Thunder booms outside, making my bed vibrate beneath me. It has been raining nonstop for the past two days, and I have run out of things to do. Clean the house until it is practically spotless? Check. Read a book? Check. Reorganize my entire bookshelf alphabetically? Check. School's out for the summer, which means I don’t have any homework I can do. Not that I would want to do it if I had any, of course.

I decide to do what any normal teenager would do – pull out my laptop and Google it. I open up the tab, and type in ‘what to do on a rainy day.’ As usual thousands of links pop up, but I just click the first one out of laziness. I skim through the traditional boring ones, jump in puddles, build a blanket fort, read a book, and skip to the end where the more interesting ones lie hidden.

‘Pamper yourself and have a spa day!’ I don’t even think I own a jar of nail polish, let alone anything to pamper myself with… I’m not sure I’d want to anyway. Next.

‘Create a recipe book.’ I don’t even know how to cook, so that would be disastrous. Nope.

‘Make a scavenger hunt.’ Scavenger hunts are for little kids. Not 15 year olds. Ugh, this is useless.

I go to slap my laptop shut, in the exact way my mom tells me not to, when I look at the last one again, ‘Make a scavenger hunt.’ I certainly don’t want to do that… but the attic has always needed exploring. And my parents are gone for the time being. I quickly scamper off my bed, energized by the prospect of doing something potentially exciting.

I pull on the string, pulling down the staircase that leads towards our attic. I cautiously walk up the stairs, wincing as they creak under my weight. My mind fills with ideas of what might fill the mysterious room. I know my parents have used it mostly for storage space, but you never know what exactly is being stored up here.

I reach the top of the stairs and step onto the ground, grateful to be on a steady surface once more. The sound of rain is louder up here, and sounds as if tons of pebbles are being poured onto the roof above my head. I scan the room, sighing softly in disappointment. It’s mostly filled with plastic bins filled with my old clothes and toys that my parents have yet to donate.

Despite my crushed hopes, I look through each bin briefly. But it proves to no avail, as it only supports my conclusion. The exciting attic isn’t as exciting as I originally thought. I turn to head back down and sulk on my bed, until a glint of metal catches my eye. I turn around, and inspect the wall that the glint came from. Suddenly, my eyes land on an old-looking chest hidden in the shadows of the corner.

Intrigued, I walk over to the chest and upon closer inspection realize how old it actually is. I grimace at the sight of a lock, and try to think of a way to break it. By the looks of it, I may be able to break it if I can hit it hard enough. An image of a hammer crosses my mind, and remember finding an old one somewhere in the maze of boxes. Sighing, I get up and search through them once more. I get lucky and find it in the fourth box, underneath some other tools my dad abandoned years ago.

I look at the chest, mentally debating on the best way to break the lock. I didn’t want to break the chest too much, and damage whatever's inside. I try to lift the chest up to shake it, but just as I predicted it was too heavy for me. That means this is a real wooden chest, which means whatever is inside must be ancient. Or at least, that’s what I hope.

After attempting a few different positions, I finally decide to just push the chest on its back side, and whack the lock on the front as hard as I can with the hammer. Grateful no one is in the house to hear me, I raise the hammer above my head and bring it down with all my strength on the metal lock. An echoing clang fills the room, and the impact make me stumble and fall. I push myself up, and smile to see the large dent I put in the lock. I pull the bottom, and hear a satisfying click, and the lock falls off of its hook. I push the lid open in anticipation of what’s inside.

A jumble of dark clothes lay in the box, and I am a tad disappointed. Refusing to accept this was the only product of my labors, I pull out the clothes and shake them out. Maybe someone hid something in them, something valuable. Something mysterious, or magical. This moment could change my life. Maybe this chest is a portal to a fantasy world with dragons and pegasi.

I have clearly been reading too much fantasy.

A dusty book falls onto the ground, and a cloud of dust surrounds it. Finally. Something interesting. Or at least I hope it’s interesting.

The cover and backing are made of leather, and a name is embossed in the bottom right corner.

“Robert J. Smith”  I read out loud. My grandfather. He died from lung cancer when I was young, but I always heard that he had the greatest stories. Especially about the war he served in. My older cousins always told me about them, how he transformed the ugly truths of World War Two into vibrant children’s stories. I never managed to hear one myself, and even if I had I highly doubt I would remember it today.

I flip through the diary’s thick, yellow pages and pick a random one dated July 10th. I leaned against the wall, and began to skim the diary entry, detailing my grandfather’s fight in the air against the german’s in the Battle of Britain. I go to read the next one, but notice there isn’t a date on it. After reading a few paragraphs, I realize it’s not a diary entry.

It’s a children’s story.

My eyes widen. I found my grandfather’s war diary, but it wasn’t just a normal diary. It also included the stories my cousins constantly spoke of. All of them, written on paper. I grinned. I finally had them. My grandfather’s stories.

My day just got a whole lot more interesting. I decide to bring the diary down to my room, and add it to my bookshelf. I quickly put the old clothes, which I now recognize as an old military uniform, into the trunk, replace the hammer, and then slowly descend the creaky stairs again. I struggle to push them back up, but after many failed attempts I figure it out and the stairs rise into place until they look as if they were never touched.

I bring the book to my room, and gently place it on my brown comforter. I find my knitted blue blanket and lay underneath it on my bed with the diary. Even though it’s summer, the blanket is surprisingly cool which makes it an amazing reading blanket. I open the diary and decide to start at the beginning this time, the first entry dating June 4th, 1940.

Two hours later, I finish the diary and gently close it. I never knew how great of a writer my grandfather was. Sure, I heard about how great his stories were from practically everyone who knew him. But I had always assumed they were just exaggerating, and doing what everyone does when someone they were close to dies. They always make whatever that person did sound much better than it actually was. But in this case, they didn’t exaggerate. Grandfather really was a truly gifted writer.

I had always loved to write, even when I was little. And as I have grown older more and more people have complimented me on my writing, some even going as far as to tell me it is almost as good as my grandfather’s. I had never really knew how to respond to that, and resorting to a simple thank you and polite excuse to walk away. I never understood how big of a compliment that was, until now.

I pull out my well-worn laptop, and look at the story I had been working on for the past few months. It seems like one grandfather would enjoy, being filled with adventure and puzzles just like his. I gave up on it a few weeks ago though, not really feeling like it was worth writing, despite my friend’s insistence that it was amazing. But now I am starting to reconsider that decision. My fingertips start to push the keys, forming words, and then sentences. I will finish this.

I will finish this for him.

After 5 years of hard work and study Anna Smith published her first novel, dedicated to her grandfather. She then proceeded to become a New York Times bestseller, and author to two more books both of which were bestsellers as well. All because of a simple diary, and the motivation it gave to an aspiring writer.