What do you love or hate about Secret Attic? Tell us what you think in our poll.

Think you have what it takes?

Want to get some practice?

Just need an excuse to put pen to paper?

Then enter the Secret Attic Short Story Competition!

Each month you can submit an entry that will be passed onto our judges who will pick the best and award a winner. During some months the subject matter will be a 'free for all', where you can write anything you like, other months will have a specific theme.

Previous Competition Winners

February 2005 David Willshaw

April 2005 Christine Sutton

May 2005 George L Darley

July 2005 Robyn O'Hara

August 2005 Richard Adamski

September 2005 Hannah Southgate

October 2005 Heather Parker

December 2005 Feathers by Bob Lakin

January 2006 RD Larson

February 2006 Debra Spiller

March 2006 Nethi Sette

April 2006 Joe Louis

May 2006 Kim Montgomery

Love of Literature by Raymond Hopkins, Kronoby, Finland

Missing by Debra Spiller, Kent, UK

Diary of a Ghost by Suzanne Ralphson, Leicester, UK

Shreds of Love by Irene Edwards, Angus, UK

Lip Service by Will Orr-Ewing, London, UK

Red by Gary Campbell, Mount Gambier, Australia

Leaving The City In Ruins. by Trevor Nicholl, Manchester, UK

One For The Watercooler by Simon Maltz, London, UK

My Own Personal Time Machine by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Women and Me and My Mate Jamie by David Darlington, Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK

Collecting Footsteps by Annemaria Cooper, Glasgow, UK

Overhead, the sun baked the earth, and sucked life from the trickling river to clouds, to weep, on distant hills. People sheltered in the shadows, resting, thirsty, without hope. The rains did not bless the land, and the muddy riverbank hardened like stone. Cassie sat, wings folded around her, waiting for the last sparkle to leave a footprint at the edge of a dying river. This would be Cassie's last time on earth collecting footsteps. This time, she hoped to witness a miracle. She offered hope, and comfort, but miracles… are not the creation of angels, for they birth in man’s heart.
Cassie watched the last water droplet, which sparkled from a small footstep, evaporate, and reached out to catch it with her hand. Its purpose and its journey belonged to Nawaka, Swahili for beautiful, but Nawaka was no beauty. Small for her age of six years, her belly protruded through thin rags, and she walked unsteadily on spindly legs around the dead body of her mother. People walked past, absorbed in their own grief, their own plight. Too tired to wail, too tired to care. In the hills, were the water flowed, war raged on in bloody conflict, and help lay far beyond the plateau of death.
Cassie followed Nawaka’s steps back to a village near the base of the mountains, for angels follow in our footsteps, even those swept away on dusty fields. Only vultures lived in Nawaka’s village, picking sun-bleached bones for shreds of meat. The huge birds cared little if their meal was cow, or the flesh of a child, they too, had to survive in this hostile land. The false hope of water shimmered above the blood-red dust, and the hot wind whipped tiny tornados inside abandoned huts.
On the floor of Nawaka’s hut, a small sandal lay near a cooking pot. It belonged to Nawaka; it had fallen from her foot as she and her mother fled when the soldiers attacked. Cassie touched it with her finger, and saw the man who made it - Nawaka’s father. The small leather shoe held a bond that Cassie could follow. Minyi, Nawaka’s father, was squatting by a deep lake of crystal water, polishing his rifle with a rag, his goatskin water bottle lying atop a wide dam of stones and mud. The reduced flow of water escaped to the thirsty plateau below where the sun waited to quench it’s own thirst.
'Minyi,’ called a voice.
Minyi looked up to see his brother.
‘ You did well today. Without water, the men who attack our homes will give up,’ said his brother.
‘ Yes, I built a strong dam to protect my family,’ said Minyi, proudly.
His brother said nothing, for he knew many villages lay destroyed including Minyi’s. He handed Minyi a bag of grain. ‘Your payment.’
Minyi smiled, and hurried home to feed his family.
Cassie followed Minyi’s journey, for Nakawa, like her sandal, needed to be found. At his village, Minyi stood holding his child’s sandal, and wept, then he hurried to the next village. It was dusk by the time he reached it, and he searched in vain through the corpses for his family. Trucks of soldiers trundled past, and his brother, who had paid him earlier in the day, stopped.
‘ Minyi, come with us. There is nothing here for you now. Come, join us and avenge your family. We will kill them all.’
Minyi walked forward to hand his gun, and the bag of grain back to his brother. Cassie waited for his reply. ‘No, my family are lost somewhere. I must find them before the vultures pick their bones. Fighting did this, I will not fight again.’ Minyi pointed to the death and destruction around him.
Cassie smiled, and wrapped her wings around him.
With hope in his heart Minyi headed to the dried riverflats for Cassie now guided him in Nawaka’s footsteps, and found his child still clinging to her mother as dawn peeked over the mountains. She drank from his water bottle, and hugged him tightly.
‘ Did you kill the bad men, Papa?’ she asked, as Minyi tied the sandal to her foot.
He lifted her up in his arms. ‘No Nawaka, those men fight because, like you, they thirst.’
The ground was hard, and Minyi had nothing to dig a grave. Instead, he buried his wife beneath a pile of bedrock stone, and walked with Nawaka to the distant pale, blue mountains. There, he sat Nawaka by the lake, and ripped the stones and mud from his dam. ‘There Nawaka, the plateau will drink again, even our enemies.’ The weight of water forced through the gap he made, and the dam collapsed to thunder in white cascades to revive the artery of life.
‘ Papa, what if the bad men come back,’ said Nawaka. Cassie enclosed her arms around her. ‘I don’t want to lose you ever again.’
‘ You will never lose me again, Nawaka. My hand made your sandals, I followed your steps and found you, but now, you will follow mine over the mountain. On the other side of this mountain, strangers wait to help us,’ said Minyi.
Cassie entered both their hearts with hope, and Minyi lead his young daughter safely over the mountain. Minyi knew where the soldiers hid to stop his people deserting their homes, and took the higher, rugged path. Each step along up the narrow, brittle rock, stole their breath in the thin, hot air. Nawaka was too tired to climb, hunger clawed at her muscles, but Minyi walked for her. Carrying her frail body on his shoulders, he dragged each foot until at last he entered the gates of the white tented village on the other side of the mountain.
In the small refugee camp, strangers with love, not revenge, fed Nawaka - her skin glowed, and flesh padded her bones. Minyi knew the camp was not enough, others like his own child had not found their parents. The other children played with Nawaka as soon as she well enough to join. Minyi dug holes for the children who did not get well, for at least in this encampment they had shovels. He worked to build shelters and a school, and on every day he had to dig a grave, he dug a well, but the wells remained dry.
The time had come for Cassie to leave, and she blew Nawaka’s sparkle from her hand where it landed in one of Minyi’s dry wells. Water bubbled through the surface, red and frothy, then gushed with a white foam to fill the hole with clean water. Cheers sang throughout the camp, but Minyi did not celebrate, instead he picked up his shovel.
‘ Papa, you found water. Why are you digging more holes?’ asked Nawaka.
‘ It is better to fight with a shovel, than a rifle, Nawaka,’ he said. ‘I am but one man, but people will live because I dig holes. I would rather dig for water, than dig a grave.
Cassie smiled, her last assignment was a journey of footsteps that created a miracle for so many to share.