"Excuse me," Jessy asked politely, "Can you fly with your wings?"
"Of course I can fly with them." Maxi said, and jumped in the air, and did several loop-de-loops, and flew circles around the fox and raccoon baby fur before landing. "It would be pretty pointless for me to have wings if I couldn't fly, so of course I can fly." She managed to smile somehow with her beak. Sammy nodded at the logic that easily trumped the laws of aerodynamics.
"COOL!" Sammy and Jessy said at the same time, then giggled, and the captain joined in.
"Hiiii!" A white furred baby bat sat behind a circular desk. "Were ya goin'?"
"Jackie Ville Flordia, Betty," Maxi explained.
"Okay!" Betty answered, and wrote down the information. Like most of baby fur writing, it looked more like scribbles and pictures, but for Sammy and his kind, it was clear as day.
Out the window, Sammy and Jessy saw Maxi's plane.
If Sammy was still a Not-Friend, he might have remarked or thought about how the plane resembled a small child's toy, and how even the engines looked like they were just molded plastic with no moving parts, and there was no way it should have been able to fly, let alone move. Instead Sammy said, "Your plane looks really fun!"
"Thanks!" Maxi replied smiling.
Also coming on board was a black weasel with large glasses. "Hi! I'm Benny!"
A pair of pig baby furs who managed to still look cute. "I'm Veronica. And this is Joe."
"Howdy!"
Sammy noted the gold rings both of the piggy baby furs had in their noses.
"And I'm Verri." Said a bright gold mouse fur girl wearing an attendant hat and bowed.
The baby furs and crew scuttled into the plastic air plane and taking their seats.
Before or immediately after his change, Sammy might have questioned the lack of a bathroom on the little magic plastic plane, but at this point of his progression, he didn't even thinking about it, after all, a self cleaning diaper for a baby fur negated that kinda need.
The baby furs began chatting with each other lively and without reserve almost immediately, they were friends after all, there was nothing to fear, nothing to hide, well, except the promise Sammy and Jessy had made, but that was a horse of a different color.
Speak of witch, a purple pony colt with a hard hat and glowing stick directed Maxi where to take off. Even as baby furs, the air port staff were still working together to make sure everything worked out fine.
"Have you been to Florida before?" Jessy asked innocently.
"Yep! And lots of other places since I became friends with everybody! And I have friends who went to 'Texus', California, New York, London, Tokyo, France, and 'Beijin'. Anywhere ya wanna go, I can fly ya there!"
Sammy smiled. Friendship wasn't something that could be 'quaranteened', or blocked off, they weren't just lumped together in one city, or one state, or one region, they were all over the world and spreading.
Maxi made engine noises, that cause the plane to rumble as if its plastic engines were working, and taxied into position, and with a shorter running start than it ever should have needed, the Maxi's plane took off.
Sammy and the other crammed to their windows to see.
Sammy peed in his self cleaning diaper as he watched the pretty landscape move below. Not only did Sammy not give it a second thought, he barely gave it a first thought, (if that!), for the baby fur it was as natural as breathing (and making friends).
"We we gonna see any Not-Friends in Jackie Ville?" Jessy asked. He DID want to explain to some Non-Friends that friendship wasn't some infectious disease, but wouldn't that make them friends once they realized that? What was that called again? Oh yeah, catch-22. Hmmm, maybe a simpler answer would have been just to speak to not-friends via TV or emails since it was clinically shown those DIDN'T make not-friends friends!
"Naw. Everybody in Florida is already friends!" Verri explained.
Of course everyone in Florida was already friends, Florida was where it started after all, and the surrounding states were already all friends too. He wondered how many Not-Friends had become friends after they dropped that big fireworks on top of Florida, and the 'falling-out smoke' had become magic confetti like the soldier's guns, and was now spreading around the world.
Sammy was only dimly aware that he wasn't sorry at the idea of every Not-Friend in the world becoming friends, he was sorry that wasn't getting to see it. The whole world becoming Friends, it was just a big deal, something great, he wanted to see the process with his own eyes. But... meeting the first baby fur came first... she was what began all of this... he bet she had lots and lots of friends waiting in line to thank for her.
That was when a powerful thought struck Sammy. Before they were baby furs... back when they were not-friends... when did he and Jessy CHOOSE to become friends? Sammy admitted he was fuzzy on some details now of his former life, they just didn't feel IMPORTANT anymore... but the powerful realization hit him, he had never CHOSEN to make a friend in his life, they'd just HAPPENED! Maybe this WASN'T like WEREWOLVES in the novels, where you chose to let one bite you, or a bad one bites you without permission, maybe friendship did just happen. You never consciously chose who'd you become friends with, you could make efforts for it or against it, Sammy dimly remembered, but in the end, friendship just happened. Was that the real reason Teddy's new friends became friends?
Maybe Doctor Sammy had been right with her new theory. All those Not-Friends with their big boy thoughts, making them scared of something they already wanted, thinking it was some kinda forceful witchcraft.
Before becoming Friends Sammy had never given life on other planets any real thought, the world down here had enough things to think about... and there was the theory that civilizations normally blew themselves up before they could develop going to other worlds... Now Sammy hoped there were, so they could make-Friends with them too, and if that theory was right, save every civilization (including their own) from blowing itself up. Sammy had no idea if that theory was true or not, if it wasn't, it was a good thing to make-Friends anyway.
Sammy, Jessy, Joe, Verri, Veronica, and Benny all chatted happily. Veronica and Joe were Florida natives who had been visiting their family. Benny admitted he had been a thief trying to get his hands on any cool stuff in the fear and confusion of everybody becoming friends.
There was also chat that new baby furs in south Africa wore paint-markings and wore diapers made out of pretend animal hide or something, Sammy giggled at the thought, wondering if it was true or not. It also did more away with the silly idea that Baby Furs were uniform zombies.
There was even a rumor about a new-clear-air submarine that had the entire crew had become Friends off the coast of Florida, and now the big bombs on board could make-friends of a big chunk of the world, but the crew wasn't using them because those big bombs were to be used ONLY if the 'prez-za-dent' told them to, and they were good sailors who weren't about to break the rules. There was some chat among baby furs if the crew had become orca, whale, dolphin and the like baby furs with two legs, OR if they'd become mermaid like instead. Sammy for his part realized that either was a possibility given from what he'd seen of the magic so far...
"Some of Maxi and Betty's friends are talking about building houses and stuff outta clouds." Verri said. "We couldn't do that before we were friends, but now any friend who can fly seems to be able to touch and mold the stuff like it's solid!"
"Cool!" The other baby fur replied excited at the gossip.
Possibly mermaid baby furs under the ocean, flying baby furs building houses in the sky, and who knew what they'd do once they got into space (well, Florida was the heart of the space prorgram), there were so many exciting possibilities that Sammy was seeing for his kind.
He and the other settled down just a little as the in-flight movie played... it was "Ico the Brave Little Horse". Verri provided the in-flight meal of peanut butter and jam sandwiches.