The War of the Biscuits

Siobhan Donnelly

The War of The Biscuits

The chocolate digestives lived peacefully on the shelf in Tesco’s until one afternoon they were taken. Once they were brought home to Mrs Speed’s house she undid them and put them in her biscuit box. The chocolate biscuits felt very intimidated, as some of the other biscuits who were there were quite resentful of these new additions to the biscuit box. There were plain digestives, ginger nuts, bourbons, custard creams and Jaffa cakes.

The custard creams and digestives looked down their noses at the Jaffa cakes and bourbons. This was because those biscuits with a hint of chocolate were always eaten first, by the humans. Whereas the other biscuits were left to go stale and that was a really unpleasant death. The ginger nuts were fiery, and were always bossing the other biscuits about. They would always jump the queue every time the biscuit box was opened because they wanted to be eaten first. But little did they know that these new chocolate digestives wouldn’t be bullied by the ginger nuts, like the other biscuits were.

Every time the ginger nuts pushed the Jaffa cakes around when the biscuit box was opened, the chocolate digestives would jump about as high as they could so they’d find themselves being picked up by the humans first. The plain digestives and custard creams, started to feel guilty seeing how the ginger nuts behaved towards the other biscuits. So the next time the biscuit box was opened when the ginger nuts were pushing the Jaffa cakes and bourbons about, the digestives lifted the Jaffa cakes and bourbons up to the top of the box so that the humans could eat them. After the chocolate digestives, the Jaffa cakes and the bourbons had been eaten, the ginger nuts came to realize that they couldn’t boss around any new additions to the biscuit box anymore. As the plain digestives and the custard creams wouldn’t tolerate it.

Sadly though this was forgotten, as one afternoon Mrs Speed took her grandson Martin to the bakery to buy him a treat. He was spending the afternoon with her helping her sort through some old photographs. Martin licked his lips as he looked at all the cakes and pastries, “what shall I have” he thought to himself. “Do you want a gingerbread man?” asked his grandma; “go on then gran” replied Martin. So the lady behind the counter having heard his request got her prongers, and put one gingerbread man in a paper bag and handed them to Mrs Speed. “That’ll be £2.30 please” said the lady; “here you go keep the change” said Mrs Speed handing in £2.50. Once Mrs Speed and Martin got home they removed the gingerbread man out of the wrapper, and put him in the biscuit box for Martin to have after his lunch. All the biscuits stared at this new and strange arrival, as half of the gingerbread man’s leg had been eaten. Martin had sneakly taken a bite of it when his gran wasn’t looking. “What are you?” asked the custard creams, “I’m a gingerbread man” he stammered in fear. He didn’t like being stared at one bit, and it made him feel intimidated. The ginger nuts recoiled in horror at him, the Jaffa cakes and Boubouns laughed at him because his leg was missing and he had to hop around. The plain digestives were the only ones, who didn’t laugh, they were very angry with the other biscuits. What they were doing was bullying the poor gingerbread, they should have known better as some of those biscuits had been bullied themselves. The plain digestives decided two speak to the chocolate digestives about this bullying, as it had to be stopped. If the poor gingerbread man didn’t get eaten soon, he may go stale even quickly than usual with being so unhappy at being picked on.

Later on the biscuit tin was opened again and a few chocolate fingers were dropped in, the attention was now on the fingers. And the gingerbread man was left alone for a while. The chocolate fingers were very jolly and always seemed to be laughing, some liked to dance about and throw themselves up and down. But there were two amongst them that were very different to the others, they were always on their own and ignored. When the plain digestives asked why they were on their own, all the other chocolate fingers would say was “ones odd, and the other is slow, they aren’t one of us”. The poor chocolate finger that was referred to as odd just stood in the corner in his own world. And when the other biscuits tried to approach him to introduce themselves he would cower away in fear. The other chocolate finger who spoke slowly chatted away happily, but the biscuits would laugh at the way he spoke. This made the poor finger burst into tears and walk away, to be with the other finger. “We’ve got to do something about this it’s wrong”, the plain digestives said to the chocolate digestives. “Just because somebody is different doesn’t mean its right to be cruel to them, the Jaffa cakes and the custard creams should know better. They were pushed about by the ginger nuts”, said a plain digestive.

So it was decided that a meeting be held with all the biscuits together, to talk this through. Meanwhile one of the chocolate digestives would go and sit with the two fingers to try and befriend them. By this point the gingerbread man had joined them, as he too was made to feel isolated. At the meeting the Jaffa cakes, custard creams, chocolate fingers and ginger nuts bowed their heads in shame, as the plain and chocolate digestives told them exactly how they felt about the cruelty towards the gingerbread man and the two chocolate fingers. “Imagine how you would feel if people laughed at you, because you looked different or you were slow to understand what was said to you”. “We are very sorry” said the biscuits together”, “We would like you to start being nice straightaway” said the chocolate and plain digestives. “Especially to the gingerbread man as I suspect he’ll be eaten soon.”

All the biscuits together walked towards the two chocolate fingers and gingerbread man, and all said “we are very sorry we were unkind to you and left you out.” They held out their hands and said “can we shake hands and be friends?”. They gingerbread man and the two chocolate fingers warily held their hands out to shake the other biscuits hands, and with that the chocolate and plain digestives went “hurray!” and gave them a round of applause.

Later that afternoon the biscuits all mixed together freely, happily chatting away. The gingerbread man felt accepted by the other biscuits, as did the two chocolate fingers. The biscuits were very patient with the chocolate finger who spoke slowly, and they let the chocolate finger who found it difficult to communicate to only talk when he felt comfortable to. And by the time Martin put his hands into the biscuit tin to collect his gingerbread man, all the biscuits were content and happy. Several custards creams and ginger nuts were also taken to go with Mrs Speed’s cup of tea. But the important thing was that all the biscuits that were left in the tin, treated each other with respect and kindness that was how it should be.