Paddington the Fox.

In the quiet evening hours, as the sun was going down, a lone figure could be observed at the end of the platform. Ears pricked and nose in the air, ever alert to danger, she scampered back and forth, in search of scraps left behind by the returning commuters. She might be lucky and find a half-eaten pasty, or a sausage roll dropped in haste. Those were her favourites. Sometimes it was just a few crisps, and on the worst days she had to make do with licking clean a discarded greasy wrapper. She usually found something though.

The young vixen rarely had to venture onto the tracks, but sometimes she struck gold there. A dropped muffin certainly wouldn’t be retrieved by any human, and so was hers for the taking. An injured pigeon, left helpless beside the tracks, was irresistible, of course, and was soon dispatched with a quick snap of her powerful jaws. She was smart enough to avoid the trains. They travelled slowly on the station approach, and she could hear the low hum of the engine and feel the vibrations on the steel long before the train rolled steadily into view. Still, she kept her wits about her. People were more unpredictable. She avoided them, keeping well away from the throngs of passengers, the guards and station staff striding up and down the platform, the small electric vehicles that collected the binds for emptying.

She knew the best times to scavenge on the platforms: after the morning rush hour, when sleepy commuters would carelessly let slip their breakfast pastries, or after lunch when she might chance upon the remains of a salami sandwich. But it was the evenings she liked best. The station was quieter and she could afford to take her time. By keeping a few minutes ahead of the station’s cleaning staff with their wheeled carts and long brooms, she could usually make a meal of the scraps left behind at the end of a busy day.

The guards called her Paddington. It was the name of the station, of course, but she also reminded them of another solitary (albeit fictional) animal out of place, lost and alone on the station platform. She wasn’t lost though. Her home, dug deep under a ramshackle outbuilding a few streets away, was a reasonable walk for a human, but a mere hop skip and a jump for an agile and cunning young fox. The slightest sign of trouble and she could leap onto the tracks, sprint down the line and vault the concrete barrier before shimmying under and over garden fences and down back alleys, all the way home. Tonight though, she was in no rush.

The station attendant smiled as he spotted her out of the corner of his eye, her glossy coat glinting in the last of the evening sun. She was a familiar face around here. Though she betrayed no hint of recognition, she didn’t run as he approached slowly, taking his time emptying the bins further up the platform. She finished the last of her egg roll, leaving no trace for him to clean up. He appreciated that. Then she turned and trotted down to the end of the platform, pausing to look around and sniff the air, before retracing her familiar route home, back to her den, back to her cubs.