The Mansion [Part 1]

When I was a teenager (which was only a few years ago, if you know what I mean) I used to chill the bush that surrounded my house with a bunch of my mates. You have to understand, this was Kiwi (aka New Zealand) bush. It's not nice open space between trees, with grass and pine needles covering the ground. Instead the trees are dense and close together, vines growing over the wet slippery clay - as there is virtually no top soil.

Anyways me and my mates would usually kick back a couple beers, and occasionally goof around in someone else's property while the owners were away. More than once we got chased off by some freackin mongrel mutt that fancied taking a bite out of our arses. But that never discouraged us, as we'd just go another property the next time. We were the lords of the land. At least that's we thought, until everything changed.

It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, and the end of our last year in high school was in sight. In celebration of this I bought a couple of extra packets of beer to our chillout that afternoon. Time started to pass quickly, as it  always does when you're having a good time, and before I knew it - it was almost time for everyone to go their seperate ways. Just as the first of us were getting ready to leave, someone yelled out "Hold up guys. Let's not leave yet. Let's go to someone's property."

The voice belonged to Maria, the hottest and at the time most intoxicated girl in our group. She was a straight up gorgeous platinum blonde that wore usually only tanks tops and short shorts, which fitted her curvaceous figure like a glove.

"We've done them all" replied my best friend and wingman, Matt Caerdon "It's just boring now."

Loud discussion broke out amongst the group, everyone wanting to voice their own opinion on the subject. But amongst all the noise and discussion, it was the quietest voice amongst the group that caused everyone to be silent. A quiet voice that uttered only five words.

"We haven't done the Mansion."

The silence hovered over us all for what seemed like an eternity as we all contemplated the idea. You see "the Mansion", as we called it, was a large mansion (who would have guessed) at the furtherest edge of the bush. Not only did it physically look daunting, but getting there was even more daunting as  you had to cross a small bog and then climb a very inclined slope that was crammed with trees reaching up to the sky above. Only a couple of us had ever bothered to do it before, but none of us had trespassed there before. Funnily enough, the Mansion had always seemed a too grand and proper of a place to goof around, or at least to me it did.

The silence was broken as Maria raised her beer bottle and let out a massive "Hellz yeah!". Not everyone was as keen on the idea though. Randy, the usually quiet nerd of the group, and the one who had originally suggested the idea too, was unusually vocal in his support for the idea. Maybe he's finally trying to get his chance with Maria, I thought. The Maori twins (as I called them), Aroha and Tane, were in favour of it  as well, along with Hayato (the foreign exchange student) and Matt Caerdon.

The rest of us, including me, were undecided on it - with a few completely against it. So in the end it was put to a vote, with the majority getting their way and the rest had to tag along. The votes were cast. Hands shot up and down in favour of the different options, but it soon became clear that only one option was ever going to win.

It was settled. We were going to the Mansion.