I was ten. My sister was five. Our mother and father had made what they thought was a very judicious decision: they left me in charge of my younger sibling for a full twenty-five minutes.

In my little ten-year-old mind, the wheels were already turning.

"Hey Dana," I said.

"Yes?" The target replied, elated that her older sibling had decided to speak to her again.

Ominously, I motioned for her to come forward. And forward she crept, suspecting nothing; when she finally arrived close enough to hear me whisper, I said very dramatically, "I am a wizard."

And I proceeded to show her that I was. I used the oldest tricks in the book, of course, things anyone above the age of seven would groan at. But wide-eyed and frightened to the core, my sister believed every word I said. She even believed me when I told her I could make her disappear with a single snap.

My poor parents could barely undo the damage I had done. They were beyond enraged: for once they had put their trust in me, and I had gone off and used my moment of power for my own selfish, malicious purposes.

I was not a very just child.