Because Ritalin was so ambitious, we assumed, naively, that she was male. It's not easy to differentiate these things when a cat never stands still!
In due course she was spayed and vaccinated, and before long she got so sociable we were sure she could be placed in a permanent home.
At the adoption center, where her overly-provocative name was truncated to “Rita”, she withdrew. Too apprehensive and fretful to greet anyone, she was furnished with a box for sanctuary. She refused to leave it for the rest of her stay.
Given time, especially in a home environment, Rita would have taken a shine to her keepers. But the world doesn't have enough homes for wholly tame cats, so skittish ones usually go back where they came from, if they're lucky.
Rita couldn't go back where she came from: our house, where everyone's fur had finally quit standing on end. Rita, R prime, more fierce and persistant than all her successors, was too much for our cats to cope with.
But she came out lucky anyhow.