Pippi Moves into Villa Villekulla
- Pippi, a nine-year-old girl with super-strength (she can lift horses with one arm), moves into a house called Villa Villekulla.
- The house was purchased a while back by her father, a sea captain who was blown overboard and disappeared on their last voyage together. Bummer. Pippi's mother died when Pippi was just a baby. Double bummer.
- The two children who live next door to Villa Villekulla, Tommy and Annika Settergren, see Pippi one day, and are shocked by her appearance: carrot-red hair sticking straight out in two tight braids, a blue dress with red patches, long (unmatching) stockings, shoes twice the size of her feet, and a fully-clothed monkey perched on her shoulder.
- Tommy and Annika approach Pippi to find out why she was walking backwards, and Pippi, after lying to them, apologizes for lying, explaining that she can't help herself sometimes and that she hopes they can still be friends.
- They can, so Pippi has them over for breakfast.
- Tommy and Annika meet Pippi's horse and Mr. Nilsson the monkey, and learn that Pippi has no parents, and for that matter, no one but herself to tell her what to do.
- Pippi makes pancakes and splatters an egg in her hair, whereupon she instantly proclaims that egg yolk is good for the hair and that hers will "soon begin to grow so fast it will crackle" (1.40). (Did we mention that nothing seems to get this kid down?)
- After breakfast, Pippi gives each of her new friends a treasure from her store of wonderful things acquired on voyages with her father and asks them to leave… so that they can come back tomorrow, of course.