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The chill of the early November air—crisp and smelling faintly of damp earth and pine needles—nips at their noses. Pippi, Tommy, and Annika are nestled in the sturdy old oak tree behind Villa Villekulla. The space where the massive trunk splits creates a perfect, wooden cubbyhouse, a few feet above the mossy ground. They finish the last of the cold, sweet coffee, the fine porcelain of the china cups feeling delicate and precious in their hands. Above them, the oak's sprawling crown, though losing its leaves for the late autumn, still forms a magnificent, gray-green roof against the pale, Scandinavian sky. With a flourish and zero warning, Pippi simply lets go, tossing the empty china cups, the sugar bowl, and the milk pitcher in a glittering cascade toward the lawn below.
"I want to see how strong the china they make these days is," Pippi announces, adjusting her bright red pigtails, which stick out straight and stiff like wire.
Her eyes, wide and mischievous, are already fixed on the ground, anticipating the results of her impromptu strength test. The smash is surprisingly muted, more of a dull clatter than a terrifying explosion of porcelain. Tommy and Annika gasp, expecting disaster. Yet, when they peer down at the battlefield on the grass, a strange victory has been won: one tiny teacup, meant for a doll's tea party, remains whole, sitting perfectly atop three stacked saucers that stubbornly refused to shatter. Only the elegant, curved spout of the porcelain coffeepot has snapped off cleanly, leaving the pot looking dignified but wounded.
Seeing her experiment conclude with such meager breakage, Pippi shrugs her denim overall-clad shoulders. Her attention shifts immediately to new vertical possibilities. She decides, with a sudden surge of energy, to climb a little higher up the rugged, knotty trunk, moving with the speed and agility of a small, red-haired monkey. Just as Tommy and Annika settle back, a shout of pure astonishment rings out from the branches above.
"Can you beat this?" Pippi cries, her voice echoing down the wooden shaft. "The tree is hollow, completely hollow!"
Tommy and Annika crane their necks and spot it: a massive, dark gash right in the heart of the trunk, a circular cavity of shadow. A curtain of thick, tenacious oak leaves, having clung to the branch despite the season, has perfectly concealed this big, inviting hole from the children's view until this very moment.
"Oh, may I climb up and look too?" Tommy calls up excitedly, pulling himself halfway out of the wooden seat, desperate to explore this brand-new secret space.
But there is a heavy, bewildering silence from above. No answer comes back. Tommy’s excitement immediately curdles into genuine panic.
"Pippi, where are you, you silly billy?" he cries, his voice tight with worry, searching frantically among the remaining foliage.
Just as he starts to scramble upward, they hear the sound of Pippi’s voice. It is muffled and strange, not filtering down from the high branches, but instead coming from way down below, seeming to rise out of the very roots of the earth itself, as if she is speaking from under the ground.
"I’m inside the tree now," Pippi calls up, her voice suddenly clear and slightly triumphant. "It is hollow clear down to the ground, all the way to the foundation! If I peek out through a little crack in the bark, I can see the unfortunate coffee pot lying outside on the green grass."
Annika’s face, usually so neat and calm with its perfectly braided blonde hair, crumples with distress. "Oh, how will you get up again, Pippi?" she cries out, the question full of genuine fear for her adventurous friend.
"I'm never coming up," Pippi declares dramatically, the words echoing in the deep wooden chimney. "I’m going to stay here and live a solitary life until I retire and get a generous pension. And you, Tommy and Annika, will have to throw my food—preferably gingerbread and meatballs—down through that hole up there. Five or six times a day, mind you. No less!"
This news is simply too much for the sensitive girl. The thought of Pippi, her dearest friend, permanently imprisoned in the dark, damp heart of a tree, makes Annika’s lip tremble, and she begins to weep openly, fat tears rolling down her flushed cheeks.
"Oh, little Sunshine," Pippi says, instantly softening her tone as she hears the sobs, her voice still resonating from the depths. "Why be so sorry? Why complain about such a grand adventure? You come down here too, and then we can play a magnificent game where we are two miserable prisoners, pining away in a medieval dungeon."
"Never in this world!" Annika declares emphatically, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Pining away in the dirt does not sound like a fun game. To be on the safe side and ensure she is not accidentally sucked into the dungeon, she scrambles right down out of the oak tree and onto the firm ground.
"Annika, I can see you through the crack!" Pippi cries, her voice now a little nearer the surface. "Be very careful, my dear. Don't step on the coffee pot; it's an old, well-mannered coffee pot that never did anyone any harm. It can’t help it that it doesn't have a spout any longer."
Annika cautiously moves up to the rough, gray-brown tree trunk, peering intently. Through a splintered, hairline crack in the bark, she sees the faintest flash of pink—the very tip of Pippi’s fingernail, pressed against the inner wood. This sight of this tiny, tangible proof that Pippi is close and unharmed comforts her a good deal, like a warm blanket. But the image of Pippi trapped remains, and she is still acutely worried.
"Pippi, my dear friend," Annika asks in a small, hopeful voice, leaning her ear against the bark. "Can't you really, truly get up from down there?"
The pink fingertip vanishes. There is a rustle of movement, a slight scuffing noise from inside the tree's core, and in less than a minute—a record for even Pippi—her grinning, freckled face suddenly pops out of the dark hole high up in the tree where she first disappeared.
"Maybe I can if I try very hard indeed," she says, her eyes twinkling with triumph at the successful vertical transit. She uses her strong hands to casually part the remaining, dry foliage, clearing her way back onto the sturdy, horizontal branch.
"Well, if it’s as easy as all that to get up," says Tommy, who is still perched on the original branch, feeling rather left out of the entire dungeon experience, "then I want to come down and pine away a little, too, before the fun is all over."
"Wait a minute," Pippi instructs, holding up a massive finger. "Climbing back up the interior chimney is my trick, and it's much too dangerous for a mild-mannered boy like you. I think we'll get a proper ladder for safety."
She crawls completely out of the hole and then rapidly slides down the exterior of the oak tree, her boots finding purchase easily. She sprints off toward the shed, returns instantly, heaving a heavy, wooden step ladder with one arm. She pushes the ladder up and into the original fork of the tree, maneuvers it over the edge of the hole, and lets the full length of the rungs drop neatly down into the dark, hollow trunk.
Tommy is now wild with anticipation, his eyes shining with the promise of adventure. He climbs carefully from his safe seat toward the opening. It is a tricky, difficult ascent just to reach the mouth of the hole, because the opening is so high up in the trunk, but Tommy Settigren is a brave boy and manages the short, perilous scramble. Tommy grasps the ladder rungs firmly and, without a moment's hesitation or fear, begins his descent into the pitch-dark hollow of the trunk. Annika watches his feet disappear, her anxiety returning fiercely, and she wonders miserably if she'll ever see her big brother again. Driven by concern, Annika rushes back to the bottom of the trunk and peers anxiously in through the narrow, reassuring crack in the bark.
"Annika!" comes Tommy's thrilled voice, sounding happily trapped from the depths. "You can’t possibly imagine how wonderful it is here! You must, must come in, too! It isn't the least bit dangerous when you have a perfectly good, sensible ladder to climb on. If you only experience this once, I promise you, you’ll never want to do anything else with your life!"
"Are you quite sure, Tommy?" Annika asks, still hesitant, her eyes wide as she looks up at the intimidating black aperture above.
"Absolutely!" Tommy confirms with a certainty that cannot be argued against.
With legs that are still trembling slightly from the sheer audacity of the plan, Annika gathers her courage and climbs back up into the oak tree. Pippi, waiting patiently at the top, reaches down and helps her with the last, hard bit of the ascent, pulling her neatly over the high branch. Annika draws back slightly, gasping, when she sees how completely and utterly dark it is inside the vertical chimney of the tree trunk, a black hole swallowing the daylight. But Pippi holds her hand firmly, her grip strong and warm, and keeps encouraging her with whispered promises of amazing things down below.
"Don't be scared, Annika," she hears Tommy say from the inky darkness below, sounding completely happy. "Now I can see your shiny stockings and your legs, and I’ll certainly be right here to catch you if you happen to fall off the ladder!"
Annika takes a deep, steadying breath and begins her careful descent. But Annika doesn't fall even an inch. She reaches Tommy safely at the bottom of the woody dungeon, and a moment later, with a quick whoosh of overalls and an energetic thud, Pippi follows them down the ladder.
"Isn't it absolutely grand here?" Tommy whispers, a conspiratorial grin spreading across his face in the dim light.
Annika looks around the strange, circular room of wood and dirt and has to admit, with a sigh of relief, that it is. It isn't nearly so dark and dreadful as she had imagined from the outside, because a gentle, amber light streams in through the long, narrow crack in the bark. She, too, moves to the crack and peers out, announcing in a satisfied voice that she can perfectly see the damaged coffee pot and the intact china cup lying outside on the dewy grass.
"We'll have this for our absolute, private, super-secret hiding place," says Tommy, slapping the wooden wall. "Nobody in the whole wide world will know that we are even here! And if they should come and hunt around outside for us, yelling our names, we can see them through the crack. And we’ll have a terrifically good laugh at their confusion."
"Better yet," Pippi adds, her eyes sparkling like newly polished coins, "we can find a little stick and poke it right out through the crack to tickle their ankles, and then they'll be terribly frightened and think the Villa Villekulla oak is well and truly haunted!"
The thought of tickling ghosts and confusing grown-ups is so utterly magnificent that the children are overcome with delighted, spontaneous joy. They hug each other fiercely, all three bundled together in the small, wooden space. Annika, still a little shaky from the climb, leans into Pippi, embracing her tightly and burying her face happily in the starched, oddly comforting fabric of Pippi's chest, taking a deep breath that smells of soap and horses.
Just as the grand dungeon-planning session reaches its peak, a clear, unmistakable "ding-dong!" floats across the yard. It is the sound of the small, insistent dinner bell ringing from the Settigren house, signaling that it is time for the children to go home for their evening meal.
"Oh, bother and fiddlesticks!" Tommy groans, already missing their subterranean lair. "Now we've got to go home. But we’ll be back tomorrow, right after we get back from school. That’s a promise!"
"Do that, Darlings," Pippi replies with a satisfied nod, already making plans for the ghost-tickling stick. "Don't be late."