MY BEST FRIEND IS A SECRET AGENT: How Chip Became C.H.I.P. and Foiled the Freaky Fuzzy Invasion
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10-year-old Nort McKrakken is a pint-sized computer...
Now came the hard part: Getting my dad to put Chip on his commando team.
The first thing I had to do was give Chip a new name when the C.H.I.P. micro-thingy was working. Then I realized – how about "C.H.I.P."? I mean, it was a Chip's name anyway, andwritten in all capitals and periods, it looked kind of secret-agenty.
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I was hoping Dad would think a programmable secret agent named C.H.I.P. was a cool thing for your kid to invent. But I mainly wanted to get C.H.I.P. working before the next crazy bad guy attacked.
Okay, I'm going to jump ahead a bit here and just say that it didn't exactly work. When my dad starts hearing people talk about science and computers and stuff, he kind of zones out. "Some in my line of work go for all those computing machines and fancy doodads, but in my book, nothing beats boots on the ground!" he said while doing fifty one-handed pushups.
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I tried to get him to listen: "But I invented something nobody else in the world has invented! It's the next step in national security! It's the next step in evolution!"
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But he just told me to go do my homework. I told him I'd finished my homework for the whole school year already, and it was only October. "Then you have time to train for football tryouts. It builds discipline!"
I could see I wasn't getting anywhere with Dad.
The next day, I just hung out with Chip all day, trying out different skills with the C.H.I.P. he still had on his tooth. I got him to break down the ingredients of the sloppy joes in the cafeteria with just one taste. (Who knew they had so much sodium nitrate?)
