Diana Wynne Jones goes to a convention in Winchester and brings along part of the only copy of her manuscript for her brand new book. Of course, she' just finished the final draft moments before dashing out the door to make it on time, and so she didn't have time for so much as a hole punch, let alone a binder. She's just clutching these pages between her fingers as she gets underway. She arrives in Winchester still clutching the pages. There's a terrible freezing cold wind howling and blowing and tearing and Diana's poor red cold fingers, but she refuses to relinquish her manuscript. On the steps of the hotel is a homeless man, colder than she because he isn't even wearing a coat! He says, "Spare enough for a cup of tea? Or coffee, even? It's very cold you know."

Well, it IS very cold, and Diana Wynne Jones is a very generous woman. She transfers the entire manuscript to one hand and starts digging through her pockets looking for spare change, only the wind suddenly gets ten times fiercer and twelve times more violent, and suddenly the entire manuscript segment is blown from her fingertips and out into the streets of Winchester! "Oh, no!" she cries. "Not my book!"

Just then, an officious looking man in spectacles and loafers drives up and says, "Mrs. Wynne Jones? Yes, I'm told you have an appointment this morning." "Well, yes," she says. "I'm supposed to be speaking this afternoon, only my whole speech just blew away with most of my manuscript. . ." "Yes, yes, yes," says the little man, "that's all been taken care of. Come along, come along, the magister will see you now. He'll get your book back to you in a right quick little jiffy I'm sure. If you'll just step into the shuttle, thank you thank you, please buckle your safety belt in the interest of living through the ride"

And then the shuttle takes off at the speed of light through the solar system, with Diana Wynne Jones plastered to her seat sobbing, "I want my boooooooook"

"All in good time" says the officious looking man.

The shuttle moves so quickly, and the little man drives so badly that Diana Wynne Jones spends most of the ride thinking she's going to be violently sick, but just as she's about to lose her lunch entirely, the shuttle screeches to a halt outside a tall building with red and blue pages floating around outside it.

A man in a dressing gown comes out to greet her and she says, "Chrestomanci?"

"Well, who did you bloody well think it was, superman? Come along, I haven't got all day, and I've been waiting for my tea since six o'clock this morning. You'd think I was an alien! Now, here's the deal. Each of those pages is a world, and each of the pages of your manuscript landed in a different page world. You see? So you just have to look through all the page world to find your pages and trick the locals into giving them back. You can have the use of the shuttle until four, but then I'm off to home whether they've served me my bloody tea or not. Slartibartfast! Did you ever finish those fjords off of Africa?""

The officious little man says, "I'm afraid the master's very busy you know. Where would you like to start".

And as quickly as that, Diana Wynne Jones is catapulted back into the shuttle of nausea to shrink down to page world size and race through all the different worlds to find her entire manuscript by four o'clock. By the time she's half finished, she thinks she'll never succeed. In one world, for instance, she has to do battle with a man who wants to sit next to her in a restaurant and who keeps edging ever closer to her, all the while saying, "Your wife, is she a goer? Does she go? You know what I mean, wink-wink, nudge nudge? A nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat!" In another world, she has to overcome a man who is trying to sell her a dead parrott. She finally defeats him by explaining, "It's bleedin' demised. This parrott wouldn't voom if you put 4000 volts through it. It's deceiced, it's passed on, It's a stiff. it's rolled down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch it would be pushing up the daisies! This, is an ex-parrott." Then, she has some very disturbing experiences on the planet of the nymphomaniacs which make her question the possibility of success. But this is her new book! Her entire speech hangs on these manuscript pages. Finally, she reaches the last stage, wherein she has to invent a new walk for the ministry of silly walks AND win the upper class twit of the year award without dying. At last, and on the stroke of four, she has all her pages together, and she goes before the magister Chrestomanci in his dressing gown with his crumpets, and she says, "oh please, may I go back to Winchester now and give my speech?" The magister is very grumpty by this time, because he's still waiting for his cup of tea, but he finally agrees to send her back in exchange for her autograph across the top of a biscuit, and she boomf's back to the hotel steps, where she's clutching her manuscript in one hand, fishing through her pocket for change for the homeless man. She thrusts something into his hand and races inside before she can lose her pages again. As the door is swinging shut behind her, she hears him shouting, "I wait 'alf an hour for you to dig through your bloody pockets and all you can come up with is two shillings? Two bloody shillings for all that? This won't even buy the tea leaves, let alone a cup to drink out of. I swear, you toffs think just because you're staying in some hoity toity hotel you've got to look down on the likes of me. Well I hope you . .

Diana Wynne Jones groans and says, "Bloody right. The whole thing's going to be this way, isn't it? All bloody week long." Just then, an officious looking man in spectacles and a pair of loafers comes up to her and says, "Ah, Mrs. Jones-Wynne? I'm afraid there's been a terrible mistake. The whole convention's moved to a different town and they couldn't get ahold of you in time to tell you. Now, if you'll just step this way, we've a shuttle waiting to take you to London . . .