The Guild's residence used to be on a quiet street.

It was decidedly not quiet today, however. Llyn heard screeching noises as she walked up to the front door and shook her head - were Alli's parrots on the loose again? Their neighbours had complained fifty thousand two hundred and seventy-three times already.

She unlocked the door with the spare key under the mat, looking around for the parrots. Stray feathers were nowhere to be seen. That was odd - she usually couldn't get through the door without being bombarded by the soft but irritatingly furry things.

In the living room, there were new covers on the pillows. Were those parrot covers? Yes, they were - velvet ones too. Perhaps they should be renamed the Guild of Parrots instead.

That was a regular occurence in the Guild, though. Just the other day, there'd been sheep in the pantry and brains out in the yard for the whole world to see.

The screeching continued. Now that she was in the house, it sounded extremely un-birdlike. She went into the kitchen and found loud music, a huge screen with a group of boys dancing, and two girls who were trying to copy it while singing at the top of their lungs. 'Hi?' she ventured.

No one heard. She tried again, louder. 'Hello!'

'Llyn!' The girl on the right noticed her first, and grinned, nudging her compatriot. 'Welcome back!'

'Uh, thanks?' She really needed to figure out what was going on before the house fell over from the booming music that shook the hardwood floors. Where was Lani when she needed her? Right, still at school. 'Who are y'all?'

'I'm Whitney and she's Ray,' the first girl - Whitney - explained. 'We're the new members of the Guild.'

At this point, the music was still blaring and it sounded very much like Korean music. Ray turned it off and smiled at Llyn innocently. 'It's nice to meet you formally.'

Llyn at last recognized the figures standing in front of her. It hadn't even been a day since the formal invitations were sent out, but the new recruits seemed to have immediately burst into the house with a bang. 'You're in my house, and by the looks of it, you've moved in too. Make yourselves at home, I guess,' she deadpanned. The screeching was still ongoing. 'What is that?'

Somewhat more softly, Whitney said, 'It's not a what, it's a who. Imogene's practising her viola.' Her eyes widened on the word viola, and she nodded slowly, as if she couldn't believe someone had decided to play the viola rather than the violin.

Llyn was too shocked at the amount of noise that resounded through the house even after the music had been turned off to process the facial expressions. Okay, so maybe there used to be an overload of brains and goats, but at least Phoebe and Sibby had been quiet. Most of the time. Counting the people in front of her, she came up two short. 'There are more of you, aren't there?'

'Yeah, Lucas is off somewhere graphic designing. I'll call them in!' Ray darted off and returned in a while with a dark-haired girl clutching a viola and the first boy they'd introduced into the Guild.

'Hi! I'm Llyn, in case you didn't know. I don't get out very much. You know how it goes, being a zombie and all that,' Llyn said. 'So which one of you was responsible for the parrot covers?'

'On the profile? Me,' Lucas said at the same time Ray said, 'I supplied the pillow covers.'

'And where are the parrots? Mya! Alli!'

Imogene shook her head. 'We've not seen anyone since we moved in, you know - it's just been us. The street's empty as well. I climbed up a tree to take a look.'

'Speaking of which, why are you here?' asked Lani, suddenly appearing beside Llyn. 'I mean, you're welcome and all, but you' - pointing at Ray - 'and you' - at Imogene - 'don't even live in America!'

'To be fair, Rachel and Steffie aren't from America either,' Llyn noted, old conversations about graham crackers and smores surfacing from a year before.

'I suppose you could say we're here on a wild parrot chase,' Imogene replied, grinning. 'As a matter of fact that's the only parrot we've seen so far. '

'And it has gone... where?'

Ray pointed out the window. 'That's all the living creatures we've seen.'

Whitney held up a Kitkat bar and said, 'Well, I don't know about Lucas, but I'm here because I'm apparently good at chasing down stray parrots in the middle of a farm.'

Llyn held up her hands, stifling a grin. 'Okay, well, I'm glad the flyers worked, at least. We've got some things to figure out though, and it seems that over half of the Guild has disappeared, along with Slackie.'

'That's right,' Jenna confirmed, walking in the door as well. 'Sorry, guys, I've been at Uni.'

Lani asked, 'You think they've been kidnapped by the terrors of school?'

'Unlikely. The Guild would still be here if that was the case.'

Well, it couldn't be their old enemy Phogystic, because he'd been here 2 years ago and he'd moved on from the Guild (which was better on their side). Really, what was up with people and kidnapping Guild members?

'Standing around here won't solve anything, I guess,' Jenna stated, surveying the room.

'No it won't. So, shall we get moving? 'We've got work to do!'