We were driving around the same neighborhood as the treehouse we went to, and we kept seeing all these abandoned schools with graffiti all over them, so we stopped at one. The fence was torn down so we could just walk right in, no problem. We sketched around outside for a bit; there was a lot of really awesome graffiti on the walls all the way up to the third floor, so we knew there was a way to get up there. We tried the fire escapes, but the first level had been blocked off so people couldn't get up them. The windows on the first floor all had these ridiculous, alarm system, cover-type things, also. So I went up this outside stairwell, because one of the walkways had a covering that ran in-between the stairwell and the second level of the fire escape. I thought maybe if I could jump over the side of the stairs, even though it was taller than me, then I could try to walk across the covering and lean over and get on the second level of the fire escape. I was kind of scared, though, because the walkway's covering had fallen down in one part, and I thought it might collapse on me. So I went really slowly, grabbing onto the wall the whole time in case it fell haha. I had to step on these little pipes once I got to the end of the covering and climb over the side of the fire escape. I hesitated for a couple of minutes just kind of laughing with Cora at myself, because this was totally ridiculous, and I had no idea if I was going to be able to get back down. (If I ended up having to jump off the fire escape, I would have broke something for sure.) But I said, "Oh, what the hell," and went for it. Everything ended up being fine, and I climbed up the rest of the fire escape. There was a screen open on the third level that I went into. Cora followed me in a few minutes later.
We just creeped around for a bit on the third floor. The place was so eerie/awesome.
After we had gone in basically all the rooms on that floor, we heard a police siren outside. I didn't think much of it, but Cora was worried. So I told her to chill, and we'll go see if we can see a car outside or something. I figured since it was in a bad neighborhood, the siren didn't have anything to do with us.
But I was wrong. Dumb me had tripped the alarm when I went downstairs to check out the other floors. We heard this voice over some speaker system say, "Come out slowly. Other officers are on their way."
So we bolted.
It was the funniest thing ever... Cora and I were literally running up the stairs, out of the school, and down the fire escape. Cora lost her shoe and asked me to get it, but I kind of left her for dead. I'm a bad friend, whatever, but there was no way I was going to jail haha. We basically threw all caution to the wind and, after jumping back over the side of the fire escape, ran over the half-collapsed covering, jumped back over the stairwell and ran the fuck down the street. As we were running, I saw a police car pulling up on the other side of the cross-street behind us. We ended up stopping in front of this church, and we could hear the sirens down the block. Cora said some old lady saw us, but that's it. Three other cop cars passed us while we were on our way to the tree house, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible... I wound up with scratches all over my legs, but I have no idea how I got them. I think adrenaline wipes your memory.
