Helen, Alice, and T.D. exit a movie theatre, having watched a horror movie called Shriek!, which has greatly scared them. They tell Martha and Skits, who also become scared, and then go home to the Boxwood house. They hear noises, then the lights go out, and someone pops out and screams, but it turns out to just be Ronald playing a prank.
At lunch time at school the next day, Alice surmises that Ronald must have chosen to scare the three of them knowing that they'd seen the movie. She complains that he always listens into her conversations with her friends, so T.D. suggests that they try speaking in code.
He tries to learn how to make a code, but finds it too hard, so he just wings it, and the next day at the park, he asks Helen, Alice, Martha, and Skits if they want a "frog slime four". They're confused, so he explains that it means "sandwich" in the code he made (because when he was four years old, he ate a sandwich at C.K.'s farm after wading in the lake and mistaking the mud for frog slime). Then, Ronald comes up, steals the paper that has the code on it, and bicycles away. Martha chases after him, and after a struggle, she eats the paper so he won't learn the code, but this makes her start speaking in the code. Then, she is taken away on the back of a van.
When Ronald comes home, he explains to Alice and her friends that Martha ate the paper and then started speaking gibberish. Helen comes home, with Skits, T.D., and Alice following, and asks Mariella if she's seen Martha, and Mariella hasn't, but she got a peculiar message: it was in Martha's voice but didn't make sense.
They go inside and play the message: "Nap Time? It's me, Alphabet. I'm fire truck in Stove. Take the tubas and get me." T.D. realises that this is his code, as "Alphabet" is his codename for Martha and Nap Time is Helen (because in day care, he and she talked to each other when neither wanted to take a nap).
They head off to the natural history museum, with T.D. explaining that "fire truck" means "stuck" and "tubas" means "natural history museum" because the first time he went to the museum, he got stuck in a model of a human ear, which he thought resembled a tuba, trying to retrieve a toy fire truck. However, when they get to the museum, Martha isn't there, and T.D. wonders if "tubas" means "ocean" instead. They go to Helen's house and try to decipher the code, but then Danny comes in and reveals that Martha actually said, "two bus" instead of "tubas", and that "Stove" is a place, so they go and get Martha back.
This episode provides examples of
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Alice tries to reassure her friends that there are no such things as monsters, even though a talking dog exists.
- Big "NEVER!": Martha yells, "NEVER!" when expressing to Ronald that she will under no circumstances let him read the code.
- Cloud Cuckoolanguage: T.D. invents a secret code in this episode. The only known words are "frog slime four" (sandwich), "be eleven rutabaga eight" (unknown), "hubba hubba two" (seemingly an expression of fear), "Nap Time" (Helen), "Alphabet" (Martha), "fire truck" (stuck), "tubas" (either "natural history museum" or "ear"), "Spill" (Alice), "backslash" (long), and "gooba dooba pickle gum collection" (apparently something like "I love you" or "It's nice to see you").
- Collector of the Strange: Discussed when "gum collection" is part of T.D.'s code (it's unknown what it means, but it seemingly means something like "It's good to see you" or "I love you".)
- Conforming OOC Moment: Even T.D. is afraid of the horror movie, even though he usually likes things the others find scary.
- Ear Ache: Discussed when Alice says that her ears (or her "tubas") will bleed if she hears the audio message again.
- Episode Tagline: T.D. keeps referring to his code as a "genius, arbitrary code".
- Eye Scream: Discussed. Alice claims she knows semaphore, but the last time she tried, she poked herself in the eye.
- Facepalm: Helen facepalms over not knowing what "tubas" means.
- Fantasy Sequence: When T.D. explains what code means, Alice imagines using it.
- Flashback:
- When T.D. is explaining why "frog slime four" means "sandwich", we see him at age four wading at C.K.'s farm and mistaking the mud for frog slime.
- When he's explaining why Helen's codename is Nap Time, they're seen at day care talking to each other instead of napping.
- When he explains why "fire truck" means "stuck", he's seen taking his first trip to the museum and getting stuck in a model ear trying to retrieve a toy fire truck.
- Fright-Induced Bunkmate: After watching the movie, Alice decides she will sleep with her parents.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: T.D. got stuck in a model ear the first time he went to a museum and the fire department had to put grease on him and unstick him.
- Ignorant About Fire: Discussed by Helen, who says it would be a bad idea if Alice tried making smoke signals.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Martha, after hearing the horror movie, declares that she'll never get any sleep... only to instantly fall asleep.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: Helen, T.D., and Alice (all ten years old) watch a horror movie and are on-edge for the rest of the night.
- Leitmotif: A certain musical score plays when Martha chases Ronald.
- Lost Voice Plot: Downplayed. Martha can still talk, but she's hard to make sense of since she can now only speak in code.
- Nosy Neighbor: Alice reveals that Mrs. Parkington (who's a neighbour to both the Boxwoods and the Lorraines) is often spying on her neighbours.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Martha looks and sounds nervous when the van drives off.
- Helen says, "Uh-oh!" when she learns that Martha is now speaking in gibberish.
- Say My Name: Alice grumbles, "Ronald!" when he pulls the prank.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Helen, Alice, and T.D. spent ages trying to decipher what "tubas" meant, only to be told it was actually "two bus".
- Shaped Like Itself: Helen says to Alice that it'd be a bad idea for her to try smoke signals because "there are matches and fire and you're you."
- Shout-Out:
- When T.D. gets "shriek" and "Sikh" confused, he says that he thought Shriek! would be about "some guy from The Arabian Nights.
- Alice remembers being spoilered by Ronald on a book in which a spider dies, which references Charlotte's Web.
- Speak in Unison: When T.D. suggests speaking in code, the girls say, "Code?!" in unison.
- Tempting Fate: T.D. says he hopes the lights don't turn off, and then they do.
