Secrets and Spies (Even Stevens episode)

Secrets and Spies is the eleventh episode of the first season of the Disney Channel original sitcom Even Stevens. It was written by Sarah Jane Cunningham and Suzie Villandry, directed by Peter Baldwin, and aired on October 7, 2000

Plot Summary
Ren, being Ren organizes her life on a tight schedule. Just then, Eileen comes in and offers her a job as an intern with a fellow politician. Though she's not interested in the job, she pretends to take the offer. Ren goes into her closet to scream in frustration, thinking nobody will hear her. But Louis does, and asks her about it. Ren makes up a lame excuse claiming to be searching for a ski jacket, despite the summer-like temperatures. Louis realizes Ren is hiding something.

For the past week the Stevens family has been experimenting with international cuisine. The day they were serving Vietnamese sticky rice, Ren came home late with a yellow feather beneath her blouse. When the family asks her about this, she distracts their attention by revealing that Louis broke a beloved ceramic knick-knack that has apparently been missing for a long time, and his parents ground him. Later, he over hears her speaking Japanese for some reason. Twitty comes over and he tells him about her off behavior and vows to find out the reason behind it, despite Twitty's persistent urging of him to let it go. The next day at school, he finds out that she recommended another girl for the internship, when the girl tries to give him the message to thank her sister. Louis follows her after school to a restaurant called Tokyo Rick's, a trendy Japanese restaurant that features a karaoke bar. Just then some girl in a blonde 1970's hairdo named "Isis" is ready to perform her rendition of ABBA's 1976 hit "Dancing Queen." "Isis" turns out to be Ren in disguise, and Louis now knows he can use this secret life to humiliate her.

At school the next day, Louis tells Twitty he knows what Ren is doing. But rather than tell his parents directly about it, he spends the day in school tormenting her. He posts flyers for Tokyo Rick's around school, dumps yellow feathers on her from the second story window, and makes a fake note from the principal to report to music class, where she finds him conducting the very song she sang at the restaurant. But the icing on the cake was the suggestion to Eileen that the Stevens family goes to Tokyo Rick's as part of an effort to get accustomed to Japanese dinner and culture, without telling them that Ren would be on stage.

The day after this, Ren explains to Louis that she took this gig because she was overworked and needed to work some fun in her schedule in order to blow off some steam, and though she apologizes for snapping at him, still urges him to keep it a secret. From that point on, Louis tries desperatly to keep Eileen & Steve from finding out about Ren. In the meantime, Donnie gets trigonometry tutoring from an online tutor, who has trouble meeting girls. Donnie offers him a chance to meet some women. The tutor turns out to be a pre-teen boy. As the parents go to the restaurant, they give Donnie the message to meet up with them there. Louis makes a mad dash there, still trying to hide Ren's double life, even going so far as to steal a dining cart to throw some food around. But it proves to be of no use. The Stevens parents recognize their daughter too easily.

Ren tells her parents what she's been doing and why. They tell her that they're okay with the idea of her doing it, and she didn't have to take such elaborate steps to hide her performances. Steve and Eileen decide to go on stage themselves and perform their own karaoke rendition of the 1974 Kiki Dee tune "I've Got the Music In Me", as Ren & Louis look on the sides and eventaully join them.

Trivia

 * The girl that entered the French class with the note for Ren was named Nichole LeBrun-Heuvel, a girl who won a contest through Disney Channel and traveled to California to go behind the scenes and have a walk-on role.