Meet Merton #9

Merton scrapes together twelve dollars to buy an outboard motor, but a conniving neighbor named Chris sells him a beat-up machine disguised as a fancy English import—which, as it turns out, only runs on "petrol" (gasoline by another name) that isn't readily available. When Merton and a friend end up stranded on the lake with the useless motor, the tables turn in the most satisfying way possible.

Merton Muddle finds himself caught between two determined girls, Marcia and Jo Ann, who are both convinced he's their guy—so he takes the easy way out by promising to name his experimental jeep-helicopter after each of them. When the contraption actually takes flight in Casey's garage (with a bucket of whitewash still stuck to the propeller), the wild ride results in some spectacular interior decorating and a crash landing that leaves both fenders mysteriously blank. By the time the girls discover the names have vanished, they're too busy blaming Merton to keep fighting over him—though somehow that's exactly how he likes it.

When a girl named Marcia asks Mr. Muddle for advice on winning Merton's affections, he suggests the romantic gestures that supposedly worked on him twenty years ago—but his well-meaning tips go hilariously wrong, turning a simple box of candy into a digestive disaster and flowers into a sneezing fit for Merton's rose-fevered dad. As Marcia's romantic campaign escalates through increasingly misguided "grand gestures," Merton finds himself caught in the chaos of courtship gone awry, all while Mr. Muddle realizes his ancient advice was perhaps not as timeless as he thought.

Merton Muddle creates a paper helicopter to slip a note to Jo Ann, but when the air conditioning exhaust carries it away, the contraption ends up startling Miss Tiddlewink and landing him in the principal's office. What starts as a simple prank spirals into an accidental chain of events involving the school's ventilation system, with Merton caught in the middle of the chaos—and somehow ending up getting exactly what he wanted all along.