I was doing other things. I became a set designer for opera. I'm a great opera buff, I love classical music, and I needed a time-out. I'd been touring the country and Europe, and in retrospect it seems like a very fortunate choice, because I sure as hell wouldn't be doing it now. So everyone assumes I wasn't doing anything, but I was very preoccupied with other things.

And then, when I came home, and old age and illness started to settle on me, it made sense to do a book again--if I could. I'd been playing with this idea on and off for years. It started as a little thing on Sesame Street that was exceedingly slight. I really don't remember why it was done except the year of his birthday was given to me--to contrive a little poem about his age. Then I forgot about it, and I turned it into something else a few years later, but I was displeased with it, and put it away again.

It often happens this way--you work for years and years until something eventually appears. I didn't know [Bumble] was going to be a pig, I didn't know all kinds of things when I began. But then I began fresh all over again. I don't know how long it took me in the long run--but this notion that I suddenly sat up in bed, had an idea, and sat down and did the book is kind of silly. It's been around my neck for a long time. And I'm so glad it's finished, it's published, and out of my life.

Bumble's parents, for eight long years, didn't allow him to celebrate his birthday. Then he throws a huge revel while his aunt's not home, even though she got him his first-ever gift and cake. Is this duplicity a response to his parent's original mistreatment?

He doesn't trust anybody. His betrayal of his aunt, which seems kind of minor, is typical of what I feel he is like. He's an orphan, after all. And why should he trust anybody? And to get a child's trust--you may know or not--is a very hard thing to do. They're so used to not believing adults--because adults tell tales and lies all the time. I wanted him to be suspicious. And I wanted him to be aggressive for his own needs. There wasn't any reason for him not to tell his aunt, it was just better in his own terms of life to frustrate her. He doesn't know why. And I don't know why. That's what a book is for me: a lot of questions, very few answers.

I think, for children, there's something both thrilling and terrifying about the idea of life without supervision--life without parents. Was that something you were exploring in Bumble-Ardy?

Most children--I know I did when I was a kid--fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that--you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child (I think). I was a liar. I was out to protect my parents from hard truths. Although what I assumed was a hard truth was really--hard to realize what it could be now.