get_item_quantity WordPress 2.9 error

I had the following code working fine with 2.8

<ul>
<?php
if(function_exists('fetch_feed')){
	$uri = 'http://search.twitter.com/search?q=test';
	$feed = fetch_feed($uri);
	$maxitems = $feed->get_item_quantity(2);
}
?>
<?php
//printf( $feed->get_title());
foreach ($feed->get_items(0, $maxitems) as $item){
$links = $item->get_item_tags(SIMPLEPIE_NAMESPACE_ATOM_10, 'link');
$img = $links[1]['attribs']['']['href'];
echo "<li>";
printf('<a href="%s"><img alt="%s" src="'.$img.'" /></a>',$item->get_permalink(), $item->get_title());
//printf('<h2><a href="%s">%s</a></h2>',$item->get_permalink(), $item->get_title());
echo "<p>";
printf('%s',$item->get_description());
//printf('%s',$item->get_link());
printf(' <strong>%s</strong>',$item->get_date('j F Y | g:i a'));
echo "</p>";
echo "</li>\n";
}
?>
</ul>

I upgraded to 2.9 and I get the following error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined method WP_Error::get_item_quantity() in domain\wp-content\themes\mytheme\footer.php on line 14

Any ideas?