Aniseed and the Alchemist

This was not an ordinary gulp. First, he slurped it in a noisy way. Then he gurgled the tea while drawing air in through his teeth. The longer he did this, the higher his eyebrows shot up on his face. Then finally he swallowed, and sighed. Then he scratched his nose vigorously, and sniffed, picked his nose, and flicked the snot through the air, over Aniseed's head

Aniseed didn't remember dozing off in the tree, but when she woke up, it was dark, and she was indoors. She had been dreaming all night, that she had been sleeping in the most amazingly soft bed, except she kept dreaming that a cow with a bad case of flatulence was sleeping on her head. Then she woke up and realised why. Everything stank. She was lying somewhere strange. It was cold, and moist, and smeely, and soft. It was in her hair and between her toes. This odd gunk. And then she realised. Of course. It was stilton. She was sleeping in a stilton. Not an ordinary stilton of course. An extraordinarily large, and extraordinarily overripe, and stinking stilton. She saw that Ted had even given her a little pillow, and a note, which read