MY BEST FRIEND IS A SECRET AGENT, Book 3: How C.H.I.P. Took on C.H.I.M.P. and...

Chapter 15: "Into the Darkness"

We headed out in the C.H.I.P.-mobile to track down C.H.I.M.P., but, this time, it was going to be animal vs. animal!

"Can I be a snake, Nort?" Chip asked enthusiastically. "Or how about a lion? It'd be really cool to be a lion!"

I explained to him that male lions sleep eighteen hours a day and pretty much sit around the remaining six. But that just made Chip want to be a lion more.

"Oh, and I also want to be a woodpecker! Or a dragonfly. Or a robot!"

I told Chip that robots weren't living creatures. But it did get me thinking about my next possible invention: The C.H.I.P.-obot! Oh well, maybe for the next wacky bad guy attack.

But we were facing some problems: Even though I was using the Hedge Hacker, the jungle had become so dense, it was very slow going. The place had really taken on a life of its own now. I mean, not only were there more jungle animals all around, the people of Vortville were forced to adapt to jungle life as well.

Especially my dad. He was a little late off the block in going after C.H.I.M.P. because he couldn't accept that an animal could be a wacky bad guy. Also, C.H.I.M.P. had just saved the town from Seth Mindwarp. How could he go from good to bad so quickly?

But once Dad finally realized that Vortville was truly in danger, he jumped right into action. And since the city had suddenly become a jungle, that meant Dad and his team would have to go survivor mode! They suited up in camouflage and painted their faces green. Holding Bowie knives in their teeth, they crawled along the jungle floor, trying to find C.H.I.M.P. by sniffing for chimp poop. And if Dad and his men got hungry, they just roasted up a giant jungle cockroach or two. Yum!

Meanwhile, my mom stayed back home taking the total opposite approach. She was thrilled we now lived in a jungle because it seemed to be a reversal of deforestation and global warming. The plants and beasts of the earth were taking back the land! And the jungle was providing for us too. All anybody had to do now was reach out their windows and pluck a banana or mango, and there was lunch! (Mom sure had better jungle food taste than Dad.)

But Chip and I weren't hungry. (We'd brought a week's worth of my mom's chocolate chip cookies to snack on.) What we needed was to find C.H.I.M.P. and figure out some way to reverse the C.H.I.M.P.-ification of Vortville.

Stella was trying to track him from HQ, honing in on the C.H.I.P. 1.0 microthingy that was in his collar. But the jungle was so dense that she could barely get a signal. That made me realize the sooner I turned Chip into a jungle animal, the better. Maybe C.H.I.P. the jaguar or C.H.I.P. the toucan would be able to sniff out where C.H.I.M.P. was hiding.

But before I could decide on what to turn Chip into, we broke through some jungle growth and came upon a clearing where a lot of boys from school had gathered. But they looked a little unhinged. They were all shirtless and filthy, and they had sticks in their hair and mud rubbed all over their bodies. And when Chip and I showed up with the C.H.I.P.-mobile, they threatened to attack us with rocks and pointy sticks.

Then one boy stepped out of the crowd. He looked meaner than the rest, and the other boys clearly looked up to him. "Well, look who it is. The brainiac and his fat loser friend, Nort and Chip."

Yep. It was Corey Smertz. And, by the look in his eyes, I could tell I might have an atomic wedgie and even a nuclear noogie to look forward to in the very near future.