After the delicious Sunday roast and the desert had been consumed at the Settergren's house, Tommy's wife put the children to bed for an afternoon nap. Annika, who had come over from Lund (where she was studying now) for the weekend suggested to go for a walk, yet Mr. and Mrs. Settergren senior decided to also rest a little. So it happened that the two siblings went together. The weather was not quite inviting for such an activity: it was a cool, gray and windy day. They rolled up their collars and walked side by side in silence for a while. In the morning there had been rain and every now and then they had to walk around puddles.

"Did you hear the old villa is going to be demolished?", Tommy asked.

"No. But it makes sense. It has been close to collapse for years. " Annika had always been the sensible one.

"Yeah ..." Tommy put his hands in his pockets and kicked a few small stones with his feet, something he never did in company other than his sister's. "But don't you think it's a bit of a shame?"

"Yes, very much so. Don't you want to go there for one last time? I don't know ... to say goodbye? "Annika felt a bit stupid to suggest it - since when did you say goodbye to empty old houses? - but it turned out that Tommy didn't think the idea stupid at all.

"Do you remember how we used to stand at this door all the time?", he asked when they had reached the half-rotten, mossy garden gate.

"Yes, and we wished for someone with children to move in. Because we were always so bored."

"But nobody ever came. Wasn't the Villa said to belong to this captain who went missing?"

"Yes, and do you remember that we made up the idea his daughter would move in here?"

Tommy laughed. "Yes, who could ever forget Pippi? Even if she didn't exist! "

"Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Efraim's Daughter Longstocking," Annika quoted thoughtfully.

"You absolutely wanted her to be a girl. I would rather have a pirate. So we agreed on both." Tommy tentatively put his foot on a strut on the garden door and pulled himself up.

"Watch it! It is definitely rotten! "

"Oh, nonsense. Come on, let's climb in one last time!" He swung over the door and helped Annika to follow him.

"Basically she did everything we weren't allowed to do and wanted as children, right? Buy the candy store and toy store empty, get little presents every day ... "

"Yeah, but also give the mean guys a taste of their own medicine. And speaking up against annoying aunts and uncles. Being brave, doing the right thing, standing up for others. And wonderfully messing up everything. "

"I really, really liked her", Annika admitted quietly.

"Me too. Honestly, Ithink she was our very best friend. "

"Where would she be today, what do you think?"

Tommy didn't have to guess for long: "Well, I'd say she went to sea again. And now she frees the Seven Seas from injustice. It's just a shame that she never writes. "

"She was never great at writing," Annika reminded him.

In the meantime they had arrived in front of the house. Its boarded-up windows, the partially collapsed roof and the heavily weathered veranda - whereon grass was grewing - made the impression of utter neglect. Many years ago someone had apparently tried to decorate it with a bucket of pink paint, whether in a serious attempt to beautify the front or as a joke was impossible to make out. In any case, the paint was far from enough to cover the whole front - instead it made the house look somewhat mischievous. The effect was, even after so many years, still recognizable. Annika and Tommy looked at the faded paint and a smile stole across their faces.

"A terrible waste that she didn't really live here. It is the very, very best house to live in for the strongest little girl in the world. "

Annika tried to open the veranda door, to which a large sign with "CONDEMNED BUILDING" was nailed, but the door was stuck or locked.

"Maybe we really should not go in."

It remained open to interpretation whether Tommy meant the danger of collapse or rather that the interior condition of the house would make them both sad, because it could only have little to no similarity with children's fantasies anymore. In any case, Annika let go of the door.

They circled the building and eventually came to a tree that looked at least as likely to collapse as the house. There seemed to not have been any leaves for years and the few gray stubs that once had been living limbs were supported by wooden poles. On top of it all, the dead tree appeared to be hollow.

"I think it is going to be cut down, too."

Tommy went closer and pointed to a fairly large hole at the foot of the tree, between the roots.

"We played that lemonade was growing in there, remember?"

"Yes of course! Because we were crazy about this 'sweet woodruff' flavour back then. Although I always thought that Pippi had put them in for us. "

Tommy didn't exactly know why, but he couldn't resist putting his hand in the hole one last time. He was immediately startled.

"Annika, there's something in there!" He stunnedly pulled out two bottles of Sweet woodruff flavoured lemonade.

"O my! Did we forget them back then?"

Tommy got up again and examined the bottles, disbelieving. "Impossible. Back then they had a different label. These are new ones! "

Annika looked at him with great affection. "Oh, Tommy, how sweet of you!"

But Tommy shook his head: "It wasn't me. Honestly." Then he scrutinised his sister's face whether she would give herself away: "Maybe you were the one…?" But Annika also swore that she had nothing to do with it. Tommy even crawled down to the hole again, fishing with his fingers as far as he could go, as if hoping to find a letter from Pippi that explained everything - but nothing, of course.

They opened the bottles almost solemnly and clinked glasses, facing the house.

"Thank you very much, Villa Villekulla! We had always such a wonderful time with you!"

"Goodbye, Pippi! We will never forget you! "

"Good luck fighting pirates and injustice! "

"Thank you very much for the farewell gift! And maybe sometime, drop a line!"

When they jumped back onto the street from the garden gate, Annika noticed that Tommy had smeared dirt and grass stains on his good trousers. Her own stockings also had splashes and stains from walking around in foreign property and climbing over fences.

For some reason, neither of them both were ashamed of it.

A/N: Tommy wears a blue shirt with a sky blue jacket, a sky blue shorts with yellow stripes, yellow stockings and golden boots.

And Annika wears a white long sleeve shirt with a mint cream vest, a light pink skirt that's magenta at the bottom, white socks, lavender shoes with blue ribbons, and a boater hat with an orange ribbon.