I'm Pippi. I'm lost. You're really brave, huh? You're such a goofball! Hahaha! Okay! Let's go back to town now! I'm too scared. You lead the way, Ninten.
Pippi is a playable character in MOTHER (localized as EarthBound Beginnings), and the first character to join Ninten, even if temporary. Unlike other unnameable characters in the MOTHER series that join the party, her actions are not autonomous as if she were a nameable character. Though she doesn't have PSI, she has high stats across the board. She can equip the Slingshot.
Pippi is a young girl who lives on the outskirts of Mother's Day, near Ninten's home, with her mother Lindgren. At the beginning of the game, Ninten learns from Lindgren that Pippi has gone missing. Upon arriving in Mother's Day, Ninten meets with Mr. Mayor, the head of Mother's Day, who is preparing for re-elections at the time. To make himself out to be a hero and have the town vote in his favor, he enlists the help of Ninten to rescue Pippi from the Cemetery to the south.
Ninten braves the zombie-laden cemetery to find Pippi locked in the leftmost coffin in an underground tomb. Upon being rescued, Pippi may give Ninten a Franklin Badge if two questions are answered correctly (if not, the badge can still be received if she is spoken to in her home). Pippi then joins Ninten's party as a playable character, and the two return to Mother's Day. When the two arrive at the City Hall, Mr. Mayor, eager for his name to be in the headlines as a hero, bribes Ninten to allow him to take the credit for rescuing her with money and the key to the City Zoo. Pippi is left in the mayor's care and subsequently appears in front of her house with her Mother for the rest of the game.
Along with appearing in front of her house, she also makes an appearance at the house in the swamp near Ellay. She tells Ninten that she sneaked out of her house and asks Ninten to not tell her mother. Speaking to her there will trigger Ninten and friends to "stay the night" and recover all their hit points and psychic points.
Pippi is the only temporary party member until Mother 3 who can level up, have her own inventory, and equip weapons and armor like a main party member.
The only weapons Pippi is able to equip are the Slingshot and Boomerang, although only the former can be acquired while she is still in the party.
Pippi's stat growth rates are identical to Teddy's.
As a result, besides PP, Wisdom, and Force, Pippi outranks Ninten in every stat, so many players hold on to her for as long as possible.
Despite being restricted to such an early section of the game, Pippi can still be present for obtaining two melodies. The first is the one in the broken Doll at Ninten's house if it was skipped earlier, and the second is from Laura at Canary Village.
In the Japanese Famicom version of the game only, if Pippi had Bread Crumbs in her inventory when delivered to the mayor, she will be able to return them to Ninten if he speaks to her at her house. If Ninten didn't previously use Bread himself, the game will end up using an invalid value for the destination supposed to be travelled to, resulting in Ninten being transported to a glitchy, grey version of the overworld. To fix this, all subsequent releases of the game were changed so that Pippi will no longer give Ninten her bread crumbs if she had any.
An unused enemy in Mother closely resembles Pippi, for unknown reasons.
If one plays throughout the game without returning Pippi (through hacking), she will not appear in the house at the swamp.
