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

Chapter 17: "Von Brugen Stew"

Since Stella still couldn't track the C.H.I.P. 1.0 in C.H.I.M.P.'s collar, Chip and I had to just drive deeper into the jungle, looking for clues that we were getting closer to the beast.

After a while, it was hard to find evidence of our old town of Vortville at all. Everything was just pure jungle at this point. Jungle sounds echoed all around us, exotic birds and bugs flew all about. It even smelled like the jungle, hot, steamy and stinky.

Or maybe that was me. I'm lactose-intolerant, and all we had to drink were those fourteen cartons of milk.

As we traveled, I wondered what C.H.I.M.P. would be like when we found him. I mean, earlier he'd learned how to do sign language, and then he became superstrong and eventually started to grow his own jungle. Would he be even more evolved now? Would he be able to actually speak? What if he could communicate to not just humans but all the jungle animals, commanding them to do his bidding? He'd be invincible!

Gradually, I started to notice that the jungle was somehow different. We'd reached what was once downtown Vortville, will lots of tall buildings, but now the buildings were all overgrown, and they seemed like huge, vine-covered mountains. If I was a superevolved chimpanzee, the king of my own jungle, this is where I'd want to put my throne.

Suddenly, a voice in the dark: "Stop! Who goes there?"

Great, I thought. Another pack of kids who want to steal our food. "We're out of chocolate chip cookies!" I called out.

"Do you have any?" Chip pleaded to the unseen person. It was about an hour since he'd had his last one, and he was getting hungry.

"Go back!" the voice said. "There's nothing you want here! Especially if you're looking for C.H.I.M.P., our great leader. He's somewhere else!"

"Wait," I said to Chip, "I know that voice." I got out of the C.H.I.P.-mobile and crept forward with a flashlight, finally detecting a figure in the shadows. It was crouched over and scared-looking, like that Gollum guy in those movies.

"Go away!" the figure cried. But I moved closer and shone the light in the figure's eyes.

"Gert von Brugen??" I gasped.

"The light! Turn it off! Get it away from me!" Gert begged.

I turned off the light. "Gert, it's just me, Nort. And Chip's here too."

"Shhh!" she said, her gnarled index finger at her lips. "He'll hear you!"

"Who?" Chip asked.

"Leave before he gets angry!"

"Gert, what's happened to you?" I asked.

"Nothing. I'm perfectly fine!" Gert insisted. She gestured to a cubbyhole at the base of a big tree. "I sleep here. I eat here. The jungle provides all kinds of delicious food for me - twigs... moss... grubs..."

I reached up and pulled a banana from a tree right next to me. "Why not eat a banana? They're everywhere."

"NO! Not a banana!" Gert wailed. "Those're only for... him." She retreated to her cubbyhole and started stirring up something in a bowl made from a coconut shell. "Tonight, I'm having jungle cockroach stew. Would you like to join me?"

Too bad my dad wasn't around. He liked the same kind of jungle food as Gert.

"Gert, we've got to do something!" I pleaded. "Your chimp has gotten out of control!"

"No, he's in complete control," Gert said. "He's our great leader! He's our jungle king!" Then she returned to her bowl of bugs, tasting the "stew" and rubbing her chin in thought. "Needs more fire ants - for zing!"

I could see Gert wasn't going to be any help. It would be up to C.H.I.P. and me to save Vortville yet again.