A/N: Yay guys, we made it to 3400 entries! *happy dance* We did it!
"'Ere you are, you little rascal. 'Bout scared me ter death hidin' in the luggage car, you did, y'know that?"
The conductor smiled and scratched under Skimble's chin. The cat purred, ever thankful for a good petting; but as the conductor called, "All aboard!" into the station, he headed on his way down the car, disappearing among the feet of the passengers. He had a job to do, after all, and while the petting and free food were a nice bonus, the best thing of all was making sure everything and everybody on the Northern Flyer was safe and happy.
Anyone who had ridden before on the Northern Flyer instantly recognized him, what with his little tweed vest the stationmaster's wife had made him and the distinctive brownish-orange stripes covering his fur from ear to tail. They greeted him warmly as he came up to each of them, sniffing them briefly to make sure they weren't emitting any kind of suspicious aura. Some little girl tried to pick him up and hold him like a baby (such an inevitability it was practically in the job description), and a number of haughty folks tried to shoo him away (also in the job description), but to those passengers he showed his disapproval with a quick flash of his emerald eyes, which got the message across well enough – although, the little girl was rather relentless (typical), and he had to shout at her before she finally agreed to let him go. It wasn't his preferred method of keeping order on the train, but he had to admit, it worked.
He did not allow these few distractions to deter him, and continued his way down the length of the train until he was certain he had visited every single passenger and alerted them of his patrol over the area. After a quick drink from his water bowl in the dining car, he turned his course back to the front of the train.
But he didn't get far before he heard a noise. It sounded like a cry, a shriek.
That wasn't good. Somebody was in trouble. The shrieking stopped soon after it started, but he wasn't taking any chances. He had a track record to uphold, and that track record was over 200 train trips without an incident.
He immediately turned back the way he'd been walking and sprinted through the dining car. The caboose was after; and he was well aware of stories of terrible things happening back there. Of course, nothing of that sort had ever happened on his watch, but the other railroad cats hadn't been so lucky. Of course, they hadn't been patrolling as well as he did.
He skidded to a halt when, instead of inside the caboose, he found himself in a car he'd never seen before a day in his life. A private car, decorated with floral wallpaper and tasseled furniture, with two giant, lace-covered berths in the back. A little spark of anger flashed in his bottle-green eyes. There was not supposed to be another car after the dining car. Just the caboose. It went dining car and then caboose and then outside, where the wind tickled your whiskers and there was a string of train tracks visible for miles in the distance. That was it. And somebody had messed it up. And those somebodies appeared to be a woman, who was laying on one of the berths in the back, and the man sitting next to her – her mate.
Skimble was, to say the least, not amused. The conductor would definitely be hearing about this when they arrived in Glasgow the next morning.
He didn't have long to be angry. Just as the shrieking had stopped just a few seconds before, it started up again. Skimble's perked-up ears told him it was the woman who was screaming, and now her mate was shouting along with her. "Excuse me?" he called into the car. "Excuse me, would you two please quiet down?"
They didn't hear him. He braced himself and walked closer.
"Excuse me," he repeated, "would you two please quiet down? The train is no place to be causing a ruckus like that." He sat down right next to the man, who was hopping around in a panicked frenzy. Skimble narrowly dodged the heel of his shoe as he curled his twitching tail around his body. "Excuse me? Do you mind?"
"Bloody hell, when did this cat get in here?" the man cried, jumping at the sight of the railway cat. "Get away, you little blighter!"
Skimble shook his head in exasperation. The humans used such colorful language when they were angry. "Language," he mewed. "Language."
"Shut up, cat, get out of here!"
Skimble stood up on his hind legs and batted at the man's trousers. He was starting to feel a headache coming on, what with all the shouting, but nobody told the Railway Cat to get lost. That just didn't happen.
"George! George, the baby!"
The woman screamed and both man and cat were silent. "The baby, George!"
Baby. Skimble had to admit, he didn't know a lot about the human language, but he knew the word baby, and he didn't like it. Baby meant a small human with a voice that could out-volume all the Jellicle cats combined, fingernails smaller than his claws but sharper than anything he'd ever felt in his life, and something called a diaper which was capable of emitting smells that would give Macavity a run for his putrid-smelling money.
"George, the baby! It's coming! The baby!"
"Right now?"
"Would I joke about something like that?"
Skimble blinked. He remembered a conversation not unlike this one between Admetus and his mate – it had gone on like this for several minutes, until somebody said something about pushing and Admetus completely lost his marbles, so he went and drug Munkustrap into the whole thing, and he didn't know the last thing about kittens either so he went and got Jenny, and just moments later there was coming from their den the squealing of a new kit, with two others following shortly after. That had been an eventful evening, to say the least, especially for Skimble, who had been tired from a long train trip and just wanted to rest awhile in his junkyard den.
"Lily! Lily, you can't be having the baby here! We're on a train, for Christ's sake!" the man cried. "Don't start pushing now, we've got to have a midwife for this! Or a doctor! Or something!"
Everlasting Cat, Skimble thought, suddenly realizing the severity and context of the situation. She's having kits!
Let it be known that nobody, not even Old Deuteronomy himself, had ever dared to explain to Skimble (or any cat, that he knew of) that the human way of producing kits was alarmingly similar to the feline way. And although he truly enjoyed spending time with the kittens in the junkyard and telling them stories of his railroad adventures, he knew absolutely nothing about raising them – let alone bringing them into the world. He had no interest in having any of his own, either. And he certainly didn't want any being born on his train!
He sprinted out of the car, through the vestibule into the dining car, through sleeper cars and passenger cars, all the way up to the front of the train, where the conductor sat at a small table enjoying his midmorning tea. His heart raced as he jumped onto the conductor's lap and pawed desperately at his necktie.
"Well, look who came to see me! Ey there, you little rascal!"
He tried to scratch under Skimble's chin, but the railway cat wasn't having it. "There's a situation in the back!" Skimble yelped. "There's a woman having kits! She needs a doctor! In that car in the back!"
"Aren't you a cutie, eh, mewing at the top o' yer lungs, aren't you?" the conductor cooed. "Boy, am I lucky ter have a cat like you ter keep me company." He nudged his cup of tea towards the cat. "Thirsty?"
Yes, Skimble realized, he was quite thirsty. But he didn't have time. There was a situation. And so, in a desperate (albeit a bit out of character) attempt to get the conductor's attention, Skimble tap, tap, tapped on the teacup until he tap, tap, tapped it into the conductor's lap.
"Why, you ornery little bastard!" the conductor yelled, jumping up instantly while Earl Gray dripped from the crotch of his pants. Angry, he swatted at the cat, who dodged and bolted from the room as fast as his four legs could carry him, headed toward the back of the train. The conductor followed, muttering curses under his breath, and though his squat body was far from able to keep up with the cat, they eventually arrived in the same place, seeing the same thing.
Now it was the conductor's turn to panic. "Great balls of fire!" he shouted. "What're you doing, you little rascal, spilling tea on me privates and making me chase your arse all the way down the bloody train when there's a woman on board having a baby?" He turned tail and ran back into the passenger cars, shouting for a doctor as loud as he possibly could.
Skimble followed, trotting along a few paces behind. It was all part of the plan, all part of the railway cat's job.
But this kind of thing was the exact reason he had no desire for the family life.