I hit pause and put down my controller. The family room rug felt thick and cushiony as I leaned back and took a deep breath. I wriggled my fingers to loosen them up. It was time to face the boss level, and I wanted to be ready.

I needed to beat Zule, King of the Space Squids. If he was anything like his crab sister Zalla, from the previous level of UnderSpace, beating him would not be easy. That’s what made it fun.

“Carlos!” Mom called. “Dinner in five minutes!”

Ugh. How could I possibly beat Zule in five minutes? I only had twenty harpoons and three asteroid pearls. My life force was dangerously low. Still, I had to try. I picked up the controller and pushed “X” to resume. Zule appeared on the screen. There were tentacles. A lot of tentacles.

I pushed “Z” so fast my finger started to cramp. Harpoons were launching everywhere. Zule hardly seemed to notice. I hit “A” to fire an asteroid pearl from my blaster. Whoosh! Direct hit.

“Carlos, dinner time!” I thought I heard Mom calling again.

“Just a minute, Mom!” I started to yell. But before I could get the words out, everything went black.

I blinked. Still black. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I lifted my hands up to touch my face and hit something hard. Like a helmet. A SeaSpace helmet. What was happening? Whatever it was, it was scary. Scary and awesome.

I felt around on the side of the helmet until my fingers hit a switch. Suddenly my vision cleared and I could take a breath. Phew.

Actually not phew. Because what I saw was definitely not a relief. It was a tentacle. I reached my hand around to the back of my SeaSpace suit. Only one harpoon left. I decided to use my two remaining asteroid pearls first, to try to do the most damage.

I lifted my blaster and fired the pearls. Whoosh! Whoosh! They flew out so fast they knocked me over. But Zule looked weak. I could see his squid eye staring at me. Then I could see his tentacle raise up to strike.

Now was the moment. I had to launch my last harpoon straight to his eye. No second chances. I hoped that would defeat him. And I really hoped that defeating him would send me back to the family room. If not, I’d have to come up with another plan. I hoped Mom wouldn’t mind if I was late for dinner.