D.W. All Fired Up

Summary
Ms. Morgan announces the preschool will be having a fire drill. D.W. isn't sure what that is, but it sounds scary, so she concocts a plan to stay home from school every day until the danger passes.

Plot
Jane wakes D.W. up in time for school. D.W. finishes her breakfast quickly and wants to go immediately and gets word that there's plenty of time to wait. Arthur tells the viewers that D.W. loves school. He thinks that D.W. finds it her favorite thing in the whole world. Arthur also said that D.W. thought that school wasn't as good as she expected. When D.W. goes back home, she complains to herself about not wanting to go to school anymore. D.W. All Fired Up

D.W., Emily, the Tibbles, and the rest of D.W.'s preschool class are playing with toys, messing about, etc. when a teacher pops in and talks to their teacher, Mrs. Morgan, for a minute. When he leaves, Mrs. Morgan tells everyone that during this week, they'll be learning about fire safety and sometime soon, they're going to have a fire drill.

D.W. imagines a "fire" drill, as a device resembling an electric drill with a long jet of flame where the drill bit should go. D.W.'s class, all outfitted with welder's hoods look on as their teacher uses the drill to make a rocking horse out of wood. That sounds pretty neat, thinks D.W..

However, D.W. finds out soon that that's not what a fire drill is. Instead, D.W and her class find out that a fire drill is a plan that they use to get out of the building if a fire broke out. The preschool class practices lining up for the impending drill, goes out and practices "stopping, dropping, and rolling" (a technique). When D.W. wonders why they're doing this, the Tibbles tell her that this is what she should do if her clothes caught fire. The Tibbles, thinking real fire will actually be involved, relish the thought of having a fire drill with a great deal of sadistic glee... but not D.W.

She doesn't want to be in the school if it's going to catch fire, and so D.W., who usually loves going to school, decides that she'll have no part of this.

That night, D.W. wakes up, and looks up at the smoke detector in her room. She then tests it by poking it with a broom, so that it starts going off. Then she goes around the rest of the house, setting off the others. Mom and Dad rush downstairs, half asleep, (since it's the middle of the night) and tell D.W. that smoke detectors aren't toys, and she shouldn't be messing with them unreasonably.

Back in bed, D.W. continues to worry, and has a nightmare where she can't escape from her bedroom, since she's suddenly only very tiny. When she manages to get out of her room, she finds that it's not her regular hallway, it's the school hallway, and it's on fire! The firefighters are the Tibbles! They laugh, repeatedly shout "Fire Drill, Fire Drill" and run off into a big cloud of smoke.

She fakes feeling ill at breakfast the next day in an attempt to miss the fire drill. Arthur is pretty sure that she's faking, and when Mom says that D.W. can stay home for the day, asks if he can do the same. Mom knows that Arthur's got a math test today, so no dice.

D.W. spends the day at home with Nadine (D.W. is dressed in her dungar+ees, as opposed to her normal outfit) and sees the Tibbles walking home that afternoon. She asks if anything important happened today. The Tibbles tell her they did some coloring and glued some sticks together. D.W. finds out as well that there wasn't a fire drill. Her subterfuge didn't work then... she'll have to face the fire drill eventually.

The next day, D.W. has to go to school. She's still a little concerned about the impending fire drill, and doesn't really want to leave the car when Mom drops her off. Mom asks if D.W. will be OK at school, and D.W. says yes. As D.W. walks up to the school, Nadine tells D.W. that Mom would have come into school with her if she wanted, but Mom's too nice to have to suffer through the "crazy fire drill stuff."

In class, the teacher asks if anyone's seen D.W., since she hasn't come into class yet. The Tibbles think that she's "probably playing hockey"... "playing hooky" corrects the teacher. Then they spot D.W. hiding outside the classroom window. D.W. says that she will not be part of the "insanity."

Back home that afternoon, Mom tells Dad the situation, and then to quell D.W.'s fears, Dad has a surprise for her—a special firefighter's hat with D.W. painted on it. Mom and Dad tell D.W. that she's going to be the Read family's fire warden.

D.W. then tells Arthur to go back to his cell! Not that kind of warden, they tell her. D.W. is going to be responsible for ensuring everyone's fire safety.

D.W. starts to patrol the house. They practice home fire drills, and test out a fire-escape ladder. Later, D.W. notices what looks like smoke coming from the bathroom. She opens the door to find out it was just Arthur steaming up the bathroom by having a shower. She tells him she wants his wet towel when he's done. Later, she sits watching TV with the wet towel, because a wet towel is a good thing to have in the case of a fire. Arthur tells her she's being silly, and that she shouldn't worry about the fire drill.

The next day, on the way to school, D.W. is a bit nervous, being sure the fire drill will be that day, though Mom reassures her, saying it'll be like the fire drills they did at home. D.W. just answers with a "Yeah, I know."

All goes smoothly at the school, until they hear an alarm going off -- The Fire Drill!

D.W. acts pretty calmly, probably due to all of her additional fire drill duties. She correctly tells Emily to not pick up a load of blocks, but to leave everything behind, as the class leaves the classroom under the guidance of the teacher. The Tibbles overreact, acting as if there really is a fire, and some of the other kids are a bit concerned (James says that he has to go to the bathroom.)

Nadine and D.W. walk through the front entrance of the school, and D.W. is very pleased with herself as she exits. This wasn't so bad. D.W. with Nadine, line up with the rest of the class outside. Not everyone fared as well as D.W. though... Tommy Tibble panicked over thinking the school being on fire and started hyperventilating... he's comforted by Ms. Morgan. However, D.W. is sort of disappointed, in that the fire drill wasn't such a big deal after all. In fact, she'd like to have more drills, such as a "volcano drill", "tidal wave drill" or a sudden loss of gravity drill"...

Major
D.W. Read

Arthur

Mom

Dad

Emily

Minor
Mrs. Morgan

The Tibbles

Episode connections

 * Fire alarms will be heard again in "April 9th".
 * James asks for a bathroom break during the fire drill. In a future episode "Kiss and Tell," James replies that he was in the bathroom when they choose the naptime C.D.
 * In the original version of this episode, the fire alarm is a pulsing horn (like many older fire alarm systems would have used.) The Canadian version of this episode has a bell ringing instead of a horn, as bells are more commonly used for fire alarms in Canada than in America.

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