Disclaimer: I do not own Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood or the characters or associated characters, except for the characters I make up. Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood belongs to Angela Santomero
In this story, Daniel Tiger and his friends are now 5 year olds and in Kindergarten. They are not with Teacher Harriet anymore and are going to Neighborhood of Make Believe Elementary School. There are several students in Daniel Tiger's class but we will just focus on Daniel himself, O the Owl, Katerina Kittycat, Miss Elaina, and Prince Wednesday.
The Story
Daniel Tiger and all his friends from Teacher Harriet's preschool are in Kindergarten and they are all in the same classroom as he is. They're teacher is named Mrs. Honeywell, who, like Teacher Harriet, is black with long black curly hair, brown eyes, and thirty-two years old. Daniel and his friends go to all-day kindergarten. They have playtime twice a day but now they're given more assignments. They also have story time, rest time, Music Class, Art Class, and Gym Class. Daniel Tiger sits at a set of desks with O the Owl, Katerina Kittycat, Miss Elaina, and Prince Wednesday. For simplicity, we'll just refer to them as Daniel, O, Katerina, Elaina, and Wednesday. There are other students, some of whom are human, others are anthropomorphic animals, some of whom do not wear clothes, some male animals do not wear pants, they're not required to, but there are some who choose to, and there are some female animals that wear skirts, some in dresses, and only a few in long pants. Some female humans are dressed the same ways as the female animals. And of course, all human males wear pants, or shorts they have to!
One day, it is a little over two hours since the school day has started and Mrs. Honeywell's students are sitting on the floor.
"Okay students," says Mrs. Honeywell, "today I am going to read you "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
"I love that story," says Katarina, "meow meow."
"So do I," says Elaina. "My mother read me that story once."
"My dad read me that story too," says Wednesday, "and sometimes my brother Tuesday reads it to me.
"My Uncle X, Hoo Hoo," says O, "read me that story a hundred times, because I asked him to. And I still enjoy hearing that story."
"I know you like stories, O," says Mrs. Honeywell.
"He sure does," says Daniel. "I like Goldilocks and the three bears too. And I want to hear it."
"Well, then let's read it," says Mrs. Honeywell.
"Grrr-ific!" says Daniel.
So Mrs. Honeywell starts reading.
However when Mrs. Honeywell is a little more than halfway through her reading, a loud noise suddenly goes off and a flashing white light is flashing like lightning inside the classroom. It spooks all the students.
"What's going on?" asks Wednesday.
"What's that noise?" asks O, "Hoo hoo."
"And what's that, meow meow, light flashing?" asks Katerina.
"Stay calm class," says Mrs. Honeywell putting her book down on her lap and holding out her hands to the class, "it's just a fire drill. Remember what we talked about at the beginning of the year about fire drills?"
The whole class all shout "Yes!"
During the first week of school, which was a couple weeks back, Mrs. Honeywell told her students about fire drills. Daniel, Katerina, O, Elaina, and Wednesday have a prior knowledge of fire drills, Teacher Harriet taught them about it. Only with her, and since it was a one-room school-house, they've never used an actual fire alarm. Instead Harriet would ring a small hand-bell she kept in her desk and shout "Fire drill" and her students would stop what they were doing and walk to the door leading back outside. Then Harriet would sit her bell down on her desk, walk to the door and open it and her students would walk outside the building and she would turn off the lights and walk out the door, shutting it behind her. The students would not reenter the school-house until Teacher Harriet said it was okay too.
Now that Daniel, O, Katerina, Elaina, and Wednesday are in a bigger school building, they are using actual fire alarm buzzers with white strobe lights, both inside the classrooms and out in the hallways. Back then the fire alarms were just installed outside in the hallways but in more recent times, it became required for fire alarms to be installed inside classrooms in that school and other schools in the Neighborhood of Make Believe. And this is Daniel and his friend's first experience with actual fire alarms.
With the fire drill going on, immediately after the class answers "Yes," Mrs. Honeywell stands up, taking the book from her lap and putting it on the chair she was sitting in and asks her students, "And do you remember what to do?"
"Go to the back-door," answer her students.
"That's right," says Mrs. Honeywell.
All the students stand up and walk to the backdoor in single file.
As that is going on, an announcement is made over the P.A. system, "Staff and Students, please evacuate the building. Staff and students, please evacuate the building. Thank you." This is an automated announcement.
There are two doors in the classroom, one leading out into the hallway, and one leading to the outside and that is where they go out for their fire drills. Not all the classrooms in the school have it, just the K-2 classrooms, which also have unisex bathrooms. 3-6 classrooms do not have in-class bathrooms or backdoors, so the students in those grades have to go through the hallway.
Anyway, after the students line up, Mrs. Honeywell turns off the lights in her classroom, making the strobe light light up the room, and some of the students don't like it, including Daniel, Katerina, and Wednesday. Most of the students don't like the noise of the fire alarms either.
Mrs. Honeywell walks over to the backdoor and opens it and tells her students, "Walk outside. Do not run."
And all her students walk outside and walk at least thirty feet away from the building and Mrs. Honeywell closes the door and stands with her students. Other students and teachers from other classrooms are of course standing outside.
Outside the building are tingling fire alarm bells, which were used inside the building before when the school was first built decades ago but they didn't have strobe lights. Then sometime in the 90s the bells were replaced with buzzers and strobe lights, but bells continue to be used outside and some were replaced with newer ones.
"When can we go back into the classroom?" asks Wednesday.
"When the fire drill is over," answers Mrs. Honeywell.
"How do we know when the fire drill is over?" asks Daniel.
"When the fire alarms," says Mrs. Honeywell, "the noises you hear turn off and when they tell us we can come back in."
More than three minutes after all the students and most of the staff evacuate the building, the fire alarms go silent, but nobody is allowed to reenter the building just yet.
"Okay," says Wednesday, "let's go back inside."
"Not yet kids," says Mrs. Honeywell, "they didn't tell us we can go back in yet."
Then a minute after the fire alarms go silent, an announcement is made over the P.A. system: "Staff and students, please reenter the building. Staff and students, please reenter the building. Thank you." This announcement is made manually from someone in the school's office.
Before the announcement is repeated, all the teachers direct their students to reenter the building.
Mrs. Honeywell opens the door and her students walk back into the classroom but stay lined up at the door not sure what to do next. Then Mrs. Honeywell walks in and turns the lights on and shuts the backdoor.
"Students," she says, "congratulations, "you have just made it through your first fire drill of the year. Good job"
She goes on to say, "But next time, please wait until I, or whoever's in charge, tells you to reenter the building?"
"Yes Mrs. Honeywell," her class says.
"So what do you kids say we continue reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears?" Mrs. Honeywell asks.
"Mrs. Honeywell," asks Katerina, "when's our next fire drill? Meow meow?"
"Yeah," says Wednesday, "because that noise scared me."
"Me too," says Ms. Elaina.
"It scared me too, hoo hoo," says O.
"I was scared too," says Daniel, "and the lights flashing after you turned off the lights bothered me too."
Several of the other kids complain about the fire alarm lights and noise and are worried.
"Don't worry class," says Mrs. Honeywell, "We're not going to have another fire drill for a while. We shouldn't have another one again until next month."
She goes on to say, "But there's no need to worry, I know the noise is loud and scary and I know the lights made some of you uncomfortable, but these are important. If there's a fire inside or near the building, the fire alarms and lights help let us know that there's a fire and that we need to stop what we're doing. But do not worry, just because you hear the noise and see the lights, that doesn't always mean there's a fire, but these will help us to be prepared in case there a fire is occurring. And by school rules, we have to practice a fire drill at least once a month. Okay class?"
"Yes Mrs. Honeywell," answers her students.
"But don't worry," says Mrs. Honeywell, "the fire alarm is nothing to be scared of and it shouldn't go off again for another few weeks or so. Now what do you say we go back to reading 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears?'"
The students are still shaken up but they say "Okay."
"Good," says Mrs. Honeywell, "let's go back to where we were and I'll finish the story."
And that's what they do.
Later after school and the students are home, the students tell their parents about the fire drill and how it affected them and their parents talk to them about the fire alarms and fire drills.
The End
A/N Some of this is based on personal experience. When I was going to school in upstate New York, in Kindergarten through second grade, when we had a fire drill, usually we went to the door leading directly to the outside from the classroom. And there were bathrooms inside the classroom. Admittedly the bathrooms didn't have much to do with the story but I added them anyway. I don't know what it was like in third grade because I was in another school far off in Germany. But in that school, the classrooms for the grades 1-6 did not have in-class bathrooms or doors leading directly outside, not even the rooms on the ground floor, you had to go through the hallway in order to evacuate the building. I only know about the upper grades not having a bathroom because I had an older friend in the school and I used to go to his house after school and I met him in his classroom once, and asked him where the bathroom was. I cannot remember if they had a backdoor or not though, not all the rooms in that school did. But every school is different in what it does.
Thanks for reading.