Pan and The Children

Once there was a little girls orphanage run by cruel and terrible nuns who treated the girls in their care like slaves; made them dress in rags, eat gruel and beat them whenever they dared to disobey.
Every day the girls would dream of escaping the orphanage but, unfortunately, it was built high upon a mountain covered in snow and ice with a fearsome gale that constantly whistled around its peaks and dangerous man eating penguins that lived in its caves and none of the girls felt brave enough to face those things.
One day however, a little girl named Gerta who was particularly naughty was left tied up in one of the penguin caves by the mother superior who owned the orphanage.
The girl begged not to be left there but the Mother Superior said, "This will teach you not to be so naughty. God does not like naughty little girls. Now the penguins will eat you".
And as the Nuns made their way back out of the cave, little Gerta saw thousands of eyes glaring at her out of the shadows; then she heard the noise of thousands of snapping penguin beaks like a choir of castanets and saw the penguins begin wobbling and waddling forwards towards her and she was sure that she would be eaten by the penguins.
But then, just as the manically glaring birds were within flippers reach of her, she heard a strange sound like pipe music being played.
And then, into the cave, she saw a man run, playing quickly upon his pipes so that they sounded almost like a twittering bird.
Then the man began to leap about the cave playing his pipes and, as he did, the penguins all started to retreat back into the shadows.
But then, when he had stopped leaping about and was standing infront of her, to her astonishment, Gerta saw that he was not a normal man at all but a man with goat legs and goat horns upon his head.
"Are you the devil?", she asked, thinking that he resembled pictures the nuns had shown her of what the devil was supposed to look like.
"No", he replied, "I'm the god Pan. This is my mountain".
"But this is the Nuns mountain", said Gerta.
"Oh I was here a long time before the Nuns came", said Pan, "I've always been here. My spirit lives in the rocks that the mountain is made from".
Then he played an enchanting tune upon his pipes; an eastern melody like that played by snake charmers in bazaars and the ropes that bound Gerta started to undo themselves before slithering away.
"Oh thank you", said Gerta, happy to be free from the ropes.
"Don't mention it", said Pan.
But then Gerta started to cry.
"Whats wrong now?", asked Pan.
"Well now I have nowhere to go", said Gerta, "The Nuns won't let me go back to the orphanage, I know that".
"Well why do you want to go back there anyway?", said Pan, "Why don't you come with me instead, to my kingdom inside the mountain".
"Inside the mountain?", asked Gerta.
"Yes", said Pan, "When the Nuns came and people started to forget the old gods like me, I built a fairy kingdom inside the mountain and went to live there with my fairy, gnome and unicorn helpers".
"Oh it sounds magical", said Gerta.
But then something else made her sad.
"But I wouldn't like to go there and leave all my friends behind in the orphanage", she said, "I would miss them and worry about them".
"Well thats no problem", said Pan, "I can take them all with me".
"Oh but the Nuns wouldn't allow that", said Gerta.
Pan laughed.
"Don't you worry about the Nuns", he said, "I'll take care of them".
So then Gerta led him to the orphanage; a grim, fortified building with a high wall surrounding it that made it look like a prison and, standing outside the orphanages gates, Pan began to play again upon his pipes.
And the moment he did, all the Nuns within the orphanage started to fall asleep; even the Nuns eating gruel, their snoring faces falling with a plop into their porridge bowls.
Then, when the last of the Nuns was asleep, at Pans command, the gates of the orphanage opened and, entering, Pan went dancing about the orphanage from room to room playing his pipes to all the little girls who, hearing his music, got out of their bunk beds and started to follow him.
Then he led them all out through the gates and along the mountainside and, as he did, all of the little girls began to sing, "We're going to Pans Kingdom of unicorns and gnomes; there will be fun for everyone in our wonderful new home".
However, no sooner had Pan and the children left the orphanage when the Nuns began waking up again.
The first to wake up was the mother superior and, sniffing the air, she said, "I don't smell the children".
And rushing out of her room, she ran about the orphanage looking but wherever she looked, she either saw sleeping nuns or missing little girls.
Going to the bell tower, the Mother superior started to ring upon the orphanage bell frantically.
"Wake up, sisters", she shouted, "The children have escaped. We must find them".
And when all the Nuns were wide awake and dressed in their habits, the Mother superior handed out blazing torches to them all and they went out searching.
Some of the nuns even put on skis and went skiing about the mountain snows very fast from cave to cave, looking inside each one.
"Find them, sisters", said the Mother Superior, "Find them so that we can punish them".
But then, after searching for some time, the Nuns finally caught up with Pan and the children just as they were standing infront of a large and deep ravine.
"Ha!", said the Mother Superior gleefully, "We've got them trapped now. They'll never get across that ravine".
But then suddenly, Pan laid the pan pipes he had been playing down on the ground infront of him and, when he did, the pipes began to grow and as they grew they started to stretch out over the ravine so that, when they had finished growing, they had become a wooden bridge spanning the ravine.
"Come on children", said Pan, "Cross the bridge. Quickly!".
"Devils magic", said the Mother Superior seeing what had happened and then, to the other Nuns shouted, "Come on sisters! We must stop them".
And, breaking into a run, all of the Nuns started to stampede across the bridge after Pan and the little girls.
But then, no sooner had the Nuns reached the middle of the pan pipe bridge when Pan, looking back, clicked his goat hooves together and, suddenly, the ropes holding the pan pipe bridge together started to snap; the bridge collapsing under the weight of the Nuns so that they all went plummeting, screeching like old harpies, down into the ravine.
Looking back, Gerta, inspite of how evil they had been, almost felt sad for the Nuns but then  Pan butted upon the mountain with his horns and, the mountain rock splitting in two with a loud ker-rack, a goldenly glowing cave opened up infront of him that was the entrance to his kingdom.
"Follow me girls", he said, skipping in through the entrance.
Then Gerta and all the other little girls went to live with Pan in his happy magical kingdom inside the mountain with fairies and gnomes and unicorns and they all lived happily ever after.