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A Daily Unlimited GO Card on Pinellas Suncoast Transit Authority buses costs $3, but one passenger didn't pay anything to ride all day.
A PSTA bus driver discovered the stowaway Wednesday: a kitten that had been riding Bus 9425 for 12 hours, perched on top of the fuel tank.
"She was really loud in her meowing," said driver Donna MacIntire, 57, of St. Petersburg. "You could hear her and passengers could hear her."
PSTA mechanics think the kitten crawled under the bus looking for a warm place to sleep while the bus was in the garage overnight in St. Petersburg. When the bus hit the road on its regular route about 5:30 a.m., the cat went along for the ride.
"When I took the bus over at 1:35 (p.m.), I asked (the previous driver) "How was your day?' " MacIntire said.
Driver Norman Chambers told her it was terrible because he kept hearing a kitten crying but couldn't get to the animal.
The meowing was coming from the right front area of the bus near the steps. "I couldn't find her looking under the bus," MacIntire said. "Every turn I made, every bump I went over, I thought it was going to fall out."
She kept watch in the bus mirrors all day. When she had an extra five minutes in her schedule, she reported the stowaway to PSTA dispatch. About 5:30 p.m., a crew came out to Crossroads Mall in Largo with another bus. That bus continued the route while mechanics looked over Bus 9425.
"We could hear it when she pulled up to a stop," said PSTA mechanic and supervisor Angelo Rebetti, 35, of New Port Richey. Rebetti crawled around under the bus, opened everything he could see, and still couldn't find the cat.
"I drove it nice and slow back to the shop," Rebetti said.
Once there, he and co-worker Scott Jeffries started taking the bus apart and finally found the frightened kitten.
"He was sitting on top of the fuel tank," Rebetti said, adding that was probably the safest place to ride under a bus.
"(The cat) must have been on there since the beginning of the run," Rebetti said, a total distance of about 200 miles.
Rebetti used a pole to prod the kitten out of the tight quarters; Jeffries grabbed it before it could run away and the two fed the animal.
What the kitten really needed was a permanent home. They sent an e-mail out to the whole company.
Director of marketing Janet Recca, of Treasure Island, said she was so curious about the incident, she decided to look at the cat for herself. "She was just so sweet, you couldn't say no," she said.
Recca took the green-eyed kitty to the vet and found out that the cat, whom the mechanics had called a he, was actually a she. The vet said the kitten is about 8 weeks old and is perfectly healthy, except for a bad case of fleas and lots of dirt in her ears.
"It must have been road dirt," Recca said.
Recca and her 12-year-old son, Michael, initially named the kitten 9425 after the bus she hitched a ride on. The family already has a cat, Twilight, and hadn't thought of another name. After a few days, Recca and her son named the cat Tabby, after a character in a book.
"She likes to sit on your shoulder and fall asleep," Recca said. Tabby also likes sharing Michael's regular cup of hot chocolate.
Tabby's one foible seems to be her preferred means of transportation. Recca noted that when she took Tabby home, the cat didn't like being hauled in a cage. "She preferred being on the bus."