it was time to put those pocket treats to use.

Ever so slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on Felix, Mark dug his hand into his coat pocket, where the cat treats lay within their plastic pouch. Deliberately, he twiddled his fingers gently against the packet and a barely audible rustling sound resulted.

Barely audible to him – but not to Felix.

How will she react? he wondered, as he noticed her ears pricking up at once.

Well, he barely had time to compose that thought – before Felix had leapt from Dave’s arms with unseemly haste. Then she flung herself on to the counter at a million miles an hour, rudely pushing her way past Jean, who was attempting to serve Mark. She stood eagerly at the edge of the desk, as close to that tantalising sound as she could possibly get. Once in position, she glared insistently at Mark, demanding that he now come up with the goods she knew he had.

Seeing her flagrant abandonment of Dave for the far superior temptation of a treat, all three humans roared with laughter. Mark did as he was silently told, stepping forward and pulling the packet from his pocket, before placing a treat down on the counter. Felix watched his hands closely, all thoughts of Dave long gone, before she bent her head to the counter and gobbled up the treat with lip-smacking satisfaction, her little pink tongue gathering up every last crumb.

Jean smiled and tutted at Felix. That cat … She would do anything for food!

That, in fact, was a universal truth that was widely acknowledged. And Felix’s love for food was so evident that it soon became one of the first things new joiners to the station learned.

That autumn, Felix gained two new colleagues. First up, arriving at the station in October 2016, was a new team leader called Jacqui. A petite woman with curly brown hair, she had previously been an announcer at Manchester Piccadilly. Over time, she and Angie Hunte became very good friends, bonding over their shared love of cats and cruises. As she was to many others, Angie became a mentor to Jacqui, expertly steering her through the station’s ways with a steady hand. Jacqui took to calling her ‘Mrs H’, which was something of a bittersweet moniker for Angie – for Billy Bolt had used to call her that too. Yet Angie found she rather liked it; hearing the pet name again as she went about her work was almost a way of bringing Billy back.

As it was the team leaders who took responsibility for feeding Felix, Jacqui swiftly became an important person in Felix’s life too. She also quickly learned of the mischievous cat’s duplicitous ways. Jacqui would feed her promptly, and she knew she’d fed her, but not five minutes later Felix would come begging for more, trying hard to convince her that she’d not had anything to eat for weeks on end. She’d turn her green eyes molten with persuasive pleading and mew plaintively, her cries so tragic it was almost like an opera where everybody dies.

But Jacqui wasn’t having any of it. She had three cats of her own – Deanie, Smudgie and Pickle – and she knew all the tricks in the book. ‘You’ve had your food,’ she would say firmly to Felix. ‘I’ve not forgotten, you know!’

Joining Felix and Jacqui at the station that autumn was another new recruit, Karl, who worked out on the platforms as an RSA (Railway Supervisor, Grade A). He was a really good lad: the type of bloke who you’d ask to do two jobs and he’d actually do three, just to help you out. Karl couldn’t believe his luck to land a job on the railway, for it had been his dream vocation ever since he’d been a lad. He knew lots of the folk at Huddersfield station already, because his previous job had been working with the rail-replacement buses. In that role, he’d become used to a bit of banter on nights with Dale and the others, so when he joined the station properly he slotted right in, immediately becoming a much-loved member of the team. Karl was everybody’s friend.

He was short and stocky, aged twenty-eight, with close-cropped blondish hair and bright brown eyes. He had kindness stitched right through him. Very quickly, he became bezzie mates with Sara, an attractive blonde-haired young woman who worked in the booking office. Karl was the type of bloke who, on meeting him for the first time, you could talk to as though you’d known him for years. He and Sara soon developed a sort of big brother/little sister relationship: forever friends who could laugh and cry and work and drink together and who would be there for each other through wind, rain or snow. Which was just as well, given the weather Huddersfield was getting that winter.

Karl was a fan of the little black-and-white cat too and Felix was very accepting of him. Karl soon joined the other ‘minions’ at the station catering to her every whim. In line with most cats, Queen Felix expected her human colleagues to bow before her. If she needed a door opening, Karl soon learned that he had to do it, even if she then changed her mind. If she was sprawled in the corridor, taking up half its width and lying right in the way of everybody coming and going, he had to step over her, even if he almost split his trousers taking such an enormous stride. ‘She has the upper hand of all of us, that cat,’ commented his new colleague Liz on the gateline, with not a little admiration.

Yet Felix was finding that her minions were not quite as malleable as they once had been …

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given her penchant for stuffing her face, Felix had recently been given a couple of verbal warnings from the vet about watching her weight. An announcement even went out on Facebook, asking visitors not to feed her treats, yet simultaneously warning them that, without them, Felix might not now look so kindly on entertaining. It wasn’t exactly that the stardom had gone to her head, but increasingly Felix had insisted on a ‘rider’; she could be lured out, but only if she knew she’d get a treat at the end of it. But with the vet’s warnings ringing in their ears, the team at the station had to put a stop to all that – at least for now.

To Felix’s frustration, the gravy train of treats was cancelled. And there was no Delay Repay form for that kind of complaint. But Felix was a clever little kitty – and with five years’ experience on the station, she knew exactly what she had to do to set this ‘injustice’ straight. There was food for the taking out there – you just had to know where to look.

One evening, Dale Woodward watched her as she pottered around on platform one. It was about teatime and a young lad soon came sauntering along the platform with his takeaway tea in a brown paper bag. He took a seat on a metal bench while he waited for his train. He happened to be close to Felix.

Felix, in fact, had spotted him the very moment he’d appeared on the platform. Now that he’d chosen his spot to sit, she crept closer and closer to him. She’d been around the block enough times by now to know what was in that brown paper bag: McDonald’s. Felix was a fan of McDonald’s. So she watched him with an unblinking stare. She licked her lips and inched even closer to the unsuspecting lad.

Focused on his tea and his grumbling belly, the man opened up the carton that he’d taken from within the bag. It held a sweet-smelling burger. Cheese oozed out of its side, its juicy meat patty squished into a fluffy burger bun. Oh, it smelled good. It looked good. Jaws stretching wide, he chomped down on the burger and savoured his first bite. As he chewed, he used his other hand to start scrolling through his phone. His attention was soon fixed on his social media, while the burger hovered in his free hand, his fingers only loosely securing it.

As though the burger was a pigeon in her sights, Felix dropped low to the ground on her belly and started crawling towards it, commando-style. Once she had slunk surreptitiously up to the bench, she risked a jump up on to it, landing silently on her padded paws. The hungry lad was so engrossed in his phone, he did not even notice her presence. For such a charismatic cat, Felix could be surprisingly stealthy when she wanted to be.

She was now a paw’s stretch away from that sweet-smelling burger. Without missing a beat, without a single hesitation, she swiped it right out of the man’s hand.

‘What on earth …?’ he exclaimed in dismay, as his tea tumbled to the ground. The look on his face was priceless. Felix was already down on the ground, where the chap’s dinner had exploded on to the concrete in a modern artwork of burger, lettuce and bun. Felix was already doing her very best to remove any evidence of the cat burglary.

In fact, Felix was making quite the reputation for herself, as that wasn’t the cat’s only food-related crime. One evening, Angela Dunn came out of the toilet, where she’d been changing for a night out, to find Felix rifling through her locker, which – without thinking – she had left open while she’d nipped into the loo inside the ladies’ locker room for privacy. She had only been absent for four or five minutes. But, in that time, Felix had hopped into the locker, retrieved an unopened bag of Dreamies and completely annihilated the packet in her bid to get the goodies inside. Having clawed all the way along the top of it with her super-sharp nails, she had succeeded in tearing it open and then helped herself. By the time Angela returned, Felix was unashamedly pawing at the packet and expertly scooping out yet more treats.

‘Felix!’ Angela admonished. ‘That’s naughty!’

But Felix’s only response was to purr just that little bit louder, even though she was already at top volume. Her gluttony pushed her volume right up to eleven, as a deep, throaty and very satisfied purr echoed around the locker room.

When Angela took the bag off her, Felix still had the temerity to look unashamed. She sat down on her bottom and looked up expectantly. ‘OK,’ her happy green eyes seemed to say, ‘you can feed them to me now. Good idea! That’s much better than me having to do it for myself.’

Angela posted about that particular incident on Felix’s Facebook page, along with a short video of the cat caught in the act. ‘Angela, just accept it,’ she captioned it. ‘This is what happens when you leave your locker open!’ Ooh, she was a monkey.

The staff doubled down on their efforts to restrict her diet – but they found that Felix outwitted them time and time again. The station was a busy place and there was always food about. People dropped things and unhelpfully left them where they fell. One evening, Dale came across a good chunk of chips that had been carelessly dumped by the front door of the station. It was evidently a trip hazard so he hurried quickly away and asked the cleaners to come and brush them up.

‘It’s just this way,’ he said, as he ushered his colleague back to the spot.

The cleaner looked at him quizzically. He had his brush and pan in hand, ready to sweep up the chips, but instead of bending to his task he simply looked at Dale, as though worried he’d gone mad. As he glanced down at the empty stretch of station floor, Dale could see why: there was nothing to clear up. Felix had eaten the lot. She sat there licking her lips, looking pleased as punch. ‘What?’ she seemed to be saying as Dale tutted and shook his head at her. ‘I was only helping!’

Frustratingly, this wasn’t the only occasion that the greedy Felix was aided and abetted by passengers. During a security check one morning, Angie Hunte stumbled upon a tin of tuna that had been left out on the floor by the station steps. It had clearly not just dropped from somebody’s shopping bag: the ring pull had been deliberately removed. A very tempting treat indeed for any station cat who happened to be passing … Angie caught that particular ‘gift’ in time, but on other occasions she was too late. Felix was once spotted sat beside an empty Greggs bag licking her lips, which was evidence enough that she had wolfed down whatever had been left inside. On another occasion, the team found a woman feeding her bright orange Wotsits. Wotsits! To a cat! They were gobsmacked.

To Felix, it was all a bit of a game, but the team were worried. Though Felix wasn’t too overweight – and her daily patrols up and down the platforms meant she got a fair amount of exercise – if this continued, they were worried she might get sick. For who knew what she might potentially eat next? In addition, human food is well known to be no good for cats – a cat eating just 25g of cheese is the equivalent of a human eating 3.5 hamburgers. A single Wotsit, meanwhile, is the equivalent of half a chocolate bar. Once again, the team appealed to people to be sensible about feeding Felix …

They could only hope that, this time, they would listen.