The paint light blue paint was peeling from the weathered siding, the front window was smashed, the shards of sharp glass strewn all over the dead grass. There was a small poorly made gravel pit to the left, and in the middle, a tiny rusted fire pit. It was about three o’clock and the sun was directly behind the giant oak tree that partly engulfed the structure. Its twisted branches hanging low and casting shadows on the ground that danced in the breeze. All six of us stood in the middle of the property, staring at this old abandoned trailer house.

“Is it abandoned?” asked my friend Brendan.

All of us looked at each other and nervously shuffled towards the ancient structure. As we got closer, I pulled my old flashlight out. It was one of those really cheap ones from the dollar store.

“Oof, I hope it doesn’t die while we are inside.” I thought.

We finally reached the faded white door, my friend Jerm turned the handle and pulled, it struggled to open, the hinges squealing in pain as it slowly opened wider and wider, the warm sunlight spilling all over the floor inside. We a slowly poured into the entrance, the broken windows were boarded up with old weathered plywood. As we moved further into the entrance, a smell crawled up my nose, a sort of wet, musty odor. The odor that an old dishcloth would get after years of use. To the right of me, there was a step that led to a small pink door, the door was slightly open and it appeared to lead to the rest of the rooms in the house. My friend Sandro, who is the bravest, took the lead after he called us all “huge pussies”. He pushed the door out of the way softly and stepped into the hallway.

“Check all of the rooms, just in case if there are squatters,” my friend Sam told everyone as we moved into the hall.

There were five rooms in total. We check each starting with the one at the end of the hall. The master bedroom was completely empty, except for a few wood splinters from people attempting to smash the shelves on the far right wall. It was very cold and unnerving in that room. It always felt as the walls had eyes and were watching your every move. The next room was a child’s bedroom the floor space was completely filled with 7 red dark velvet chairs and an old bed frame made out of scrap wood. The window was boarded up but the plywood had a hole in the middle of it, casting a small but welcoming sunbeam across the room. Next to that was a closet that held the broken hot water tank, not very exciting. Stupid water tank. The bathroom was next to the water closet, and the bathroom looked as if it were out of an out of a horror movie, broken mirror, a fading turquoise tub full of garbage slightly hidden by a tattered and torn shower curtain, the walls we covered in dents and scratches and the toilet had some…questionable things in the bowl. Finally, everyone poured into the main room. The half kitchen half living room complete with tacky green couches and fading hardwood flooring. The walls had a thick layer of dust on them and the kitchen cupboards had all been damaged by vandals, kicking holes through them and tearing their doors right off the rustic hinges.

The front main window was smashed and wide open leaving us slightly exposed to the outside world but that didn’t matter, we were too invested in our new found clubhouse. We began to clean up, Brendan moved the furniture, Sandro and nick boarded up the window, sam and Jerm found some brooms out back and swept up and about a half hour later, it was all clean. As we were finishing tidying up, I came across this small piece of wallpaper, and I began drawing a penguin. Jerm peered over my shoulder and saw what I was drawing and reminded me of this show called Pengu that I used to watch. He said that in the show, the main character used to shout “noot noot” when he was happy. When he said that I noticed Brendan’s eyes lit up.

“The Noot! We could call this place The Noot!” Brendan boasted excitedly.

We then spent the next few hours goofing around, talking and overall just making a lot of noise until we eventually got bored and hungry. We sent Nick and Sandro off with some money to get us some pizza, while the rest of us helped clear the willow bush growing out of the rusty old firepit. When they got back we spent the rest of the night sitting around the fire telling stories and Little Caesars pizza. Still to this day that may have been the best day of my life.

This winter I ventured through the deep snow to check up on The Noot. After trudging through two-foot deep snow for nearly ten minutes, I had arrived to see that some other kids broke in, stole what was valuable and broke and vandalized the rest. I entered to see an entire interior wall missing and everything covered in bright red and green spray paint. When I first saw this, my heart sunk and a got a little lump in my throat because I didn’t want to lose this place to some jerk kids. So I’ve vowed that over my last summer, I’m gonna clean it up and make it a special place for my friends again.

 

UPDATE

It was demolished by some asshole who thinks a church is more important than my friends hangout. so now we are all really sad. more than we usually are.