“My dad’s not going to eat me!” Amber protested, freeing herself from the grappling hook and leaping to her feet. Spynosaur loomed over her, claws and teeth bared. “Right, Dad…?”

“Silly sidekick, there is no ‘Dad’!” screamed Ergo Ego. “There is only Spynosaur, my slave!”

Spynosaur roared in Amber’s face, his hot breath stinging her eyes. Then he reared back … and struck.

“LAST-MINUTE CHEWING GUM SPLIT-SECOND LIMBO MANOEUVRE!” Amber cried, leaning backwards until her head nearly touched the floor.

Spynosaur’s jaws clamped shut inches from her face with a SNAPP!

“SCRAMBLED EGG WHIRLWIND WET-TOWEL DEVASTATING HUMMINGBIRD ATTACK!” Amber yelled. She dropped on to her hands and spun her legs in the air, landing both feet hard on the side of her dad’s head.

screamed an enraged Spynosaur.

Amber saw a blur of movement as her dad’s huge tail rushed towards her. Her last thought as she was knocked unconscious was of her dad – not as he was now, but as he was a year ago, on that fateful day when everything changed…

“Dad!”

Amber woke with a start and looked around. She was in Ergo Ego’s inner sanctum. Spynosaur’s blow had sent her skidding under the stone table. She winced silently as she tried to move. Then she heard the CLIK-CLAK of her father’s toe-claws tapping on the ground. He snorted loudly, sniffing the air. She saw his shadow on the ground. A moment later a claw grabbed the edge of the table and flung it into the air.

growled Spynosaur, head low and jaws snapping. Only his eyes betrayed his desperation.

“Snap out of it! Come back to me, Dad!” Amber pleaded, trying to drag herself across the floor. But Spynosaur stopped her in her tracks by pressing a great clawed foot on her back. “I lost you once when you got shot into the moon! I don’t want to lose you again… Please, come back!”

“Enough! Ego says, finish her!” Ergo Ego ordered.

Amber closed her eyes. Then, as her dad’s jaws opened, his razor-sharp teeth glinting, Amber had an idea. It was such a horrible idea that she immediately tried to banish it from her head.

“Please don’t make me do it,” she whispered to herself. “Please don’t make me do it, please don’t make me do it, please don’t make me do it…”

But she knew she had no choice. She had one chance to save herself. One chance to save her father…

…And it would be the most embarrassing thing EVER.