When Alfalfa, Spanky, Buckwheat, and Porky become bored with school; they decide to fake an illness for the next day and leave a note on their teacher Miss Lawrence's desk so that they could go to the circus, which they had just seen arrive in town. But when Miss Lawrence reveals that she plans on taking the class to the circus the next day, Spanky tries to hurry back in the school to retrieve the note, but Porky and Buckwheat return and lock the door behind them before Spanky is able to make it to the door. Now with no way to get back in the school, the boys decide to sneak into the school later that night to recover the note. What follows is a series of scared chaos that the boys and the school's janitor encounter.
The boys did succeed in recovering the note; however, in the final scene, each of the four boys are shown in a four-way split-screen taking a cold medicine the next morning as their mothers declare in unison, "For the last time, you can't go to school today," indicating that the disappointed boys are now really sick and cannot go to school on the day of the circus.
What did the boys succeed in recovering?
the note