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.

Felix was so very happy to see Jean back at work – especially now that Jean’s arms were much improved. She was back at work on a phased return, as she was not yet strong enough to work full-time; she was fond of joking that she got Wednesdays off for good behaviour! In Felix’s opinion, however, she was definitely strong enough for her most important duty: giving Felix some love. As the station cat stretched out on her radiator bed, Jean would indulge her with lots of long strokes and tummy-rubbing tickles. Whenever it was time for Jean to go, Felix would watch her all the way to the door, as though worried that if she took her eyes off her, she might vanish again. Jean made sure to spend more time with her as the autumn pressed on, wanting Felix to know that she hadn’t been forgotten.

That could never happen. Angie Hunte still affectionately called Felix her ‘baby girl’ and Angela Dunn was still her devoted lady-in-waiting. They still regularly petted Felix and gave her cuddles and cared deeply for her. The thing about love is, it expands. It is infinite. The Angelas, and indeed all the team, still adored Felix – but now they also loved Bolt too.

And as the team spent more and more time with Bolt, he continued to endear himself to them. He draped himself like a scarf round Angela’s neck; he sat on Angie’s shoulder like a parrot.

‘Bolt, how am I going to get any work done?’ Angie asked him, loving every minute.

Bolt’s answer … was to get involved with the work! He developed a penchant for ‘helping’ with paperwork, especially cashing up. Sad to say, however, the newest member of the team had a bit of a light-fingered touch. When the team leaders did their banking at night, they kept on finding, after they’d counted up all the cash, that they were consistently short – a five-pound note here, a twenty-pound note there. It turned out that the apprentice was nicking the notes and running off to play with them!

The cat burglar was fond, too, of stealing food. He was honest at least in the sense that he would never beg for his dinner if he had already been fed (unlike his boss, who still tried to persuade the person who’d fed her not ten minutes earlier that they were sorely mistaken). Then again, there was little need for Bolt to wheel out the amateur dramatics when he was such an effective pickpocket. The team kept discovering that things were going missing from the office. He nicked Jacqui’s bag of nuts one night and, on another occasion, he stole Angie’s chicken supper. They became smarter to stop him, not wanting Bolt to end up with the same weight problems that Felix was facing.

That possible eventuality was also easier to avert because Bolt’s food was more tightly controlled than Felix’s had ever been. It had been a free-for-all when Felix had first arrived at the station, with everyone mucking in – and therefore everyone giving her treats – but Bolt was very much Angie and Jacqui’s boy and nobody fed him but the team leaders. Bolt, in fact, had a few tummy problems early on in his life that had required medicine, so Jacqui was strict in saying that he could not have any cat food other than the one that agreed with him, and no treats whatsoever.

Bolt didn’t seem to miss them – and why would he, when he had such a marvellous playground to fool around in? His treats were the rolled-up balls of paper he could chase around the office for hours, or the multicoloured mouse with a bell on its tail that would tinkle as he hunted it down. (Bolt had lots of toys – some of them gifts from the senior pest controller’s fans.) He had so much energy, he was always pouncing and rolling and leaping and striking at the innumerable objects he designated prey.

Observing him from a cool distance, Felix probably thought that his technique left a little to be desired. She could certainly have taught him a thing or two – had the cats been on speaking terms. For a start, he had no subtlety. Bolt would barrel down the corridor in a tangle of long limbs. He was easily distracted, switching prey the moment a new sound rang out or a sudden movement caught his eye. When he returned to his original target, he seemed to blame the object itself for his forgetfulness, as though it had conned him, and he would then attack it with renewed vigour. And while he undoubtedly had speed, he had no skill. Rather than quietly stalking his toys, he would run faster and faster towards them as he ‘attacked’ and the thundering of his paws would have had any real-life pest alert and away in an instant. Felix, slinking off after this poor display, almost rolling her eyes, tried to show him through her lazy grace how a grown-up should behave – but Bolt’s attention had already been diverted.

Just as their size differences had been striking early on, as time passed and the kitten grew more active, the contrast in the two cats’ movement was also noted. Felix was luxuriously slow-moving: a matronly lady dispassionately wandering through the world. Bolt, however, didn’t seem to know who he was: a tiny tiger, a slithering snake, a jumping jack, a frog. He tried every trick in the book as he played, his battles with his toys often looking like ill-managed stage fights: a right hook here, a sliding tackle there. While Felix stared on from the sidelines, sensible and sedentary, Bolt skidded madly up and down the corridor, never once seeming to tire.

Of course, he did eventually. Then he would crash out – in his comfy brown bed, in the shower room, on a padded chair in the team leaders’ room or even in the station manager’s office. (Andy travelled regularly, as he also managed other stations on the network, so his office was often quiet and dark: the perfect place for a catnap.) When Bolt slept, he slept deeply, recharging his batteries. The team were amused to witness that he would stretch out in bed with the same confidence he always demonstrated while conscious, taking up more room than his little body seemed to warrant, dominating the space. As soon as he awoke, he’d be off again, getting into everything and generally proving himself to be rather a handful.

Oh, he was adorable – but it did make it hard for Angie Hunte to get her work done. One Sunday afternoon, about a month after Bolt had arrived at the station, she reached the end of her tether.

‘Right, you, come on,’ she said to the little kitten. She reached for her handbag – Bolt, for once, had not climbed into it when she wasn’t looking – and pulled out her iPad, the diversionary tactic of all parents ever since the digital revolution. She quickly scrolled through her movies, pressed play on one and set up the iPad so that Bolt could see it.

On the screen, 101 black-and-white puppies ran across the room, barking and yapping wildly. ‘Just watch this,’ Angie told him patiently, ‘and let me get on with my work.’

Of course she didn’t. How could she – when Bolt’s reaction to the film was so damn cute? It seemed he was a fan of 101 Dalmations. His large ears pricked up straight away and he scooted forward till he was next to the screen. He even touched it with his paw!

It seemed Bolt was touching everything with his paws these days – and that included Felix. Perhaps he had been biding his time by cowering when he’d first met her. While he was still a fraction of her size, he’d got cocky enough to play a game with her, so now he started to test and tease her. If Felix was lying in the corridor of an afternoon, lazily fanning herself with her long fluffy tail, Bolt would become intent on getting at her. To him, that moving tail seemed the most glorious toy. Surely it was meant for him to hunt? He watched it as she flicked it uuuuuup and dooooown. Bolt was still learning how to use his tail and he stared at Felix’s with absolute fascination. He thought she was teasing him. It wasn’t long before the excited kitten started patting at her tail with a well-aimed paw, prodding and poking her whenever he was close.

Poor old Felix! The kitten had, ultimately, been introduced in the hope that, one day, he would help her have more peace and quiet. That would probably be the case, a few months or even a year down the road, but for now Felix was swept up in all his games, whether she liked it or not.

At seven years old, Felix simply didn’t have his energy. When he got too much for her, she would strike out at him with a gentle white-capped paw, but mostly she just gave him the filthiest looks. She raised her eyes to her colleagues too in world-weary appeal. ‘Why won’t he leave me alone?’ At times she would hiss – but these days Bolt would bark right back. He had the sweetest little voice: a pathetically high, mousey squeak. Soon the squabbles of the station cats could be heard up and down the corridor.

Watching them, Angie and Jacqui knew it was time to change things up. Bolt had been at the station for a good month now. He’d settled in, he’d had his shots and he clearly had enough energy to power a rocket to the moon. Up until now, he’d been expending it on exploring the back offices – and on terrorising Felix. It was about time, they decided, that he channelled it in a more useful direction. On 7 October 2018, it was time for Bolt to start his training.