CONTENTS
1.Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla1
2.Pippi Is a Thing-finder and Gets into a
Fight11
3.Pippi Plays Tag with Some Policemen23
4.Pippi Goes to School30
5.Pippi Sits on the Gate and Climbs a Tree41
6.Pippi Arranges a Picnic51
7.Pippi Goes to the Circus63
8.Pippi Entertains Two Burglars74
9.Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party83
10.Pippi Acts as a Lifesaver95
11.Pippi Celebrates Her Birthday104
Other books by Astrid Lindgren
Bill Bergson, Master Detective Bill Bergson Lives Dangerously
Mio, My Son
Pippi Goes On Board*
Pippi In The South Seas
Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla
w
ay out at the end of a tiny little town was an old overgrown garden, and in the garden was an old house, and in the house lived Pippi Longstocking. She was nine years old, and she lived there all alone. She had no mother and no father, and that was of course very nice because there was no one to tell her to go to bed just when she was having the most fun, and no one who could make her take cod liver oil when she much preferred caramel candy.
Once upon a time Pippi had had a father of whom she was extremely fond. Naturally she had had a mother too, but that was so long ago that Pippi didn't remember her at all. Her mother had died when Pippi was just a tiny baby and lay in a cradle and howled so that nobody could go anywhere near her. Pippi was sure that her mother was now up in Heaven, watching her little girl through a peephole in the sky, and Pippi
2Pippi Longstocking
often waved up at her and called, "Don't you worry
about me. I'll always come out on top."
Her father Pippi had not forgotten. He was a sea captain who sailed on the great ocean, and Pippi had sailed with him in his ship until one day her father blew overboard in a storm and disappeared. But Pippi was absolutely certain that he would come back. She would never believe that he had drowned; she was sure he had floated until he landed on an island inhabited by cannibals. And she thought he had become the king of all the cannibals and went around with a golden crown on his head all day long.
"My papa is a cannibal king; it certainly isn't every child who has such a stylish papa," Pippi used to say with satisfaction. "And as soon as my papa has built himself a boat he will come and get me, and I'll be a cannibal princess. Heigh-ho, won't that be exciting?"
Her father had bought the old house in the garden many years ago. He thought he would live there with Pippi when he grew old and couldn't sail the seas any longer. And then this annoying thing had to happen, that he blew into the ocean, and while Pippi was waiting for him to come back she went straight home to Villa Villekulla. That was the name of the house. It stood there ready and waiting for her. One lovely summer evening she had said good-by to all the sailors on her father's boat. They were all so fond of Pippi, and she of them.
"So long, boys," she said and kissed each one on the
Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla3forehead. "Don't you worry about me. I'll always comeout on top."
Two things she took with her from the ship: a little monkey whose name was Mr. Nilsson-he was a present from her father-and a big suitcase full of gold pieces. The sailors stood up on the deck and watched as long as they could see her. She walked straight ahead without looking back at all, with Mr. Nilsson on her shoulder and her suitcase in her hand.
"A remarkable child," said one of the sailors as Pippi disappeared in the distance.
He was right. Pippi was indeed a remarkable child. The most remarkable thing about her was that she was so strong. She was so very strong that in the whole wide world there was not a single police officer who was as strong as she. Why, she could lift a whole horse if she wanted to! And she wanted to. She had a horse of her own that she had bought with one of her many gold pieces the day she came home to Villa Villekulla. She had always longed for a horse, and now here he was living on the porch. When Pippi wanted to drink her afternoon coffee there, she simply lifted him down into the garden.
Beside Villa Villekulla was another garden and another house. In that house lived a father and mother and two charming children, a boy and a girl. The boy's name was Tommy and the girl's Annika. They were good, well brought up, and obedient children. Tommy would never think of biting his nails, and he always did
4Pippi Longstockingexactly what his mother told him to do. Annika neverfussed when she didn't get her own way, and she always looked so pretty in her little well-ironed cottondresses; she took the greatest care not to get themdirty. Tommy and Annika played nicely with eachother in their garden, but they had often wished for aplaymate. While Pippi was still sailing on the oceanwith her father, they often used to hang over thefence and say to each other, "Isn't it silly that nobodyever moves into that house. Somebody ought to livethere-somebody with children."
On that lovely summer evening when Pippi for the first time stepped over the threshold of Villa Villekulla, Tommy and Annika were not at home. They had gone to visit their grandmother for a week; and so they had no idea that anybody had moved into the house next door. On the first day after they came home again they stood by the gate, looking out onto the street, and even then they didn't know that there actually was a playmate so near. Just as they were standing there considering what they should do and wondering whether anything exciting was likely to happen or whether it was going to be one of those dull days when they couldn't think of anything to play-just then the gate of Villa Villekulla opened and a little girl stepped out. She was the most remarkable girl Tommy and Annika had ever seen. She was Miss Pippi Long-stocking out for her morning promenade. This is the way she looked:
Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla5
Her hair, the color of a carrot, was braided in two tight braids that stuck straight out. Her nose was the shape of a very small potato and was dotted all over with freckles. It must be admitted that the mouth under this nose was a very wide one, with strong white teeth. Her dress was rather unusual. Pippi herself had made it. She had meant it to be blue, but there wasn't quite enough blue cloth, so Pippi had sewed little red pieces on it here and there. On her long thin legs she wore a pair of long stockings, one brown and the other black; and she had on a pair of black shoes that were exactly twice as long as her feet. These shoes her father had bought for her in South America so that Pippi should have something to grow into, and she never wanted to wear any others.
But the thing that made Tommy and Annika open their eyes widest of all was the monkey sitting on the strange girl's shoulder. It was a little monkey, dressed in blue pants, yellow jacket, and a white straw hat.
Pippi walked along the street with one foot on the sidewalk and the other in the gutter. Tommy and Annika watched as long as they could see her. In a little while she came back, and now she was walking backward. That was because she didn't want to turn around to get home. When she reached Tommy's and Annika's gate she stopped.
The children looked at each other in silence. At last Tommy spoke. "Why did you walk backward?"
"Why did I walk backward?" said Pippi. "Isn't this
6Pippi Longstocking
a free country? Can't a person walk any way he wants to? For that matter, let me tell you that in Egypt everybody walks that way, and nobody thinks it's the least bit strange."
"How do you know?" asked Tommy. "You've never been in Egypt, have you?"
"I've never been in Egypt? Indeed I have. That's one thing you can be sure of. I have been all over the world and seen many things stranger than people walking backward. I wonder what you would have said if I had c
ome along walking on my hands the way they do in Farthest India."
"Now you must be lying," said Tommy.
Pippi thought a moment. "You're right," she said sadly, "I am lying."
"It's wicked to lie," said Annika, who had at last gathered up enough courage to speak.
"Yes, it's very wicked to lie," said Pippi even more sadly. "But I forget it now and then. And how can you expect a little child whose mother is an angel and whose father is king of a cannibal island and who herself has sailed on the ocean all her life-how can you expect her to tell the truth always? And for that matter," she continued, her whole freckled face lighting up, "let me tell you that in the Belgian Congo there is not a single person who tells the truth. They lie all day long. Begin at seven in the morning and keep on until sundown. So if I should happen to lie now and then, you must try to excuse me and to remember that
Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla7
it is only because I stayed in the Belgian Congo a little too long. We can be friends anyway, can't we?"
"Oh, sure," said Tommy and realized suddenly that this was not going to be one of those dull days.
"By the way, why couldn't you come and have breakfast with me?" asked Pippi.
"Why not?" said Tommy. "Come on, let's go."
"Oh, yes, let's," said Annika.
"But first I must introduce you to Mr. Nilsson," said Pippi, and the little monkey took off his cap and bowed politely.
Then they all went in through Villa Villekulla's tumbledown garden gate, along the gravel path, bordered with old moss-covered trees-really good climbing trees they seemed to be-up to the house, and on to the porch. There stood the horse, munching oats out of a soup bowl.
"Why do you have a horse on the porch?" asked Tommy. All horses he knew lived in stables.
"Well," said Pippi thoughtfully, "he'd be in the way in the kitchen, and he doesn't like the parlor."
Tommy and Annika patted the horse and then went on into the house. It had a kitchen, a parlor, and a bedroom. But it certainly looked as if Pippi had forgotten to do her Friday cleaning that week. Tommy and Annika looked around cautiously just in case the King of the Cannibal Isles might be sitting in a corner somewhere. They had never seen a cannibal king in all
8Pippi Longstocking
their lives. But there was no father to be seen, nor any mother either.
Annika said anxiously, "Do you live here all alone?"
"Of course not!" said Pippi. "Mr. Nilsson and the horse live here too."
"Yes, but I mean, don't you have any mother or father here?"
"No, not the least little tiny bit of a one," said Pippi happily.
"But who tells you when to go to bed at night and things like that?" asked Annika.
"I tell myself," said Pippi. "First I tell myself in a nice friendly way; and then, if I don't mind, I tell myself again more sharply; and if I still don't mind, then I'm in for a spanking-see?"
Tommy and Annika didn't see at all, but they thought maybe it was a good way. Meanwhile they had come out into the kitchen and Pippi cried,
"Now were going to make a pancake, Now there's going to be a pankee, Now we're going to fry a pankye."
Then she took three eggs and threw them up in the air. One fell down on her head and broke so that the yolk ran into her eyes, but the others she caught skillfully in a bowl, where they smashed to pieces.
"I always did hear that egg yolk was good for the hair," said Pippi, wiping her eyes. "You wait and see-
Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla9mine will soon begin to grow so fast it crackles. As amatter of fact, in Brazil all the people go about witheggs in their hair. And there are no bald-headed people. Only once was there a man who was so foolishthat he ate his eggs instead of rubbing them on hishair. He became completely bald-headed, and when heshowed himself on the street there was such a riotthat the radio police were called out."
While she was speaking Pippi had neatly picked the eggshells out of the bowl with her fingers. Now she took a bath brush that hung on the wall and began to beat the pancake batter so hard that it splashed all over the walls. At last she poured what was left onto a griddle that stood on the stove.
When the pancake was brown on one side she tossed it halfway up to the ceiling, so that it turned right around in the air, and then she caught it on the griddle again. And when it was ready she threw it straight across the kitchen right onto a plate that stood on the table.
"Eat!" she cried. "Eat before it gets cold!"
And Tommy and Annika ate and thought it a very good pancake.
Afterward Pippi invited them to step into the parlor. There was only one piece of furniture in there. It was a huge chest with many tiny drawers. Pippi opened the drawers and showed Tommy and Annika all the treasures she kept there. There were wonderful birds' eggs, strange shells and stones, pretty little boxes, lovely
10Pippi Longstockingsilver mirrors, pearl necklaces, and many other thingsthat Pippi and her father had bought on their journeysaround the world. Pippi gave each of her new playmates a little gift to remember her by. Tommy got adagger with a shimmering mother-of-pearl handle, andAnnika a little box with a cover decorated with pinkshells. In the box there was a ring with a green stone.
"Suppose you go home now," said Pippi, "so that you can come back tomorrow. Because if you don't go home you can't come back, and that would be a shame."
Tommy and Annika agreed that it would indeed. So they went home-past the horse, who had now eaten up all the oats, and out through the gate of Villa Ville-kulla. Mr. Nilsson waved his hat at them as they left.
Pippi Is a
Thing-finder
and Gets
into a Fight
a
tnika woke up early the next morning. She jumped out of bed and ran over to Tommy.
"Wake up, Tommy," she cried, pulling him by the arm, "wake up and let's go and see that funny girl with the big shoes."
Tommy was wide awake in an instant
"I knew, even while I was sleeping, that something exciting was going to happen today, but I didn't remember what it was," he said as he yanked off his pajama jacket. Off they went to the bathroom; washed themselves and brushed their teeth much faster than usual; had their clothes on in a twinkling; and a whole hour before their mother expected them came sliding down the bannister and landed at the breakfast table. Down they sat and announced that they wanted their hot chocolate right off that very moment
"What's going to happen today that you're in such a hurry?" asked their mother.
"We're going to see the new girl next door," said Tommy.
"We may stay all day," said Annika.
That morning Pippi was busy making pepparkakor- that's a kind of Swedish cooky. She had made an enormous amount of dough and rolled it out on the kitchen floor.
"Because," said Pippi to her little monkey, "what earthly use is a baking board when one plans to make at least five hundred cookies?"
And there she lay on the floor, cutting out cooky hearts for dear life.
"Stop climbing around in the dough, Mr. Nilsson," she said crossly just as the doorbell rang.
Pippi ran and opened the door. She was white as a miller from top to toe, and when she shook hands heartily with Tommy and Annika a whole cloud of flour blew over them.
"So nice you called," she said and shook her apron-so there came another cloud of flour. Tommy and Annika got so much in their throats that they could not help coughing.
"What are you doing?" asked Tommy.
"Well, if I say that I'm sweeping the chimney, you won't believe me, you're so clever," said Pippi. "Fact is, I'm baking. But I'll soon be done. You can sit on the woodbox for a while."
Pippi Is a Thing-finder and Gets into a Fight 13
Pippi could work fast, she could. Tommy and Annika sat and watched how she went through the dough, how she threw the cookies onto the cooky pans, and swung the pans into the oven. They thought it was good
as a circus.
"Done!" said Pippi at last and shut the oven door on the last pans with a bang.
"What are we going to do now?" asked Tommy.
"I don't know what you are going to do," said Pippi, "but I know I can't lie around and be lazy. I am a Thing-finder, and when you're a Thing-finder you don't have a minute to spare."
"What did you say you are?" asked Annika.
"A Thing-finder."
"What's that?" asked Tommy.
"Somebody who hunts for things, naturally. What else could it be?" said Pippi as she swept all the flour left on the floor into a little pile.
"The whole world is full of things and somebody has to look for them. And that's just what a Thing-finder does," she finished.
"What kind of things?" asked Annika.
"Oh, all kinds," said Pippi. "Lumps of gold, ostrich feathers, dead rats, candy snapcrackers, and little tiny screws, and things like that."
Tommy and Annika thought it sounded as if it would be fun and wanted very much to be Thing-finders too, although Tommy did say he hoped he'd find a lump of gold and not a little tiny screw.
"We shall see what we shall see," said Pippi. "One always finds something. But we've got to hurry up and get going so that other Thing-finders don't pick up all the lumps of gold around here before we get them.
All three Thing-finders now set out. They decided that it would be best to begin hunting around the houses in the neighborhood, because Pippi said that although it could perfectly well happen that one might find a little screw deep in the woods, still the very best things were usually found where people were living.
"Though, for that matter," she said, "I've seen it the other way around too. I remember once when I was out hunting for things in the jungles of Borneo. Right in the heart of the forest, where no human being had ever before set foot, what do you suppose I found? Why, a very fine wooden leg! I gave it away later to a one-legged old man, and he said that a wooden leg like that wasn't to be had for love nor money."
Tommy and Annika looked at Pippi to see just how a Thing-finder acted. Pippi ran from one side of the road to the other, shaded her eyes with her hand, and hunted and hunted. Sometimes she crawled about on her hands and knees, stuck her hands in between the pickets of a fence, and then said in a disappointed tone, "Oh, dear! I was sure I saw a lump of gold."
"May we really take everything we find?" asked Annika.
"Yes, everything that is lying on the ground," said Pippi.
Pippi Is a Thing-finder and Gets into a Fight 15
Presently they came to an old man lying asleep on the lawn outside his cottage.
"There," said Pippi, "that man is lying on the ground and we have found him. We'll take him!"
Tommy and Annika were utterly terrified.
"No, no, Pippi, we can't take an old gentleman. We couldn't possibly," said Tommy. "Anyway, whatever would we do with him?"
"What would we do with him? Oh, there are plenty of things we could do with him. We could keep him in a little rabbit hutch instead of a rabbit and feed him on dandelions. But if you don't want to, I don't care. Though it does bother me to think that some other Thing-finder may come along and grab him."
Pippi Longstocking Page 1