The Custard Cream Accords

Sameer saw Ben's eyes drift to the biscuit. It sat there, golden and embossed, a tiny island of hope in a sea of academic despair. Sameer's stomach gurgled. He hadn't eaten anything but lukewarm coffee and anxiety for the past six hours. He needed that biscuit. The sugar, the crunch, the brief, fleeting moment of joy—it was a strategic necessity.

"I'm having that," Ben whispered, his voice husky with sleep.

Sameer didn't look up from his notes. "No, you're not. I'm having it."

"I bought them," Ben countered, his logic infuriatingly sound.

"And you've eaten nine of them!" Sameer hissed, finally looking up. "You've been grazing like a wildebeest. I've had one. One! This is a matter of equitable distribution of resources."

"It's a matter of my resources, which I am choosing to distribute into my mouth," Ben said. He reached a slow, deliberate hand toward the packet.

Sameer's hand shot out, clamping down over the plastic wrapping. "Don't. Touch. The biscuit."

They were frozen like that for a long moment, hands overlapping on the crinkly packet, staring each other down over a barricade of constitutional law textbooks. Ben's eyes, usually lazy and amused, held a spark of genuine competitive fire. Sameer knew he wore an expression of pure, caffeine-fueled desperation.

"We can't fight," Ben whispered, his eyes flicking nervously toward the librarian's desk at the far end of the aisle. "Mrs. Albright has the hearing of a bat. She'd execute us with a date stamp."

"Then concede," Sameer breathed.

"Never." Ben retracted his hand, but his posture remained coiled, ready. "We'll decide this like gentlemen. With psychological warfare."

And so, the cold war began.

For the next hour, they communicated only through passive aggression. Ben started by casually sliding the biscuit packet an inch closer to his side of the table. Five minutes later, Sameer, pretending to reach for a highlighter, slid it back. Ben sighed, a loud, put-upon sound, and began tapping his pen in a complex, irritating rhythm. Sameer retaliated by underlining passages in his textbook with a ferocity that made the page tremble.

The battle escalated. Ben tore a piece of paper from his notepad and scribbled on it.

*My need is greater,* the note read. *My essay on postmodern poetry requires the kind of abstract thinking only a custard cream can provide.*

He slid it across the desk. Sameer read it, sniffed with disdain, and wrote his reply.

*Tort law is a dense, unforgiving jungle. I require a sustenance beacon to guide me through the thicket of liability. Your need is flighty and pretentious. Mine is foundational.*

Ben read the reply, narrowed his eyes, and began to construct a small fort out of his books, slowly obscuring his face and leaving the biscuit on his side of the new border. Sameer, not to be outdone, built his own, higher wall. Soon, only the very tops of their heads were visible over their respective fortifications.

The tension was becoming unbearable. The biscuit sat in the no-man's-land between them, a silent, mocking trophy. Ben decided on a final, decisive gambit. He cleared his throat quietly, then, with calculated clumsiness, knocked a heavy book off his side of the desk. It hit the carpeted floor with a loud, definitive *thump*.

It was the perfect diversion. Sameer's head, and more importantly, the head of Mrs. Albright, would surely turn toward the sound. In that split second, Ben would claim his prize.

The plan worked. Sort of. Sameer's head did jerk toward the noise. But so did Mrs. Albright's.

A stern, grey-haired figure rose from behind the circulation desk. Her glasses were perched on the end of her nose, and her expression could curdle milk. She began to stalk down the aisle toward them, her rubber-soled shoes making no sound.

Panic seized them both. In their shared terror, they moved at the same time, a frantic, uncoordinated scramble to look as innocent and studious as possible. Ben tried to dismantle his book fort. Sameer tried to hide the incriminating notes.

In the chaos, Sameer's elbow connected with the biscuit packet. It skidded across the table and tumbled over the edge, landing on the dusty floor with a soft, pathetic crunch.

Mrs. Albright arrived at their carrel. She peered over Sameer's book wall, then Ben's. Her gaze was withering. "Is there a problem here, gentlemen?"

"No, Mrs. Albright," they chorused in unison, their voices unnaturally high.

She stared at them for a thousand years, then gave a sharp, disapproving nod and glided away.

They held their breath until she was gone. Then, slowly, they both peeked around their book forts. Their eyes met. And then, their eyes drifted down to the floor, to where the last custard cream lay in three sad, crumbly pieces next to a dust bunny.

The tragedy of it. The sheer, pointless waste. It was too much.

Ben's shoulders started to shake. A strangled noise came out of his mouth. Sameer pressed his lips together, trying to fight it, but it was no use. He ducked his head below the desk, his hand clamped over his mouth, as a wave of silent, hysterical, sleep-deprived laughter overtook him. Ben followed a second later, disappearing behind his own wall. The carrel was silent, but if one listened closely, they could hear the muffled, desperate gasps of two young men losing their minds over a biscuit.

Hiding under the desk, in the cramped space filled with the smell of old paper and dusty carpet, the absurdity of it all hit Sameer full force. He laughed until his stomach hurt and tears pricked his eyes. Ben was laughing just as hard beside him, their shoulders bumping in the dark.

"Foundational need," Ben finally wheezed, his voice choked with laughter.

"Flighty and pretentious," Sameer gasped back. The war was over. There were no winners, only exhausted, giggling losers.