The Secret About Secrets

Summary
D.W. discovers that getting a secret is a lot easier than keeping one.

Plot
At the beginning of the episode, Arthur whispers to Buster about a secret that we can't know what it is. Then D.W. comes in and asks what Arthur just told Buster, then Arthur tells her it was a secret. D.W. breaks the Fourth Wall and tells the viewers that she is annoyed about everybody having a secret except for her; she then asks the viewers if they have a secret, promising not tell anyone.

The Secret About Secrets

D.W. is annoyed that everyone has a secret except her. She goes downstairs to the kitchen and tells Arthur and Buster she has a secret. She is confused that they are not asking her who told her the secret and Arthur explains that the person who told the secret doesn't want their friend to go blabber to others and that when she accidentally reveals that she doesn't have a secret and just made one up. In her room, Nadine tells her that she can't go around blabbering to others that she has a secret because then people would want to know. D.W. also points out that Nadine didn't tell her she also needs a person to tell her a secret or else it's not actually a secret, then D.W. gets an idea.

At school, she tells the Tibbles that her mother told her a secret, and she can't tell it to anybody. At first, the Tibbles didn't care, but once D.W. said that their grandmother told her mother the secret, they pick up their "phone" to call her; D.W. jumps to get but realizes it was a toy and scrapes her arm and the Tibbles ask if she is alright. At the nurse's office, she gets a bandage and sees James in the office covering something behind his back. At first, James was nervous to tell D.W. what happened, but then D.W. heard the nurse calling James's mother to bring a new pair of pants because he split his pants and James tells D.W. to keep it a secret. D.W. tells Emily that she has a secret, but she can't tell anyone. Emily complains that she is D.W.'s best friend. D.W. is about to tell her, but then she sees James and so she says to Emily that she'll tell her tomorrow. That night though, D.W. and Nadine talk about what happened at preschool--D.W.'s really tempted to tell someone (Emily especially, since she is D.W.'s best friend), but Nadine notes that D.W. promised James that she wouldn't tell anyone, no matter what. At first, D.W. doesn't think it would be a big deal if she only told one person, but then she ends up having a dream where she tells Emily and the secret soon spreads to the entire preschool, and the dream ends with the students making fun of James for what happened, upsetting him.

The next morning, when Jane's driving D.W. to school, D.W. ends up confessing the secret to her mom, who notes that James is probably pretty embarrassed about what happened and advises her daughter not to tell anyone about what happened. When D.W. admits that she finds it hard not to tell anyone, Jane advises her to think about something else when she's tempted to tell her secret to someone. During the day, D.W. just barely succeeds in keeping her secret to herself, but the next morning, she fakes sick because she's still upset about the secret she's keeping. Jane allows D.W. to stay home from school and calls Thora to keep an eye on her. Jane and Thora realize the situation, and while watching her granddaughter, Thora reveals a way she discovered on how to keep a secret when she was a kid.

Thora takes D.W. out pedal-boating, and she gives D.W. a big conch shell. Thora tells D.W. to say her secret as loudly as she can into the shell and then throw it as far away as she can--D.W. does so, and afterwards, both she and Thora note that she's feeling much better. The next day at school, D.W. tells Emily the secret on how to keep a secret (the method that Grandma Thora taught her). Emily's very impressed by the secret that D.W. just told her, and D.W.'s happy that she was ultimately able to keep what happened to James a secret.

The episode ends with an air bubble coming out of the conch shell that D.W. threw and floating up to the surface, which is popped by a pair of seagulls--when the bubble is popped, "James split his pants!" comes out, but the seagulls (not realizing the context of it) just shrug it off and leave.

Major

 * D.W. Read
 * Thora Read
 * Emily
 * James MacDonald
 * Nadine Flumberghast

Minor

 * Timmy and Tommy Tibble
 * Jane Read
 * Arthur Read
 * Buster Baxter
 * Francine Frensky

Cameo

 * Kyle
 * Edwin
 * Amanda Hulser
 * Liam
 * Lucy
 * Sarah
 * Maryann
 * Angi
 * Debi
 * Tami

Trivia

 * After D.W. hurts herself from playing with The Tibbles, she finds James behind her and tells him that playing in the sandbox and hurting her arm is kind of a secret, but it doesn't really seem like a secret, she just made that a secret.
 * Moral:
 * don't tell anyone someone's secret for your own benefits.
 * keeping a secret is better than having it.

Episode Connections

 * James splitting his pants which D.W. keeps as a secret can be similar to Muffy telling Arthur that he split his pants months ago in Fernkenstein's Monster.
 * D.W. made up a virus that has "itis" in it just like in Crushed

Cultural references

 * In the prologue of this episode, D.W.'s family and friends such as Arthur and Buster are shown in a  style.

Errors

 * During the flashback where D.W. gets welcomed into the secret clubhouse, she whispers her secret in her bag, but during the next flashback where she's still at the clubhouse and her secret bag magically jumping around and opening the door where Emily and James are, it opens by itself and her voice yells out her secret, except she never yelled her secret in the bag at first, she only whispered it, so it's unknown why she would yell it out when her bag opens.

Home Video
DVD:
 * Arthur: Season 10