Writing Exercise. What do you think?

This is just a little writing exercise from today, and I'm interested to see what people think. Do you like it or not, what parts seem weird or sound awkward, or what parts are interesting or intriguing. I'm trying to learn how to judge my own writing's weaknesses and strengths, and any opinions would be welcome! Thanks B&A!

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Our house is old. Not fun old or vintage old. It’s f*cking old. Falling apart, smelly and it’s all we can afford. The only person I can invite over without being embarrassed is Jill, because she lives in a trailer with her grandma and really can’t judge me.

Today, Jill and I were going to sit out in the sun and read magazines in our bathing suits. Of course, it started pouring rain and hasn’t stopped for three hours and the power’s gone out. We stare out my bedroom window like those kids from Cat in the Hat, making clouds on the glass with our breath and drawing hearts and flowers with our fingers.

“Do you still have that Mall Madness game?” Jill asks.

“Mall Madness? What are you, twelve years old?”

“Come on Alisha. My grandma’s not picking me up for another hour and a half and I’m bored!”

I hate that. I don’t want to be The Boring Friend. Even though I’m pretty sure Mom sold Mall Madness at a garage sale, I stand up, stretch my back, grab the cinnamon apple candle from Bath & Body Works and lead the way to the attic.

Technically, I’m not supposed to go up into the attic, ever since that one day when I misstepped and plunged my foot through the insulation in Mom and Dad’s bathroom ceiling. But I was clumsy back then, and I’m not as scared of their threats to ground me as I used to be.

Jill’s asthma starts acting up the instant we get to the top of the attic stairs, and she whips out her inhaler and takes a few hits. The cinnamon apple candle is surprisingly bright, or maybe our eyes are just getting used to the darkness. We walk across the beams to the far end of the huge, dusty attic, to where there’s an actual floor. There are a few boxes of old stuff here. Baby photos, my first pair of shoes, my mom’s old sewing machine. Jill grabs a Good Housekeeping magazine from the 1980s and plops into the wooden rocking chair to read it as I dig through a box.

“Oh my god, look at their shoulder pads!” she squeals. I hold up the candle and giggle at the big-haired models with jeans pulled up to their belly buttons. Jill rocks backward and a loud snapping noise makes us both freeze.

“What’d you do?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Did I rock onto something?”

She leans forward, bringing the curved legs of the chair with her. The candlelight reveals a broken slab of wood on the ground.

“Get up,” I tell her. “There’s something here.”

Jill pulls the rocking chair out of the way so I can see better. The piece of wood is like a latch to a trapdoor. I didn’t know there were two ways to get into our attic.

“It must lead into my parents closet,” I say, trying to envision the layout of the second floor below us. But that can’t be right. I look over to the patched-up hole in the middle of the attic where their bathroom is, and their closet is right next to that.

“Open it!” Jill says. “It’ll be like opening the hatch on Lost.”

I never watched Lost so I don’t know what she’s talking about. All I know is that this could keep me from being The Boring Friend, so I pull the rest of the broken latch away from the trapdoor and pull it open.