Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones [91]
But if there is a scale for magical skill, the Willing Warlock is at the bottom. Having the ability to grow his fingernails into claws and his teeth into fangs is one thing; being able to take on Chrestomanci is quite another. Always unshaven, always ready to present passing ladies with a bull’s-eye, the Willing Warlock chooses his friends unwisely, and suffers the consequences of being on the wrong side of the law. Chrestomanci may have taken the Willing Warlock’s magic away, but nothing can be done to cure his stupidity!
ONEIR
WHERE DOES CAROL Oneir’s interesting taste for literature come from, and what is her connection with Chrestomanci? The answer to both questions is: her father. Carol’s father, always referred to as “Oneir,” is an old school friend of Christopher Chant. When Oneir, Fenning, and Christopher meet on the train taking them to Penge School, Surrey, in The Lives of Christopher Chant, even Fenning’s frequent bouts of being sick out the train window cannot stop them becoming firm friends. Although they call themselves the “Terrible Three,” they are known at school as the “Three Bears” because Christopher is tall, Fenning is small, and Oneir is comfortably in the middle.
When Christopher finds he is no good at magic, it is Oneir who does Christopher’s magic homework — in return for Christopher’s doing Oneir’s algebra. Oneir also gives Christopher invaluable help on the subject of What Books Girls Like, which includes “all sorts of slush,” such as Little Tanya and the Fairies (much to Christopher’s disgust) and “sure-fire slush,” such as Millie Goes to School; Millie Plays the Game; and Millie’s Finest Hour. But it is on the cricket field where both boys excel — Christopher as a batsman and Oneir as the boy who would like to be a batsman, but who is better at cracking heads than hitting sixes.
TONINO
TONINO MONTANA HAS an English mother, Elizabeth, an Italian father, Antonio, and a very special way of doing magic. One of five children (brother Paolo; sisters Rosa, Corinna, and Lucia), Tonino is from Caprona, Italy, where all the best spells come from because they are not spoken, but sung. The Casa Montana is known as a spell-house and, with the Casa Petrocchi, provides spells for the whole of Caprona and beyond!
Think then, how difficult it is for poor Tonino, when he discovers he is very slow at learning magic, and can only remember spells if he goes over them again and again. Being known as a bookworm because he is never far from an open book, and knowing how to communicate with cats, is no compensation for his lack of magical ability.
It takes a national crisis and the summoning of Chrestomanci to discover that Tonino’s talent is for turning other people’s magic to his own use. So, if, for example, you use magic to summon mice and you get griffins instead, you might suspect that Tonino Montana is not far away, using your spell and making it his own.
THE WORLDS OF DIANA WYNNE JONES:
AN INTERVIEW
HarperCollins: You have stated: “Things we are accustomed to regard as myth or fairy story are very much present in people’s lives.” How much of your stories do you create from the real world as we know it and how much comes from . . . elsewhere?
Diana Wynne Jones: I get a lot of things from the real world — people, particularly. If you annoy me, watch out! I shall put you in a book as a baddie and then make people laugh at you. But as soon as the story gets moving, it takes over. It does its own thing. I don’t feel as if I’m imagining it, or making it up, at all. It just sort of happens — in other worlds.
HC: While you write, do you become absorbed in these other worlds? How did you find these worlds originally?
DWJ: I wish I knew how I found the different worlds of Chrestomanci. They just jumped into my head. Caprona, for instance, appeared in my head just as it is in the book — complete with its magicians and its Duke — while I was listening to a piece of music. It may be real somewhere. A man wrote to me a couple of years ago and said