Yet the team soon got wise to the wily cat’s ways. Angie put up yet more signs, this time also on the booking-office door, so that Felix’s secondary route was also closed off.
Nevertheless, despite all their best efforts, Felix did outwit the team every now and again. But, in a sign of the times, the escape artist’s victory was muted. If she did get out, the station cat went no further than platform one. She would go and sit on one of the benches – a sign she wanted attention. She would flop down with a sigh and merely lie there, much as a nineteenth-century lady who is weakening from consumption might cast herself upon her chaise longue and press a pale hand to her fevered brow. People would come over to the famous cat and Felix would gaze at them sadly, clearly feeling sorry for herself.
To Felix’s frustration, however, no matter how much she turned her molten, pleading eyes on her fans, making her large black pupils tempting pools into which her followers could fall, on the whole they resisted all her powers of persuasion. Felix couldn’t understand it.
Unbeknown to her, her old friend Dan had been up to his sign-making tricks. Dan, who couldn’t wait to be a father when his baby daughter Maisie arrived later in the year, found that he didn’t have to wait, after all; he could use all his fatherly instincts to care for Felix now. So he put pen to paper to protect the station cat, making new signs for the public’s attention, for those rare occasions when Felix slipped the net and managed to break out, Houdini-style, during her two weeks confined to barracks.
‘Felix and the station team need some help to make sure we can keep our resident celebrity happy and healthy,’ he wrote on the typed sign, which was displayed all over the station. ‘I’m afraid that Felix has been a bit unwell recently and the vet has prescribed her a special diet, one that we hope should make her right as rain. Understandably, this diet does not include treats of any kind, scraps from anyone’s dinner, or leftover takeaways discarded on the station … If you do see Felix, please don’t give her any bits of food, even if you think that you’re the only person doing it. We can almost guarantee you wouldn’t be, and it is very important that her meals are firmly managed to ensure she remains healthy and ready to receive her loyal fans again … Thank you for your help in looking after our girl.’
It was Felix one, station team two.
23. Felix Transformed
Dan was right to act with his signs. For although Felix soon got the all-clear from the vet for her stomach problems – she did not have to go back for any scans and she was not sick again – the vet did tell them that her weight was increasingly becoming a problem. In the summer of 2018, Felix was almost a whole kilogram overweight, the largest she had ever been.
Her more sedentary lifestyle inevitably played a part. Dale remarked that it had been a while since he’d seen Felix leaving any mouse gifts for the team too; whereas once she had caught mice regularly, she was really slowing down on the pest-controlling front. Her age was also a factor and, that summer, Felix found the switch to a low-calorie senior food was non-negotiable, as both the vet and the team insisted that she had to do what was best for her health.
In fairness, the vet said that Felix was in pretty good health overall, her weight aside. Her world-famous fluffy coat was glossy and thick. Her emerald eyes were bright. She also had good mobility – when she could be bothered to get out and about. But an overweight cat may be storing up health problems for the future, including arthritis, diabetes and heart disease. It was in Felix’s best interests for them to try to get on top of it as soon as they could. Even after Felix was free to move about the station again, Dan and Angie kept the signs up on the concourse, urging visitors not to give her any treats.
Angie Hunte fretted about her not-so-little girl so much that summer. She couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to Felix. She was such a special cat; she was irreplaceable. If only there was some way to give her a break, Angie thought, some way of helping her to take things a bit easier …
Angela Dunn also watched the fat, fluffy cat as she lethargically lounged around through those hot summer days. Angela had taken over management of Felix’s trips to the groomers of late, and she now decided that she had to take her for a haircut to try to shear off some of her thick fur coat. This was, in fact, an idea she’d already tried to help Felix feel less hot and bothered that record-breaking summer. Felix had gone for a grooming session earlier in June, but unfortunately the groomers hadn’t done a very good job.
Knowing how hot the cat was, Angela had specifically asked them to give Felix a really thorough going-over, stripping out the dead fur that really bulked out her fluff and combing through her knotted pelt. Once at the salon, however, diva Felix had kicked up such a terrible fuss that she managed to throw a well-aimed spanner in the works of Angela’s carefully laid plans.
‘She wasn’t right happy today,’ the groomer had said, tight-lipped, as she’d handed back the carry case to Angela, ‘but we’ve done the best we can.’
Sadly, their best was nowhere near what Angela had hoped for. She couldn’t believe it when Felix stepped slowly out of the carry case back at the station and showed off her new hairdo. Angela had watched her strolling about wearing the pained expression of one who doesn’t quite know how to tell her best friend that her new look was really not working for her. Frankly, the formerly beautiful cat looked deformed: she had one tiny hip, where the groomers had cut out a chunk of knotted fur from her side, and one huge hip, where Felix had not allowed the groomer to touch her. She looked completely lopsided. But worst of all her pelt was still as thick as ever, knotted and tangled and threaded through with dirt from the railway tracks. Poor old Felix. Her glamourpuss look was a thing of the past. She really was in a bit of a state.
Angela had straight away tried to find an alternative groomers – but then Felix had got sick and all thoughts of tending to her personal appearance had taken second billing until she was properly on the mend. When she got the all-clear, however, it was time to get back on the job.
One day, at the very end of June, Angela came into the ladies’ locker room and announced to Felix that they were going on a trip to a new grooming place. Angela was careful, as she always was, that she did not show Felix the carry case until the last possible minute. Show the station cat the carrier too soon and you would never get her inside it. Felix would swiftly pull her old Houdini tricks and be off into the distance.
Back in the day, only Dave Chin had been able to get Felix in her carrier. Angela wasn’t one for scooping Felix up off the floor in her arms as Dave did, so she’d had to develop her own technique.
The first rule was that you had to choose your clothes very carefully in the morning. Some days Angela changed three times before heading out to the station, having to identify the perfect practical outfit: clothes that wouldn’t snag or pull or expose too much skin, just in case Felix scratched. Second was to do everything in the right order, so that Felix didn’t run for the hills. Third was to take everything nice and slow and easy, trying to make Felix feel as calm as she possibly could.