Pippi in the South Seas, Page 3

tiny thing, with green wings that gleamed like . metal.

  "What a pretty little creature," said

  Annika. "I wonder what it is."

  "It isn't a June bug," said Tommy.

  "And no ladybug either," said Annika. "And no

  stagbeetle. I wish I knew what it was."

  All at once a radiant smile lit up

  Pippi's face. "I know," she said. "It's a

  spink."

  "Are you sure?" Tommy said doubtfully.

  "Don't you think I know a spink when I see

  one?" said Pippi. "Have you ever seen anything so

  spink-like in your life?"

  She carefully moved the beetle to a safer place,

  where no one could step on it. "My sweet little

  Pippi Finds a Spink

  bar 39

  spink," she said tenderly. "I knew that I would

  find one at last. But isn't it funny! We've

  been hunting all over town for a spink, and here was one

  right outside Villa Villekulla all the time!"

  Pippi Arranges

  a Question-

  and-Answer Bee

  The long wonderful summer holiday suddenly came

  to an end, and Tommy and Annika went back

  to school. Pippi still considered herself

  sufficiently well educated without going to school and

  announced very decidedly that she had no intention of

  setting her foot in school until the day came when

  she couldn't stand not knowing how the word "seasick" was

  spelled.

  "But since I'm never seasick I don't have

  to worry about the spelling in the first place," she said.

  "And

  if I

  should happen to be seasick one day, then I'll have

  other things to think about than knowing how to spell it."

  "Besides, you'll probably never get seasick," said

  Tommy.

  And he was right. Pippi had sailed far and wide with

  her father before he became king of a South Sea island and

  before Pippi had settled down to live

  Pippi Arranges a Question-and-Answer Bee

  in Villa Villekulla. But in all her life

  she had never been seasick.

  Sometimes Pippi would ride over and pick up

  Tommy and Annika when school was over. This

  pleased Tommy and Annika very much. They loved

  to ride, and there certainly aren't many children who are able

  to ride home from school on horseback.

  "Please, Pippi, come and pick us up this afternoon,"

  said Tommy one day just as he and Annika were going

  to dash back to school after their lunch hour.

  "Yes, please," said Annika. "Because today is the

  day that Miss Rosenblom is going to give out

  gifts to children who have been good and worked hard."

  Miss Rosenblom was a rich old lady who lived

  in the little town. She took good care of her money, but

  once every term she came to school and distributed

  gifts to the children. But not to all the children-oh, no!

  Only the very good and hard-working children got presents.

  To make sure she would know which children were really good and

  hard-working, Miss Rosenblom held long

  examinations before she distributed the presents. That was

  the reason all the children in town lived in constant dread

  of her. Every day when they were about to do their homework and were

  trying to think of something more

  amusing to do before getting started, their mother

  or father would say, "Remember Miss

  Rosenblom!"

  It was a terrible disgrace to come home to one's parents

  and brothers and sisters the day Miss Rosenblom had

  been to school, and not have a small coin or bag of

  candy or at least some underwear to show for it. Yes, of

  all things, underwear! Because Miss

  Rosenblom distributed underwear to the poorest children.

  But it didn't matter how poor a child was if he

  didn't know the answer when Miss Rosenblom

  asked how many inches there were in a mile. It wasn't

  surprising at all that the children were afraid of Miss

  Rosenblom!

  They lived in terror of her soup too. Believe it

  or not, Miss Rosenblom had all the children weighed

  and measured in order to see if there were any among them

  who were especially thin and pathetic and who looked as

  if they weren't getting enough to eat at home. All

  those who were found to be poor and too skinny had to go

  to Miss Rosenblom's every lunch hour and eat a

  big plate of soup. It would have been fine if there

  hadn't been a whole lot of nasty barley in the

  soup. It always felt so slippery in the mouth.

  Now the big day had arrived when Miss Rosenblom

  was coming to the school. Classes stopped earlier than

  usual, and all the children gathered in the

  Pippi Arranges a Question-and-Answer Bee

  school yard. Miss Rosenblom sat at a big

  table that had been placed in the middle of the yard.

  To help her, she had two assistants who wrote

  down everything about the children-how much they weighed,

  if they were able to answer her questions, if they were poor and

  needed clothes, if they had good marks in conduct, if

  they had younger brothers and sisters at home who also

  needed clothing. There was no end to the things that Miss

  Rosenblom wanted to know. A box containing coins

  stood on the table in front of her. There were also a

  lot of bags of candy, and big piles of undershirts

  and socks and woolen pants.

  "All children get in line!" shouted Miss

  Rosenblom. "In the first line I want children who

  don't have brothers and sisters at home; in the

  second line children who have one or two brothers and

  sisters; and in the third, children who have more than two

  brothers and sisters." This arrangement was made because

  Miss Rosenblom wanted everything to be orderly.

  Besides, it was only fair that the children who had many

  brothers and sisters at home should get bigger bags

  of candy than those who didn't have any.

  Then the examination began. Oh, how the children trembled!

  The ones who couldn't answer the minute a question was

  asked had to go and stand in

  a corner, and then they were sent home without as much as

  one piece of candy for their little brothers and sisters.

  Both Tommy and Annika were very good at their school

  work. But in spite of that, the bow in

  Annika's'hair quivered with suspense as she

  stood in line beside Tommy. And Tommy's face

  got whiter and whiter the closer he got to Miss

  Rosenblom. When it was his turn to answer there was a

  sudden commotion in the line for children without brothers and

  sisters. Someone was pushing her way forward through the

  crowd, and who should it be but Pippi! She brushed the

  children aside and went straight up to Miss

  Rosenblom.

  "Excuse me, but I wasn't here when you started,"

  she said. "In which line should I stand, since I

  don't have fourteen brothers and sisters of which thirteen

  are naughty little boys?"

  Miss Rosenblom looked very disapproving. "You can

  stay where you are fo
r the present," she said. "But it

  seems to me that quite soon you will be moved over into the

  line of children who are going to stand in the corner."

  Then the assistants wrote down Pippi's name and

  she was weighed in order to find out whether she needed

  any soup. But she weighed five pounds too much for

  that.

  Pippi Arranges a Question-and-Answer Bee

  "You don't get any soup," said Miss

  Rosenblom sharply.

  "Sometimes luck is with me," said Pippi. "Now

  all I have to do is get by without getting stuck with the

  underwear. Then I'll be able to breathe more freely."

  Miss Rosenblom paid no attention to her. She was

  looking through the dictionary for a difficult word for

  Pippi to spell.

  "Now then," she said finally, "will you tell me how you

  spell "seasick"?"

  "I'll be glad to," said Pippi.

  "S-e-e-s-i-knowledge."

  Miss Rosenblom smiled-a sour smile. "Is

  that so?" she said. "The dictionary spells it

  differently."

  "Then it was very lucky that you wanted to know how I

  spell it," said Pippi. "S-e-e-s-i-k

  is the way I have always spelled it, and it seems to have

  worked out just fine."

  "Make a note of that," said Miss Rosenblom

  to the assistants and grimly pressed her lips

  together.

  "Yes, do that," said Pippi. "Make a note of

  this fine spelling and see to it that the change is made

  in the dictionary as soon as possible."

  "I wonder if you can answer this one," said Miss

  Rosenblom. "When did King Charles the

  Twelfth die?"

  "Oh dear, is he dead too?" cried Pippi.

  "It's awful

  how many people die these days! If he had kept his

  feet dry I'm sure it would never have happened."

  "Make a note of that," said Miss Rosenblom

  to her assistants in an icy voice.

  "Yes, by all means do that," said Pippi. "And

  make a note that it's very good to keep leeches next

  to the skin. And you should drink a little warm kerosene before

  going to bed. It's very invigorating!"

  Miss Rosenblom looked desperate. "Why

  does a horse have molars with dark markings running

  through them?" she asked in a stern voice.

  "But are you sure that he has?" said Pippi

  thoughtfully. "You can ask him yourself. He is standing

  over there," she said and pointed to her horse, who was

  tied to a tree. She laughed contentedly. "It's a

  good thing I brought him along," she said. "Otherwise

  you would never have known why he has molars with markings in

  them. Because honestly

  I

  have no idea-and, what's more, I don't care much

  either."

  A narrow line was now all that was left of

  Miss Rosenblom's mouth. "This is

  unbelievable," she murmured, "absolutely

  unbelievable."

  "Yes, I think so too," said Pippi, pleased.

  "If I continue being this clever, I probably

  won't be able to avoid getting a pair of pink

  woolen under-drawers."

  Pippi in the South Seas

  "Make a note of that," said Miss Rosenblom

  to the assistants.

  "No, don't bother," said Pippi. "I really

  don't care so much about pink woolen underdrawers. That

  wasn't what I meant. But you could make a note

  saying I'm to have a big bag of candy."

  "I'm going to ask you one more question," said Miss

  Rosenblom, and her voice sounded as if she were

  strangling.

  "Yes, keep right on," said Pippi. "I like this

  kind of question-and-answer game."

  "Can you answer this one?" said Miss Rosenblom.

  "Peter and Paul are going to divide a cake.

  If Peter gets one fourth, what does Paul

  get?"

  "A stomach-ache," said Pippi. She turned to the

  assistants. "Make a note of that," she

  said seriously. "Make a note that Paul gets a

  stomach-ache."

  But Miss Rosenblom was finished with Pippi. "You

  are the most stupid and disagreeable child I have ever

  seen," she said. "Go over and stand in the corner right

  away!"

  Pippi obediently trotted off, muttering

  angrily to herself, "It's unfair, because I answered

  every question!" When she had walked a few steps she

  suddenly thought of something and quickly elbowed her way

  back to Miss Rosenblom.

  Pippi Arranges a Question-and-Answer Bee

  "Excuse me," she said, "but I forgot to give my

  chest measurement and my height above sea level.

  Make a note of that," she said to the assistants.

  "Not that I want any soup-far from it-but the books

  should be in order, after all."

  "If you don't go over and stand in the corner

  immediately," said Miss Rosenblom, "I know a little

  girl who is going to get a sound spanking."

  "Poor child," said Pippi. "Where is she? Send

  her to me and I'll defend her. Make a note of

  that."

  Then Pippi went over and stood in the

  corner with the children who couldn't answer questions. There the

  atmosphere was far from gay. Many of the children were sobbing and

  crying at the thought of what their parents and their brothers

  and sisters would say when they came home without the least

  little coin and without any candy.

  Pippi looked around at the crying children and swallowed

  hard several times. Then she said, "We'll have a

  question-and-answer bee all our own!"

  The children looked a bit more cheerful, but they didn't quite

  understand what Pippi meant.

  "Form two lines," said Pippi. "All of you who

  know that King Charles the Twelfth is dead stand in one

  line and those who still haven't heard that he is dead stand

  in the other."

  But since all the children knew that Charles the Twelfth

  was dead there was only one line.

  "This is no good," said Pippi. "You have to have at

  least two lines, otherwise it isn't right. Ask

  Miss Rosenblom and you'll see." She stopped

  to think. "I have it!" she said at last. "All very

  clever and well-trained pranksters will form one line."

  "And who is to stand in the other line?" a little girl who

  didn't want to be thought of as a prankster asked

  eagerly.

  "In the other line we'll put all those who

  are not quite so clever at playing pranks," said

  Pippi.

  Over at Miss Rosenblom's table the questioning was

  continuing full force and now and then a child on the verge of

  tears came shuffling over to Pippi's crowd.

  "And now comes the hard part," said Pippi. "Now

  we're going to see if you have been doing your

  homework." She turned to a skinny little boy in a

  blue shirt. "You over there," she said, "give me

  the name of someone who is dead."

  The boy looked a little surprised, but then he said,

  "Old Mrs. Pettersson in Number

  Fifty-seven."

  "What do you know?" said Pippi. "Do you know anyone

  else
?"

  No, the boy didn't. Then Pippi put her hands

  in

  Pippi Arranges a Question-and-Answer Bee

  51 front of her mouth in the form of a megaphone and

  said in a stage whisper, "King Charles the

  Twelfth, of course!"

  Then Pippi asked all the children in turn if they

  knew anyone who was dead, and they all answered,

  "Old Mrs. Pettersson in Number

  Fifty-seven and King Charles the

  Twelfth."

  "This examination is going better than I had

  expected," said Pippi. "Now I'm going to ask

  only one thing more. If Peter and Paul are going

  to divide a cake, and Peter absolutely

  doesn't want any but sits himself down in a

  corner and gnaws on a dry little bit of bread, who

  is then forced to sacrifice himself and down the whole

  cake?"

  "Paul!" shouted all the children.

  "I wonder if children as clever as you could be found

  anywhere else," said Pippi. "But you shall have a

  reward."

  From her pockets she dug out a whole handful of

  gold pieces and each child got one. Each child also

  got a huge bag of candy, which Pippi took out of

  her rucksack.

  That is why there was great rejoicing among the children who were

  supposedly in disgrace. And when Miss

  Rosenblom's examination was finished and everybody was

  going home, the children who

  Pippi in the South Seas

  had been standing in the corner were the quickest

  to disappear. But first they all crowded around

  Pippi.

  Thank you, dear Pippi," they said. "Thank you for the

  gold pieces and the candy."

  "It's nothing," said Pippi. "You don't need

  to thank me. But you must never forget that I rescued you

  from the pink woolen underdrawers."

  Pippi Gets a Letter

  The days went by, and all of a sudden it was

  autumn-first autumn and then winter, a long, cold

  winter that seemed as if it would never end. Tommy and

  Annika were very busy at school, and with every day that went

  by they felt more tired and had a harder time getting up

  in the morning. Mrs. Setter-gren began to be

  really worried about their paleness and their lack of

  appetite. On top of everything, both of them

  suddenly caught the measles and had to stay in bed for a

  couple of weeks.

  It would have been two very dreary weeks indeed if

  Pippi hadn't come and done tricks outside their

  window every day. The doctor had forbidden her to go into the

  sickroom, because measles are catching, and Pippi

  obeyed, although she said she would undertake to crack one

  or two billion measle microbes between her

  fingernails during the course of an afternoon.

  Pippi in the South Seas

  But no one had forbidden her to do tricks

  outside the window. The children's room was on the

  second floor, and Pippi had raised a ladder

  to their window. It was very exciting for Tommy and

  Annika to lie in their beds and try to guess how

  Pippi would look when she appeared on the ladder,

  because she never looked the same two days in a row.

  Sometimes she would be dressed as a chimney sweep,

  sometimes as a ghost in a white sheet, and sometimes she

  appeared as a witch. Then she would act amusing

  skits outside the window, playing all the parts

  herself. Now and then she did acrobatics on the

  step-ladder-and what acrobatics! She would stand on

  the topmost rung and let the ladder sway forth and

  back until Tommy and Annika screamed in

  terror because it looked as if she would come crashing down

  any minute. But she didn't. When she was going

  to climb down again she always went head first just so that it

  would be more amusing for Tommy and Annika to watch.

  Every day she went to town to buy apples and oranges

  and candy. She put everything into a basket and attached

  it to a long string. Then Mr. Nilsson climbed

  up with the string to Tommy, who opened the window and

  hoisted up the basket. Sometimes Mr. Nilsson

  would also bring letters from Pippi when she was busy and

  couldn't come herself. But

  Pippi Gets a Letter

  that didn't happen often, because Pippi was on the

  ladder practically all the time. Sometimes she

  pressed her nose against the windowpane and turned her

  eyelids inside out and made the most terrible

  faces. She said to Tommy and Annika that she would

  give each of them a gold piece if they could keep

  from laughing at her. But of course they couldn't. They

  laughed so hard that they almost fell out of their beds.

  Gradually they became well again and were allowed to get

  up. But, oh, how pale and thin they were! Pippi

  was sitting with them in their kitchen the first day they were up,

  watching them eat their cereal. That is, they were

  supposed to be eating cereal, but they weren't doing very

  well. It made their mother terribly nervous to see

  them just sitting there and picking at it.

  "Eat your good cereal," she said.

  Annika stirred hers around in the dish with her spoon

  a bit, but she knew that she just couldn't get any of