Pippi Goes to a Coffee Party
- Tommy and Annika's mother is having a coffee party and has the kids invite Pippi so that they can entertain themselves and not bother the adults. (You can guess where this is going.)
- When they invite Pippi, she says she's nervous that she won't be able to behave herself, but Tommy and Annika insist that she'll be fine.
- Pippi says she'll "take special pains" (9.7) so that they won't be ashamed of her.
- Turns out Pippi's "special pains" involve marching herself into the coffee party military style (Attention! Forward march! Halt!).
- Once inside, she plunks herself down in a chair, not realizing that Tommy and Annika's mother had meant for the children to have their party upstairs.
- Pippi proceeds to race for the coffee when it comes out, take far too much food from the table, and plunge her entire face into the cream pie.
- Mrs. Settergren (Tommy and Annika's mom) misses most of this because she's in the kitchen, but when she returns and sees Pippi sprinkling sugar all over the floor (because clearly it's the kind of sugar meant for sprinkling on things), she seats her on the sofa next to Tommy and Annika and returns to her guests.
- It's peaceful until some of the ladies begin to complain about their servants, at which point Pippi chimes in with an outlandish story about her grandmother's maidservant, Malin.
- The ladies ignore Pippi for the most part, but she keeps interrupting until Mrs. Settergren finally sends the children upstairs.
- Pippi sneaks back after a moment with another tale of Malin, and Mrs. Settergren tells her she must never come back again if she can't behave any better.
- At that, Pippi tears up. This is exactly what she had feared—that she wouldn't behave properly.
- She says goodbye to her friends and goes downstairs to where the hats, coats, and shoes are kept.
- While the rest of the ladies come to get their things, Pippi regales them with yet another story about Malin.
- Before leaving, Pippi runs up to Mrs. Settergren and says, "Forgive me because I couldn't behave myself. Good-by!"
- At the gate, Pippi goes in one direction—toward Villa Villekulla—and the rest of the ladies go the opposite way, but they don't get far before Pippi has run up behind them to share one last Malin story.
- Once again, Pippi departs, but when the ladies are a couple hundred feet away, she yells to them, "She never swept under the beds!"