The next day, Leland left his house without so much as a word to his grandfather. He wasn't rushing around, this time, and he did have his homework with him. Grandpa Lizard didn't say much to Leland, either. All he said was that if Leland's grades didn't shape up, he'd be on his way to military school. While he was walking to school, he was thinking about what Miss Deering and his grandfather said to him the day before. He didn't particularly want to be let back, but it looked like there was no way out, unless he started passing the tests. The homework situation was pretty easy to fix. Just so long as he didn't lose anymore assignments. But no matter how hard he studied for tests, he always blanked on them. He wondered if being sent back a grade was worse than military school.

As Leland was mulling it over, he tripped, and fell flat on his stomach. His backpack flew open, and nearly every single thing in it spilled out.

"Oh no," he groaned. "Now I'm going to be late again!"

Leland scrambled to pick up his things. He started with his homework before the wind picked up. If that happened, he knew he was one dead lizard. He shoved it in his backpack, and then started picking up his pencils. As he picked them up, he saw something on the ground. It was a funny looking coin. It was gold, and about the size of a silver dollar, but it was kind of thick, and there was a hole punched through the middle of it. It looked really old, too.

"Wow," he said, looking at it. "This is really neat. I wonder where it came from? I'll have to show it to Grandpa when I get home. He knows everything about old coins."

That happened to be true. Grandpa Lizard worked at a museum a little ways outside of Green Meadow. He was in charge of the museum's coin collection, which was worth millions. Leland put the coin in his pocket and continued picking up his school supplies. As he was putting things back into his backpack, the town clock began to chime. Leland panicked. He only had two minutes to get to school! He finished gathering up his things, and started running. He knew that no matter how fast he ran, he wasn't going to make it on school on time. But as he was running, something suddenly happened. He acquired a sudden burst of speed. He practically flew down the pathway, and skidded to a halt right at the schoolhouse door. The minute he stopped, he glanced at the town clock.

"A minute and a half to spare," he said. "Wow."

And with that, Leland walked into his classroom, on time, no less. The Get Along Gang stared at him strangely.

"Is it going to snow in July now?" Gosalyn asked.

The bell rang just then. Miss Deering walked around, and collected the homework. Leland pulled his out of his backpack, and handed it in.

"I see you have your homework this time," Catchum said.

"I had it yesterday," Leland said.

"Yeah, sure," Catchum said.

Leland didn't say anything else. Once Miss Deering collected everyone's homework, she went to the front of the blackboard and wrote the three words that grade school students fear the most:

POP QUIZ TODAY

Everyone let out groans. Gosalyn banged her head against her desk. Bingo began to panic. Every kid in the class shouted a disapproval about it. Miss Deering ignored the groaning and complaining, and passed out the quiz papers. Everyone got started. Leland looked at his paper, and gulped. This was going to kill him. He might as well just have started packing for military school then and there. He sighed, and decided to just answer the questions on the quiz anyway. So, he began writing things down on the paper.

After lunch, the kids filed outside for gym class. They were playing baseball. Gosalyn took her position on the pitcher's mound, and waited. Leland was first up to bat on his team.

"Everybody move in!" Gosalyn shouted.

Leland gulped, and held the bat. He had never hit the ball out of the infield in his life. He usually struck out. Gosalyn pitched the ball, and Leland swung at it.

CRACK!

The ball connected with the bat in such force, the ball sailed straight over the fence. It was gone! Leland hit it so hard, it looked like it flew straight into the next county!

"Whoa!" Gosalyn shouted.

"A home run!" Montgomery shouted, like he couldn't believe it.

"He hit it harder than Portia's ever hit it when we play baseball!" Zipper exclaimed.

Leland couldn't believe it, either. He just stood there at home plate, gaping. He didn't bother to round the bases. After awhile, the teams switched sides. Leland was never that good a fielder, either, which was why he was always stuck out in left field. But today, every time he picked up the ball, he practically hurled it. He threw it to Catchum as Zipper was rounding third and on his way to home plate.

WHACK!

"Ow!" Catchum shouted when he caught the ball. "Hey, Leland, watch it!"

"You're out, Zipper," Montgomery said.

"How'd you . . . ." Zipper started to say. He looked at Leland, who just shrugged. Nobody could believe it.

Another shock came to the class when they got back to the classroom that day. Miss Deering was handing pack the pop quiz from that morning.

"Very good, Montgomery," she said. "You only missed one question."

"Montgomery always gets A's," Woolma said. She had gotten a B-plus on her quiz, but she was happy with it.

Dotty got an A-minus, Zipper a B-plus, Gosalyn got a C, and Bingo got a C-minus.

"Hey, this is better than the D-minus I always get!" he shouted. "Thanks, Miss Deering!"

Miss Deering handed Catchum's quiz back. He got a D-minus, but he wasn't so surprised. He always got D-minuses on tests. It was nothing new to him. He just shoved it into his desk. It was probably never going to see the light of day again.

"Well, Leland, I can honestly say I'm surprised," Miss Deering said, as she handed Leland his test back. Leland took it, expecting an F written on it. To his surprise, he had gotten an A-plus on it! A perfect score no less!

"A perfect score?" he asked.

"Yes, the highest grade in the class," Miss Deering said.

"Leland got a better score than Montgomery?" Bingo shouted, incredulously. "I can't believe it!"

"What'd you do, Leland?" Catchum asked. "Cheat?"

"No," Leland said. "Honest, I didn't. But . . . . wow, I don't understand how I . . . . thanks, Miss Deering!"

The Get Along Gang glanced at each other. This completely blew them out of the water. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. It didn't matter to Leland. Just so long as it wasn't an F! After school, the Get Along Gang headed for their clubhouse, talking about what had happened in school that day.

"How in the world did Leland get a perfect score on a pop quiz?" Zipper asked. "And Montgomery missed one question!"

"Usually, it's Montgomery who gets the perfect scores," Dotty replied. "I just don't get it."

"Maybe Leland had an off day or something," Gosalyn said, shrugging. "Did you guys see him during gym class today?"

"I know," Bingo said. "He usually strikes out. And when he throws, it only goes like two inches."

"Let's forget about it," Montgomery said. "I don't know how it happened, either, but I'm not going to worry about it."

The others shrugged, and walked to the clubhouse.

In the meantime, Leland was walking back home, thinking about all that happened that day. How he made a perfect score on a pop quiz, and hit a home run during gym class. He couldn't figure it out. As he was thinking about it, Catchum came up to him.

"You know, everybody's wondering how in the world you got that home run during PE," he said.

"I don't know how it happened, either," Leland shrugged. "It just did, that's all."

Catchum rolled his eyes. He picked up his backpack, and walked off, leaving Leland just standing there. Leland shrugged, and walked home. He took the coin he found out of his pocket, and just stared at it.

"Maybe this is a good luck charm," he said. "I don't know how else I could have gotten a perfect score on a pop quiz."

Leland put the coin back in his pocket, and pulled his house key out of the other pocket. He opened the door and walked inside. The house was empty. Grandpa Lizard was probably at the museum or something. Leland sat down at the kitchen table and started to do his homework. He was still working on it when his grandfather came home.

"Working on your homework I see," he said.

"Yep," Leland replied. "I'm just about finished, though."

"Good. So how was school?"

"Miss Deering gave us a pop quiz. I have it right here."

Leland pulled the quiz out of his backpack and handed it to his grandfather. Grandpa Lizard looked it over, and his eyes nearly popped right out of his head. He put the paper down, took off his bifocals, and cleaned them.

"A perfect score?" he asked. "Well, that's more like it, boy!"

"I'm still kind of surprised," Leland admitted. "I never get scores like this on tests!"

"That's for sure," Grandpa Lizard said. "You didn't change your grade on this, did you?"

Somehow, Leland had a feeling his grandfather was going to ask him that. He went back to his homework, but suddenly remembered the coin he found.

"Grandpa!" he called. "I want to show you something I found on the way to . . . . ."

Before Leland could finish his sentence, the phone rang. Grandpa Lizard picked it up.

"Hello," he said. "What do you mean you didn't get the complete collection? Some missing, eh? Oh all right. I'll be right down."

Grandpa Lizard hung up the phone, and began mumbling under his breath.

"Dadburn delivery people," he grumbled. "Can't do anything right down there. Back in my day . . . . ."

"What's going on, Grandpa?" Leland asked.

"The museum was supposed to get some new coins today," Grandpa Lizard said. "They just called to say not all of them showed up. I gotta go down there and see what's what. Dadgum computerized inventory . . . . . must be something wrong with the system. We didn't even have these newfangled computerized gadgets back in my day!"

Grandpa Lizard left, still mumbling about "the old days." Leland always had to wonder why his grandfather always talked like an old prospector.

Later, Leland was perusing his comic book collection, when his grandfather came home from the museum. Leland knew he couldn't yell at him. He had already done his homework.

"Reading those comic book again?" he asked. He looked around the room. "Just look at this pig sty. Is it any wonder you can't find your homework in the morning? It's a wonder you can find anything in here! You put that comic book away and clean up this mess!"

"Okay, Grandpa," Leland said, putting his comic book down. He hated cleaning his room. But he figured he might as well just do it now and get it over with.

Grandpa Lizard left Leland to do his work. And Leland knew he couldn't hide the mess under the bed. He had a lot of junk under there already. As he was contemplating doing that, he heard Grandpa Lizard yell at him from across the hall.

"And don't forget to clean under your bed!" he shouted. "You can't hide that mess under there! You've got too much stuff under there already!"

"I wonder how he does that," Leland said. "Boy, this is going to take all night."

Leland figured he might as well start by cleaning under his bed. Most of the mess under there was tests, papers, and projects from school, most of which got failing marks. Not to mention some killer dust bunnies. It appeared he hadn't cleaned out under his bed since kindergarten! He sighed, and got down to get under his bed. He pulled out most of the junk under it, and had a major run in with a dust bunny the size of a baseball. He ended up sneezing when he came in contact with it, but the sneeze also blew the papers and dust out from under the bed. Leland crawled out from under his bed and just stared. He wondered how that happened. Nobody can sneeze that hard. He decided not to wonder about it for long. He had to finish cleaning his room before he could get back to his comic book, and since that was going to take awhile, he decided to just get going. He walked to the other side of his room and opened his toy box. Then he began throwing his toys into it, at an alarmingly fast pace. Then he moved to the rest of the stuff in the room. In ten seconds flat, the room was spotless. That was a new record for Leland! Not even Grandpa Lizard could believe it when he came in to see how he was doing. He even checked under the bed to make sure he didn't shove everything under it.

"I don't know how you did it, but you did it," he said.

Leland just shrugged. As he was getting ready for bed, he thought about what had happened during the day. He had only two minutes to get to school the day before, and when he ran, he made it in ten seconds. He also cleaned up his room in ten seconds, and it normally would have taken him all night to finish up. He got a perfect score on a pop quiz, something he had never done before, and he had gotten a home run in gym class. He wondered how in the world he could have done that. Then he remembered something from one of his comic books. He practically ran into his bedroom, and dug through his box of comics, looking for it.

"Here it is," he said. "Super Croc, issue one."

Leland sat down on his bed, and began turning the pages in his comic book, to find exactly what he was looking for.

"Average citizen, Al E. Gator found a strange glowing rock on the ground on his way to work one day," he read. "He picked it up, and realized he was going to be late for work, and he ran, making it there in two seconds. Let's see here . . . . I know it's in here . . . . ah ha! Here it is. Al walked off a cliff and started to fall, but as he was falling, he began to fly, all thanks to the strange rock. That's when he decided to use his strange powers for good, becoming Super Croc! That's kind of like what happened to me. If that coin is anything like that rock that Super Croc found . . . . "

Leland thought it over. He decided there was only one way to find out if the coin he found was anything like the rock that Al E. Gator in his comic book found. He had to find out if the coin would give him the ability to fly. And that wasn't going to be easy. He knew it was too risky to climb up onto the roof and jump off, especially if the coin didn't have any special powers. He also knew it was too risky to test his theory in broad daylight as well. Finally, he decided to sneak out to the swimming hole in the swamp that very night.

At midnight, Leland took a flashlight and the coin, and snuck out of his house, quietly. He knew his grandfather was an extremely heavy sleeper, but why take chances? Once he reached the swimming hole, he climbed up a large, old tree. There was a branch on it the Get Along Gang used as a diving board when they went swimming, but Leland wasn't going to use that particular branch. It wasn't high enough for his test. Once he climbed high enough, he looked down, and took a deep breath.

"Well, here goes nothing," he said.

Leland jumped off the branch, and fell. He was about to hit the water when suddenly, he went upward, instead of downward. He flew around for awhile, pleased with everything that was happening. That coin he found gave him all the super powers Super Croc had.

"Boy, wait until I tell Catchum!" he shouted, as he landed. "He'll never believe it!"

Leland started running back home, and then realized something. He knew Catchum pretty well. If he told him about that coin he found, Catchum would most likely take it from him to cash in on it, if it was worth anything, or use it to give himself super powers. Then he would probably go wreak havoc with them. And Leland knew if he told his grandfather, he'd most likely take away his comic books, saying that he's been reading too many of them. So he decided to keep this under wraps.