Sam laughed as Bajoo's long, flat bear tongue first groomed his muzzle, moved onto his cheek ruffs, and finally to his round ears poking through the mop of brown hair on his head. "Hahahaha, that tickles, Papa Bear!" Sam chortled. Bajoo gave a toothy grin and finished his grooming with one final slurp between the boy's furry ears.
"Sam calm. He be good cub now. Bajoo teach him more about being bear soon," the grizzly animorph explained. Both Sam's mother, Sheila, and his sister, Cindy, smiled at the big brute as the family arranged themselves at the kitchen table for a hearty breakfast of bacon and pancakes topped with honey. Lots and lots of honey. Sam and the rest of the family dug in with their knives and forks while Bajoo simply lowered his muzzle and wolfed down his meal straight off of the plate.
Following the meal, Sam excused himself from the table and padded to his room, toeclaws clicking on the wooden floor. Waking his computer out of sleep mode, he logged into the chat function of his favorite futuristic first person shooter, 'Shoot 2 Kill: Cold Winter.' He and his three close school friends had started their own gaming crew and they would usually catch-up in the chat before starting a game together. The four of them played so frequently that the game chat had become their primary means of communication. At a glance, he could already see that his buds Jesse and Kaylin were online although their icons were showing they'd been idle for a few minutes. Sarah, the other member of their group and the only female, appeared to be logged off for the time being.
"Hey, if you guys are still in the chat, I was wondering if you were experiencing anything...weird," typed Sam. Jesse's icon went active and a reply quickly popped back, "Yes, I think I know what you mean. Things over here are definitely a bit hairy at the moment." Only a few seconds later, Kaylin also replied. "Yeah, something strange is going on. I don't think I can go anywhere right now. I'm having trouble finding a pair of shoes that will work." That IS weird, thought Sam. Kaylin was a bit of a sneakerhead and had collected at least two dozen pairs of collector's shoes.
"Okay. Let's all meet in Kaylin's basement in an hour. There's something we need to discuss," Sam wrote. The others quickly agreed. Kaylin's house had a separate entrance to the finished basement and it would be easy for them to sneak in without encountering the boy's parents. "Sarah, please join us if you can!" Sam added before exiting the chat.
Sam had a growing suspicion that his friends might also be transforming but it was hard to know for sure. He only lived three blocks from Kaylin but thought it would be best to hide as many of his bearish features as he could. After all, he didn't want to attract unnecessary attention and if his friends weren't changed, who knew how they might react to his...fuzzyness. Sam quickly located a bandana that he tied around the lower half of his face to disguise his protruding muzzle and large black bear nose. Deciding that it wasn't worth changing his shredded jeans, he then rummaged through his closet and found a huge pair of boots that his Dad used to wear when they would go fishing. After a good amount of struggle, Sam managed to shove his paw-like feet into the rubber boots. Unfortunately, the thick patches of fur that covered the tops of his feet along with his long toeclaws made them uncomfortably cramped. Sam threw on a light jacket to cover his arm fur along with a pair of gardening gloves to hide his furry and semi-clawed hands.
Just as he was about to head out, Sam stopped for a moment to look in the hallway mirror. Looking at himself, he had to chuckle. With the bandana around his face and the rubber wading boots, he looked like he was about to engage in some kind of illegal trout fishing. But then he noticed the two fuzzy bear ears sticking up through his hair. "Oops, forgot about those," Sam said as he snagged a trucker hat off the corner hat rack and plopped it on his head to cover the two furry half-moons. "Mom, Bajoo, I'm headed to Kaylin's," the partially transformed bearboy yelled as he slammed the front door shut.