HERE ARE TWO things I hadn’t thought about when I’d insisted that the navy lend us a sub for the rescue:

1) The flock and I are just about the most claustrophobic life-forms you’ll ever meet; and

2) We would be trapped in a relatively small, airtight space withthe Gasman .

Now I was on the dock, staring at the open hatch, with its narrow ladder leading straight down.

We’d spent a lot of time on theWendy K., the research boat in Antarctica. So we knew that boat interiors were small and compact. But I hadn’t really thought about how much more compact a submarine would be.

The U.S.S.Minnesota was a really big submarine, by sub standards, but it was still smaller than, say, Disney World. Or a wide-open beach. Or a desert. Or, hey, theentire freaking sky .

“Um, Max, you gonna go?” Nudge asked. There were two officers waiting for us. The seconds were ticking by.

It looked like I’d be climbing into a huge coffin.

It felt like that too.

I could not be a total wuss in front of all these people. Especially the flock.

I flicked a glance at Fang, and his face showed me that he understood what I was feeling, but he knew

that I knew that I just had to suck it up and get on the dang sub.

I felt a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck. My throat was closing. My chest felt tight. I had an image of me trapped on the sub, under water, crying and clawing at the metal walls to get out. Oh, geez. I was wishing I hadn’t had that third espresso.

I swallowed hard and tried to draw in a breath. I remembered that we were doing this to rescue my mom, who had saved my own life more than once. I remembered that she was being held captive in a sub probably not half as nice as this one.

“It’s a sub, Max,” urged Total, who was suffering from a bad case of missing-Akila blues, “not a vat of boiling oil. Get on already, and let’s see if they have any croissants. I’m starving.”

I took a big step forward, off the dock and onto the metal walkway that led to the top of the sub, not the sticking-up part of the sub, but the topside of its nose. I don’t know the technical term.

There was an open hatch there, and I strode toward it, trying to keep abject terror from showing on my face. I began to climb down the ladder, managing a smile and a wave that I hoped was at least in the neighborhood of jaunty. Then Gazzy stepped on the walkway, followed by Total, and I knew the others weren’t far behind.

There was no going back now.

Get this: if there was nothing inside the submarine, it might not be so bad. It really was a great big one. On the outside. On the inside, it was crammed chock-full of people, walls of instruments, panels of lights and switches, huge pipes and bundles of thick cables—basically, there was hardly any room to walk. And we’re skinny.

There were not enough relaxation tapes in the world to get me through this.

Then Fang came up behind me and put his hand on my waist, just for a second. And I felt a little better.

The two officers zipped down the ladder, and one of them shouted the order to seal the hatch. Then he looked at us, these six weird, mostly tall, somewhat ungroomed children who had permission to be on a naval submarine. Plus their dog, who almost seemed like he could talk.

“Come with me,” he said. “The birds are working again.”