Bruce Cameron

Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2009.

I was a very young boy when I realized that my life’s purpose — the reason I’d been put on this earth — was to torment my sister Amy.

Amy basically had only two emotional states: She was either in a frenzy, screaming and sobbing and shouting, or she was really upset. Anything I did to irritate or anger her would set off such a horrifyingly cataclysmic reaction that I couldn’t wait to do it again.

When Amy became a teenager and her unstable condition was enhanced by hormones, it was like going from tornado to hurricane. Like...