Reflections by Diana Wynne Jones Page A

heartily.
    I didn’t want breakfast. By then, all I wanted was to get away from church windows and rows of washbasins. I left as soon as I could, and didn’t feel happy until I was back home in our tall, thin house with lots of stairs, and only one washbasin, with the towels hung up anyhow. Here the windows are square and there is nothing to go bump in the night. . . .
    There was a tremendous knocking at the front door.
    I opened it to find a lot of people made up to look old. They had powdered their hair and stuck gray beards on their chins and painted wrinkles on their faces. One was a witch, one was a high priest, one was a devil, and the others were probably goblins. “Trick or treat!” they all shouted as I opened the door.
    I had forgotten it was Halloween.

A Day Visiting Schools
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    This account was put together from nearly a hundred school visits. Everything in it happened more than once. Diana wanted to highlight that this shows that an author’s life is not always a happy one.
    A condensed form of this article was published with the title “The Other Half” in the Horn Book Magazine , September/October 2008. This title refers to the fact that these school visits kept Diana going for the other half of the time, in which there was never any problem with the children.
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    Morning
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    I have been asked to arrive at 10:30 without fail to spend the morning with one class of children. After driving eighty miles and hunting all over town, I reach the school at 10:29. The school is being rebuilt. There is no door and no one to ask. I force my way under scaffolding and get in through a hole in the wall. An angry lady in glasses rushes down the corridor at me. “You can’t come in here!” I explain. She says she is the school secretary and she has heard nothing about my visit. “You’d better wait in the staff room,” she says. “The Head’s got the whole school in singing practice until 11:00. I would offer you a coffee only the water’s cut off at the moment.”
    The staff room is like an airport lounge. I sit there for half an hour until a breathless teacher rushes in. She says, “You’ll be starting in twenty minutes. That gives you less than an hour to get round the whole school.”
    I say, “But you told me I’d be with just one class.”
    She says, “Yes, but since you’re here . . . You won’t mind, will you? It’s all arranged.”
    There follows a breathless rush round the classrooms. The children crowd to ask questions and try to show me their writing in the few seconds available. Each demands two autographs, one to keep and one to swap. The teacher says wonderingly, “I’d no idea they’d be so interested. Is there anywhere I can get hold of your books?”
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    Dinner
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    The kitchen ladies have decided I would prefer a pilchard and lettuce. They have kept it in a hot cupboard all morning because there are chips with it. They fetch it out, lukewarm, wilted, with the chips turned to a pile of kindling. So they freshen it up by pouring a large ladleful of gravy over everything. “There!” they say proudly.
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    Afternoon
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    I have been asked to come at 1:00 to spend the afternoon with sixty children. I arrive in pouring rain and the only person I can find is a dinner lady, who eventually finds a child to take me to the staff room. The Head is there. He wrings my hand until the bones crack. “I haven’t read any of your books, of course,” he says. “Can you sit quietly in that chair by the wall—we’re having a staff meeting.”
    I sit quietly through the staff meeting. At 1:30, a teacher springs out of the dispersing staff. “I’ve got great news for you!” she cries. “We’ve given you the whole school for the afternoon.”
    I say, “But you told me sixty children.”
    She says, “You won’t mind,