Fake Danger

Fake Danger

Based on, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood"

by

Angela C. Romero

Author's note: Credit goes to Angela, Fred McFeely Rogers, Fred Rogers Productions, et al.

It's another day that's basically at Daniel Tiger's kindergarden. His mom has just left him with everyone else, including the teachers for the day, in the room and Daniel goes to the building blocks and begins putting block and block together to create...something. But along the way, when it's halfway up to his height, he notices Harrietta, Kittarina and Prince Wendsday together, a distance away. Harrietta's talking to the two others, with what looks like a damn good doll. "I got another doll today. It's much better built that the other one I have. I can tell if I squeeze its head." she says and squeezes the doll's head.

Daniel gets annoyed, then angry, standing up to her. He doesn't say anything, but thinks, "She should not be better than me like that! Why do kids like her even exist? She...she must have cooties!" Harriet comes to Daniel and puts her hand on his shoulders, making him turn to her, more normal. "Why are you angry with her, Daniel?" she, soft as always, asks him. "A girl has a better thing than me, Harriet. It means she has cooties. They get on you if you come close to a girl. Monsters are one of my enemies." Hariett sings, "If you don't know if it exists, ask someone who could know." Daniel repeats that, only weaker, but Hariett understands why he did it like that.

Hariett walks away, back to whatever she was doing and Daniel continues building blocks until it vaguely becomes the full Big Ben. He looks for who to show it to and sees Prince Tuesday walks down the room to the sit-down carpet. Daniel runs to Prince Wendsday. "Hello, Prince Wendsay! I've made a flat version of Big Ben!" "The entire thing?" Prince Wendsday asks Daniel. "Yes, come and look!" Daniel says and makes Prince Wendsday follow him to the Big Ben, but sees Harrietta at the same place. Daniel backs away and turns to Prince Wendsday, who's now as far away from the girls as Daniel.

"Prince Wendsday, don't come close to her, or Hariett, even. You'll catch the sickness called cooties! It makes you girlier!" The prince gets worried, but Harrietta laughs. "You are allowed to be a little girly, Daniel! You talk about your feelings a lot already." Daniel gets angry. "No! Girly things suck! Even those line things in girls' hair!" She replies calmly enough, "Daniel, you're pretending cooties exist." "No, I know it exist, I found that out!" Daniel almost shouts. "I don't think it doesn't exist, either." Prince Wendsday says to Harrietta. "What could you, or Kittarina, ever give us?"

"Even if I couldn't give you anything, Kittarina and other girls sure can." the girls says and turns and walks away. Prince Wendsday walks to X the Owl and another boy to tell them, "Hey, X and you, stay away from girls. They have cooties. If they kiss you, they will give you plenty of bad feelings. You'll have to sent home." Then Daniel hears Harriett saying, "Gather 'round, children. We're gonna learn how to play your instruments certain ways today. Like in a pop song, a rock song, a rap song and a dance song."

As Harriett takes out instruments from the shelves and hands them to each student, who've now sit down, Kittarina turns her head to Daniel and tells him, "You are quick to believe something you made up today, meow meow." She giggles, which heavily irritates Daniel, who thinks, "I am not stupid. Why would a girl make fun of me and thinks that's fun?" After class, at recess, Daniel is reading one of the picture books the school has when X, when he notices from talk that, on the south-west corner of the room, X, Prince Wendsday and the boy are in a circle talking to each other. X turns to Daniel.

"Hey, Daniel, we've made a group that goes against girls, just like you do. We're going to get girliness out of school and get the girls out of school. Want to join our group?" X shouts to Daniel. He, not wanting the girls to be expelled, says, "No thanks, I can stay away from them. They can't come close to you, then." Daniel continues reading, then the other boys sit down. "Let's think of some ways to attack the girls." Prince Wendsday says. They think for a bit before X says, "Ooh-hoo, let's thrown some of the books at the girls!" The other boys nod in agreement and walk up to Harrietta and Kittarina, whom are talking to each other about how Daniel and some of the other boys have been to them. The two girls turn to the boys.