The Trouble with Girls

Jimmy Barclay's life gets complicated fast when a love note covered in hearts turns up in the mailbox - and it's from Jessie Morales, the girl who's been stuffing his school desk with poems. Curt says to throw mud at her, Connie tells Jessie to play it cool, and Eugene prescribes reverse psychology: tell Jessie exactly what she wants to hear, and she'll run the other way. Instead, Jimmy's gazebo speech makes things worse than ever... now there are flowers at his softball games and more sonnets than his desk can hold. It takes Mr. Whittaker, tinkering with an ice cream machine that bursts into flame, to offer the one thing nobody else has: the truth, told kindly, hurts far less than a lie. But when Jimmy marches back to the gazebo with his honest speech ready, Jessie beats him to it - she likes someone else now, a certain brainy inventor in a lab coat named Eugene. Jimmy walks home laughing, and Jessie decides boys are simply very weird.

Found on The Lost Episodes Album LE · 17 episodes

The run See every episode

0111 First Love When Connie falls for the charming star of the Odyssey High baseball team, she discovers that first love can pull her heart in a direction her faith won't follow.

0112 Curious, Isn't It? When two curious kids overhear Mr. Whittaker giving a mysterious woman a ring in the woods, their eavesdropping sets all of Odyssey buzzing with a conclusion nobody bothered to confirm.

0113 Suspicious Minds When money goes missing from the Whit's End cash register, Connie and Eugene launch increasingly ridiculous schemes to catch a thief - and end up suspecting each other.

0114 The Big Broadcast When Tom Riley discovers Whit's End's dusty old radio equipment, he and Whit decide to bring Kids Radio back to life with one big broadcast for the whole town of Odyssey.

0115 An Act of Mercy When a farmer's kindness toward a young apple thief goes unappreciated, he finds a more hands-on way to teach the boy about mercy.

0116 Isaac the Benevolent When Isaac Morton memorizes the Golden Rule but can't figure out how to actually live it, his well-meaning attempts to help the people of Odyssey keep backfiring in ways he never expected.

0117 The Trouble with Girls When a classmate's love notes start piling up in his desk, Jimmy discovers that every clever scheme for discouraging a crush only makes things worse.

0118 What Happened to the Silver Streak? When a prized model train engine vanishes from Whit's End, an amateur investigation puts a girl with a troubled past under suspicion - but the truth is harder to find than anyone expects.

0119 Better Late than Never A girl notorious for being late to everything gets one unforgettable night to discover just how much her habit could cost her.

0120 Pranks for the Memories Odyssey's self-proclaimed prank master is so sure no one can fool him that a simple act of kindness sends him spiraling into an elaborate counterattack of his own making.

0121 Missing Person When the town bully vanishes on the morning of the state fair, the search for him uncovers more than one secret - and puts his least likely rescuer on the trail.

1 of 2 0122 Castles and Cauldrons A summer visit from Jimmy's cousin Len turns unsettling when the "game" packed in his suitcase demands secrecy, incantations, and total trust.

2 of 2 0123 Castles and Cauldrons When Jimmy's out-of-town cousin introduces him to a fantasy role-playing game that demands ever-deeper commitment, the line between make-believe and something far darker begins to blur.

Featured characters

Minor characters & crew 1 more roles

1 supporting role

Jessie Morales Erin Morales

Made by

Chris Anthony Host Paul McCusker Writer · Director Bob Luttrell Sound Designer · Producer Chuck Bolte Executive Producer

The story

Read the full synopsis 3 min

Jimmy Barclay's day goes sideways before it even begins. On his way out the door to school, his father stops him for a talk, holding up an envelope he has found in the mailbox that morning - an envelope covered in little hand-drawn hearts. George Barclay is delighted, teasing his son about being a heartbreaker and promising a serious man-to-man conversation that evening. Jimmy is horrified. The note is from Jessie Morales, and as far as Jimmy is concerned, life would be a great deal simpler without girls in it at all.

At lunch, Jimmy tells Curt Stevens about the note. Curt, who has received a mushy note of his own that morning and handed it back with chewing gum stuck inside, has one piece of advice and only one: tell her to get lost and then throw mud on her. It has always worked for him. Jimmy knows that is not the way to treat anybody, but Curt keeps calling him chicken, and Jimmy leaves the cafeteria without saying a word to Jessie.

Jessie, meanwhile, has been nursing a milkshake for an hour at Mr. Whittaker's shop, waiting for Jimmy to walk in. Connie Kendall guesses the truth right away, though Jessie insists that what she feels is far too serious to be called a crush. She is a poet, after all, and besides the mailbox note she has already slipped a stack of poems and sonnets into Jimmy's desk. Connie offers advice from her own experience: ignore him. Once a boy notices you are not paying attention, she says, he will follow you around like a puppy. And whatever you do, do not be obvious.

Outside the shop, Jimmy and Curt run into Eugene Meltsner, who is busy arming the burglar alarm he has invented for his bicycle. Eugene listens to the problem and diagnoses a textbook adolescent crush, then prescribes reverse psychology. Jimmy should walk Jessie to the gazebo in the park and tell her he is deeply in like with her and wants her to be his steady girl. Nothing, Eugene explains, will send a girl running faster than getting exactly what she thinks she wants. Jimmy, who first has to ask what a gazebo is, decides to try it.

The plan goes wrong in every possible way. Jessie is busy ignoring Jimmy when he asks her to walk to the park, and she is so thrilled by his speech at the gazebo that she runs home to copy every word into her diary. A week later Jimmy cannot fit his books into his desk for all the poems, the other boys tease him when Jessie brings flowers to his softball game, and he is worn out from hiding.

Mr. Whittaker finds the two boys looking miserable and puts them to work on his latest invention, an automatic ice cream sundae maker called the super scooper. As they hand him pliers and a screwdriver, he suggests that being liked is actually a compliment, then admits something surprising: he does not know a simple answer. There are no tidy rules for this. Feelings are tender things, and while Jimmy should not encourage Jessie, he must not wound her either. Above all, Mr. Whittaker says, he has to be honest. Being hurt by the truth is far easier to recover from than being hurt by a lie. Then he flips the switch and the super scooper bursts into flame, and he cheerfully offers everyone a barbecued sundae.

Jimmy takes Jessie back to the gazebo, having lost a night of sleep rehearsing his honest speech - and Jessie asks to go first. Their relationship has been very special, she tells him, which is what makes it so hard to say that it is over. She likes someone else now. Could they just be friends? Jimmy agrees so quickly that he nearly gives himself away, and then, as a friend sharing a secret, he asks who the lucky boy is. Jessie names someone she admires for his intelligence, his insight, and the way he looks in a lab coat: Eugene. Jimmy walks home laughing, and Jessie decides that boys are simply very weird.