"Perhaps he had something to do at the stables." she thought slipping into a pair of jeans and a shirt, preparing to go down at the Tavern for some breakfast.

Trisha was looking for one of her fluffy duck slippers who seemed playing hide-and-seek every morning.

"Tadahhhhh!" she said spotting the culprit hiding near an armchair.

She looked around but no sign of Bud.

"Strange."

Laura got down the stairs hoping to find Max. She reached the Tavern but no sign of him. She saw Peaches, Trisha and some of the other guests shuffling along in their slippers, apparently looking for the Boyz.

"Hello girls," she said "Did you see Max somewhere?"

"Nope. I've lost Cort, too," Peaches answered and so did the others.

"This is a mistery." Brynn said combing her hair with sleepy fingers. "All the Boyz seemed having vanished."

"I don't think. They're probably up to something," Bugdog added "Let's look for them around."

"Not with an empty stomach." Annabella said and all the girls joined her into the kitchen.

After a luxurious breakfast and still no clue of the guys, they decided to split in different searching parties, to comb the Tavern and the surroundings. After a hour of unsuccessful researches they met again.

"Some of the cars are missing, so are all the horses and apparently also Lachlan's bike. Where heck did they go?" Peaches summarized for all of them.

While she and the other girls were shaking their heads, not knowing what to do, the first few words of "Things have got to change" came out of the PC's speakers, the signal that there was mail. Intrigued the girls went to the screen.

The message was from the Crowenest mailing-list.

"Dear Girls,

Since when Bugdog had helped us to set up a network for us and help us with new technologies, we all started to surf the net.

We discovered the Crowe-nest ML and we loved the stories you write about us, but we cannot stand this "cliffhanger" thing anymore.

Is with our lives that you're playing, so please don't go on like this. You're making us nuts.

Just to help you to finish your works, we decided to leave you alone for a while, just to let you concentrate without distractions.

For this reason we also removed all RC's movies from the Nest.

Don't follow us.

As you surely know, there are experts among us to hide traces.

Good work, Ladies.

See you soon."

The message was signed with the names of all the Boys with a small icon.

Max had a wolf, John a skate, Sid a small mirror, Cort a cross and so on.

After this there was another part of the message: "When you'll be done, just leave a message on the list....."

The girls stared dumbfounded at the screen.

"What are we going to do now?" Laura asked.

"Let's go working." Lady suggested, heading to her room to fetch her Laptop.

"I come with you," Bugdog added and all the girls hurried to find something to write on and make the Boyz come back.

Liz was at her desktop trying to put her ideas on the screen but it was useless. Terry smiled from a pic taken during their recent pic-nic and she lost herself thinking at his smile, his blue eyes looking lovingly at her. She sighed and kept staring at the white screen.

Peaches had written something but she felt like Jack Torrance at the Overlook Hotel. Pretending to write is not writing. She passed her hand into her hair and this reminded her strongly of Cort, when he did so to put his long locks from his eyes. Her thoughts wandered and her dreaming face was reflected in the screen, totally lost in her reverie.

Wrapped in a plaid shirt belonging to John, Tina was busy to finish her story. She was in the middle of a nice description when her nostrils caught the scent of Ocean that had remained on the fabric. She smiled remembering their shopping trip and this gave her more than a few ideas to continue her story.

Trisha was thoughtfully munching her pencil but her thoughts wandered. She grabbed her fluffy duck and facing the funny face of the toy asked: "Any idea, honey? I want him back." The duck didn't answer and Trisha went on biting the pencil.

Lady had put BLOC on the cd-player and she was furiously typing in time with the music. Thinking to Sid, put a wicked smile on her face.

Lisa looked at the rose that Lachlan had given her, now dried but still beautiful. She blowed a small kiss to the flower, Lachlan and Jeff and added a chapter to her story.

Bugdog's words were translated by her speak recognition system and appeared on the screen of her computer. This made her feel like Captain Kirk saying "Computer!"

"I do love technology." She thought.

A light wind passed through her open window and Laura lifted her head. The sky was deep blue, like Max' eyes and she swallowed. She got up going to the closer where she kept his fur-trimmed cloak. She passed her hands on the soft fabric and abruptly a wonderful idea surfaced to her mind. She returned quickly to her laptop to put it down before it could vanish.

NormaJean and Brynn had decided to work together and they gave each other a typing rhythm, smiling.

Wearing Hando's headsets, Stef was unaware that she was nearly shouting "If you knew what I was thinking, you'd probably drown me in what you were drinking. I'D SWIM FOR SURE, TO HOLD YOU, TO HOLD YOU." she finished with a crescendo which made her window tremble.

Wendy was in Jeffrey's office and just resting her elbows on his desk made her smile. She booted his computer and while the machine began to purr she put order in her thoughts to begin writing.

Kath was watching a western movie, her laptop on her thigs. Nothing better than a lot of horses, dust and strong men to made her think to East and provide inspiration.

Rick was around at the tavern cleaning. The place was very quiet, no music, laughters or chatting. He hoped that the girls could finish their stories soon. First he missed Jeff. Secondly - he added to himself grinning - he was curious. Just to break the silence he switched on the juke-box and Bohemian Rapsody sounded in the empty room.