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

Chapter 30: "The Hero Guys"

I'm not a big fan of parades, but when the parade is for me and Chip, I think it's great!

Unlike before, when we saved Vortville from Seth Mindwarp's Freaky Fuzzies and Dr. Eelstrom's big flood, everybody now knew that the hero guy was really C.H.I.P., and C.H.I.P. was really Chip, and that I invented the C.H.I.P. microthingies. It was so cool for Chip and I to finally be able to celebrate our accomplishments in public, riding down the street, waving to our screaming fans like a mayor or beauty queen or something.

Mayor Mooney was actually there too, soaking up all the attention, pretending that he didn't, just a few days ago, try to sell out his town to C.H.I.M.P. and give him first pick at donuts on casual Fridays. And, speaking of beauty queens, Carla was in the car with us, smiling and waving. She was part of the C.H.I.P. team now, which really blew my mind. Maybe now she'd tape some news photos of me instead of just C.H.I.P. in her locker at school. (Hey, a guy can dream!)

Stella rode with Dad and his men in their Humvee right behind us. Stella enjoyed the attention a little too much. As she waved to the crowd, she crowed, "I'm the most important part of the C.H.I.P. team 'cause I run everything back at HQ! Without me, everything would go kablooey!" And Dad, for his part, was still upset that he wasn't able to make anything go kablooey during C.H.I.M.P.'s attack. But I held out hope that this might be the turning of a new page for McKrakken Security Systems. Maybe their new slogan could be, "Now saving all of Vortville instead of just half of it during wacky bad guy attacks!"

As for Gert, she'd wanted to take part in the parade, but the mayor didn't think it would be a great idea. She argued that she was the one who slipped on C.H.I.M.P.'s cone-of-shame "crown" in the end, but the fact that she created C.H.I.M.P. in the first place kind of put a damper on the idea that she was a hero and all.

But, back at school, Gert and I remained new friends - or friendly rivals, I guess. We were once again the top contenders at the next science fair. This time she was trying to get a ferret to talk - without the help of any C.H.I.P. microthingy. It didn't go too well. I think someone had told her that you could get a parrot to talk, and she'd misheard them, thinking they'd said "ferret" instead.

My experiment actually involved language too, but I used Chip as my subject. I was trying to teach him sign language, just like Gert had earlier tried to teach C.H.I.M.P. But my project didn't go too well either. I didn't want to use the C.H.I.P. microthingy - I felt that would be cheating - and Chip's fingers were just too chubby for him to be able to sign anything that made sense.

In the end, we both lost. Neither Gert nor I were very happy about that because, you know who won? Pik Manose! Being from Holland, he made his own working mini-windmill, and it was strong enough to power a tiny light bulb. I thought this was bogus because he had to use a big electric fan to get the windmill to turn, and the electricity needed to power that fan could probably have powered a hundred of those little light bulbs. But, I guess, since both Gert's and my experiments were such a bust, he couldn't help but win. It was a lot like when we'd both lost to him for Student Body President, but even more humiliating.

But I tried not to dwell on it. After all, science fairs were just child's play compared to Chip and me now being the town's official protectors from wacky bad guys! And we'd come a long way from the start where I was just trying to get Chip to be able to do long division without his head exploding. He could now master all kinds of skills, and animal skills too!

And, speaking of animal skills, I kind of regretted that we had to shut down C.H.I.M.P. the way we did. He'd gotten totally out of hand, but I was amazed at how much the C.H.I.P. 1.0 microthingy was able to make him so smart. And that was with a damaged microthingy. Just think of what a brand new microthingy would be able to do for an animal!

So, as soon as I got home from the science fair, I got to work on yet a new evolution in C.H.I.P. technology. But this new C.H.I.P. wouldn't be used on Chip or a chimp. I was going to try it out on man's best friend! Stella had always wanted a dog, so Mom got her a cute little beagle, and she named him Spot.

But I had my own nickname for little Spot, and I made up a special collar with his nickname printed right on the front of it in big, bold letters:

C.H.A.M.P.!