The Gopnik’s Evil Fairy

Child psychologist Alison Gopnik in a chapter discussing the imaginary companion of early childhood describes a Gopnik family “turn of the screw.” A story as told by her mother in which the two-year-old Alison insisted for some time that a “peculiar little man” named Dunzer lived in one corner of her crib. While at first Dunzer was playful and friendly he later became malevolent and cruel to the point where little Alison refused to sleep in the crib anymore. Her mother proposed to exchange cribs with Alison’s younger brother Adam (yes, that Adam), only when she brought Adam to the crib, he screamed and clung to her, pointing in terror to the same corner of the crib where Dunzer lived… Of course in later life both Alison and Adam would not remember any of this.