I arrived at a birthday gathering for a friend this evening and was immediately greeted by a small magician in training.

There was a young girl at the party who had decided she was going to perform magic tricks for the adults. Her specialty seemed to be making small toys disappear. The methods were… enthusiastic. She would hide them under the coat she was sitting on, under her leg, and occasionally in places that were extremely obvious.

Everyone played along, of course.

She was having a great time showing another guest how the trick worked, and I couldn’t resist adding one small piece of magic of my own.

I pulled out a dollar bill.

“Want to see me double my money?”

I waved the bill, folded it, gave it a flick, unfolded it again—and suddenly it was a two-dollar bill.

That’s usually enough to impress younger audiences, and it worked perfectly. Her eyes widened, and immediately she wanted to know how it worked.

Because she had already been demonstrating tricks of her own, I decided to show her.

So I explained the folding trick and handed the bills to her so she could try it.

What followed was fascinating.

Instead of copying the steps exactly, she immediately began unfolding both bills, separating them, examining them, and generally dismantling the trick to see what was going on.

She wasn’t just repeating instructions.

She was reverse-engineering the trick.

At that moment I had a thought: she might grow up to be an engineer.

People like me tend to learn that way. We don’t always learn best by copying a demonstration. Sometimes the real understanding comes from taking things apart and figuring out what makes them work.

Eventually she decided to invent her own trick.

She took my hat, put both bills inside, and asked another guest, “What number are you thinking of?”

He said eight.

She looked into the hat, looked at him, looked back into the hat, then looked over at me and held out her hand.

“Money.”

The room broke out laughing.

It was perfect.

Before she left the party, I shared one of the quiet secrets of magicians:

If you know even one trick, keep it with you. The opportunity will eventually arise when it comes in handy.

She tried to keep the two-dollar bill for a while. Just about every child loves the curious nature of the uncommonly circulated bill—and that’s part of the magical flair that builds interest. She had already given me the one and even a five at one point, but that particular piece of magical equipment had to go back into the kit. I placed the bills together again, folded them, and handed them back so she could practice.

She headed home with her parents, carrying a new trick to experiment with, and I was out $3—an investment in the future, where her curiosity may continue exploring how things work while bringing entertainment to others.

And for a little while, in a room full of adults, a young magician managed to turn curiosity into entertainment.

That’s the real magic.