Freckles #10

When Freckles and his pal Lard scrape together just enough cash to take their girlfriends June and Hilda to the swanky Riviera Blue Room, a night of dinner and dancing seems within reach—until a couple of smooth talkers con their way into the group and stick them with a bill they can't pay. Now Freckles has to figure out how to save the evening and get everyone home without his pop finding out he went somewhere far fancier than the Community Hall.

When Freckles is stuck with a ten-dollar dinner check he didn't incur—courtesy of a prankster named Danny Culpert—his car gets impounded and he's forced to walk two miles to school. After tracking down the culprit and confronting him, Freckles chooses forgiveness over revenge, but he and his pal have bigger plans: convincing their fathers to loosen the purse strings by launching a campaign about the rising cost of living. It's a funny look at teen trouble-solving and the eternal struggle to get more allowance money.

When Freckles' girl June falls hard for an older Army flyer, he enlists his cousin Danny to distract her—but Danny's plan backfires spectacularly when June starts falling for *him* instead. As jealousy threatens to upend the whole group, Danny's true colors emerge in a way that might just reset everyone's romantic compass.

When Sue, a Southern belle newly arrived in town, starts teaching Freckles and his pals her Atlanta slang and jazzy jive talk, the whole gang gets caught up in the lingo—much to the dismay of their parents, who see their proper English going down the drain. Freckles' father decides to invite an exchange student from England to dinner, hoping his refined conversation might be just the antidote to all this linguistic chaos. Will a dose of old-world propriety finally put an end to the "Southern dish" epidemic sweeping Shadyside?

Freckles and his friends launch the Shadyside Housecleaning Company, hoping to capitalize on the local demand for help around the house. When their makeshift vacuum cleaner—built from salvaged parts—proves a little *too* powerful, the boys find themselves in hilariously deep trouble, with their "cleaning" leaving customers more exasperated than grateful. Things take a turn when Freckles's father decides to take a controlling interest in the business and teach his son a lesson about responsibility.