For the smallest movement, I had to plan the beginning, middle, and end, and then draw all the steps in between, taking shots as I went along. The program gives you a ghost image of the last frame to help you line up the next one. “Onion skinning,” it’s called. I came to love the words. Onion skinning. Project windows. Time lines. I got good at guessing how much to erase at once and where to draw in the new position. You had to do lots of stages even just to get the eyes to open. Thirty-six frames for three seconds of movement!

Once I had done the erasing and redrawing for a particular change, I couldn’t insert another stage. If it was wrong, I had to start over. I made some pretty hilarious mistakes, like shutting one eye before the other so she looked like she was winking. I found out the hard way you can’t make the tiniest change here without making the tiniest change there. You have to work on the whole thing at once.

The biggest lesson I learned, and the one that it took a while to get used to, was that you have to give up the real drawing in order to make the animation. You have to make each mark as if it’s the most important thing in the world, and then you have to cover it up and never see it again for the sake of something that seems alive but isn’t really, it’s just a mirage. But a beautiful one. The drawing you can hold in your hands is ruined. My head hurt thinking about it.

The best thing was, I could do whatever I wanted. Speed it up, slow it down, open the eyes, close the eyes, populate the head, clear the head, add a whole new sequence if I felt like it. I hummed and sang while I worked. And when did you first get interested in animation, Miss Wakefield? Call me Madeleine. Oh, it was years ago, when I had some time on my hands. Did you ever think you would become one of the most famous artists of your generation? Never! Not in a million years . . .

My mother’s step on the stairs. Silence. That was her listening outside my door.

“Come i-innn!” I called, extra-brightly to hide my frustration. If I got interrupted, I might leave my thumb in the shot, and a retake was not so easy because you had to reverse all the changes.

“Working again?” My mother threw a hungry glance at my copy stand but came no closer. She set down the tray with her latest snack idea—scrambled egg on rye toast. Slice of avocado on the side, carved into the shape of a sleeping cat.

“Thanks, Mama.” With a pang, I watched her tug my bedspread and round up the wastebaskets. “The sketchbook was a great idea. I love drawing.”

“I’m so glad.”