My Grandmother's Attic

It's a sunny afternoon, too hot to go outside and it's boring sitting in the lounge with my beloved old grandmother. She is sipping tea and staring into the empty fireplace. So I decide to go exploring this big old house.

As I move from room to room, I just find the usual things nothing exciting yet. At the end of the long hall I start to wonder why this house doesn't have any unusual surprises being so old and all. Then all of a sudden I hear a creak from above. "What could that be?" I wonder to myself. Looking up I see a rope connected to the attic's drop down ladder. "A ha, I've found something now" I think to myself.

So I tug on the old rope but the ladder is stuck, after several attempts I swing on the rope and suddenly it comes down with a crash knocking me to the floor when it hits my head. I lay there for a few moment to regain my composure. After that I get up and start to climb, up up and ...

"WOW!" I think "Now this is what I've been looking for." As I put my foot onto the creaky old floor of the old attic. Looking around the first thing I notice is that it's not as dusty or dirty as I thought it might be, being the attic "I mean who would ever come up here?". "Oh, grandma ma, what are you hiding up here?" I whisper to myself. I step forward and look down at a strange looking old chair, after a moments pause not knowing if I should disturb anything I take a seat.

I sit facing the way I came in and to my right I notice a weird looking old typewriter. With some kind of telephone receiver connected to it and realise as I inspect the typewriter more closely that it is electric. I wonder what this device is for as I examine it I notice that some of the keys are stuck. But wait a minute there is something in the bottle behind me. I turn around and put my nose to the opening in the bottle's neck and smell oil.

"Eureka!" I've got it I'll put some oil on the stuck keys! I look under the table and see an old rag. Using the rag I apply some oil to the stuck keys in the typewriter. Then I sit and wait so that the oil can seep in and do its job. After a minute I start to wiggle the keys and Yes! they start to come loose. "I'm in luck" I say to myself as I complete resetting the weird typewriter.

"Hello my name is Thomas, how do you do?" I type on the typewriter, smiling to myself as I day dream a little. All of a sudden I hear a strange whining sound and nearly fall on the floor with shock. I look at the telephone receiver and pick it up putting it to my ear. It starts to beep ".... . .-.. .-.. --- - .... --- -- .- ..." "WHAT?!" I shout to myself. It replied to me saying "Hello Thomas" it's Morse code you see and I'm a pilot so I can understand it. I scratch my head thinking this must be some kind of telegraph machine and so I look more closely to the keys and see the Morse code above each letter, then with a start I wonder "Who am I talking to? Grandma what secrets are you hiding?"

"Who are you? Who am I talking to?" I type. "Thomas don't be alarmed but it's me your grandfather" the reply comes in. This is almost too much I rub a tear away from my eye "I thought you were dead grandpa, how can this be?"

"I guess the secrets out" he says "I've been sent away on a special mission and no one was supposed to know so your grandmother told everyone I went away one day and just disappeared."

"So that's why grandma was not sad you were gone because you are still here, somewhere ..."

"Can you keep our little secret Tommy, my boy?"

"Yes" I reply.

For the rest of the afternoon, my grandfather and I catch up on everything. As the light starts to fade I bid him farewell and we agree on a date to communicate again and so I close up the attic and return to my grandmother with a huge smile on my face and she just smiles back and say "So you've found us out I see"

"Your secret is safe with me grandma" I reply.

Every mid summer there after I meet with my grandmother I we sneak off to the attic and contact my grandfather for years to come until the day he may finally return home.