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

Chapter 2: "Anything to Win"

Technically, it wasn't a monkey, it was a chimpanzee.

Most people don't realize they're two different things, but I don't want to get all sciency on you, and that's not really important now anyway. The point is, after years of trying – and failing – to out-science me all the time, Gert von Brugen decided she'd try to out-campaign me.

And it was working because once Gert started dragging her new chimp out on the campaign trail, everybody stopped paying attention to Chip and started paying attention to the chimp!

"Don't monkey around," Gert bellowed from a bullhorn, "vote for Gert!" Marching up and down the school hallways, she chanted, "Down with Chip! Up with chimp!" She even had the poor chimp walk all over school with a sandwich board that read, "A vote for von Brugen is a vote for paw and order!"

Gert even had posters plastered everywhere: "Go bananas! Vote for Gert!" "I'd swing from the trees to vote for von Brugen!" "Find the missing link – in the voting booth! Vote for Gert!"

And Gert used the chimp to attack our campaign too. Whenever Chip and I did a rally, Gert would set the chimp loose, and everybody would fawn all over him, totally ignoring Chip!

So I decided to have Chip go full-goofball up on stage, trying anything to hold people's attention. He ate apple cores. He did underarm farts. He even squirted different kinds of milk out of each nostril (skim milk out of the left side, chocolate milk out of the right).

That's right, we got right down there in the dirt to get a few extra votes.

But it was no use. We were plummeting in the polls. It seemed that all the students of Vortville Middle School wanted was a mindless distraction, not bold new ideas – or even underarm farts.

Finally, it was election day. Chip and I were desperate. It looked like it was going to be a washout. So we decided to pull out all the stops: We would use the C.H.I.P. in Chip's tooth to wow the crowd! It was time for the Computerized Heroic Incredible Person microthingy to help us pull in some votes.

I didn't want Chip turning into the hero guy, but, if you remember, the C.H.I.P. can also program Chip to do simple stuff like throw a strike in bowling or dance the Watusi. So I had Chip strut through the crowd at lunchtime, switching him from one skill to the next every ten seconds.

He rode a BMX bike up the hallway walls.

He sang the aria from Madame Butterfly.

He even recited the value of pi to 97 decimal places!

I figured that would clinch the skater/biker vote, the drama geek vote and the math nerd vote, all crucial to our success.

But, I know, we were taking chances here. Some people probably wondered how Chip could pull off all this amazing stuff. And Gert was getting very suspicious and angry. Her chimp was no match for Chip's sudden display of athletic skills, talent and pure brain .

So, when everybody eventually headed into the voting booths, nobody was really sure who was going to win. Chip and I just hoped people would be reasonable and vote for Chip. After all, one could only imagine the reign of terror that awaited us if Gert were to become our next Student Body President. With the chimp at her side, she'd go power mad and turn the school into her very own wild kingdom!

And what would become of Chip and me? We'd be banished to the janitorial closet, left to cower in the darkness, unable to show our faces in class lest we be pelted with rotten bananas by Gert's fanatical chimp.

Finally, the results came in. Was Vortville Middle School to be saved, or was it destined to become the ultimate banana republic? Chip and I listened with rapt attention as the announcement came over the P.A. system: "And the next Student Body President of Vortville Middle School is... Pick M'Nose!"

Chip and I looked at each other, stunned. "I didn't even know he was running," said Chip.

I shook my head. "There is no Pick M'Nose. It's a joke name! It's just a bunch of people writing in 'Pick M'Nose' on the ballot! And once the school realizes that, they'll have to make the second place winner president, which is me! I mean, you!"

But I was wrong. Sure, "Pick M'Nose" was a joke write-in candidate. But it turned out there was actually a kid named Pik Manose at school! "That's right!" said Chip. "He's in my beginners woodworking class. He's an exchange student from Holland."

And so Pik Manose became the next Student Body President of Vortville Middle School! People didn't actually vote for him, but he won anyway.

Chip and I were down in the dumps and ashamed. Both Gert and I had dumbed down the student voters so much that they ended up voting for a childish pun instead of one of us.

But Gert wasn't depressed or ashamed. She was furious. She'd been waiting her whole life to best me at something, and she blew it – again.

So she decided to forget about politics and double down on her efforts to beat me at the next science fair.

And, unbeknownst to Chip and me, she had just the secret weapon to do it with.