The Shades of Spring

Team with a Capital T

Tension laced every corner of the room.

Sidra held her breath, ready to spring into action if needed, to where Hafsa hurling words at Musa.
She had never seen Musa set off like this. Nor had she seen Hafsa meet her equal in debate. While Hafsa was all but bringing the roof down, Musa stood dangerously calm and fists clenched in the face of the fury. An equal but opposite match. She could see he was putting up a good fight against his instincts to slap the incorrigible girl and instead focusing on getting in a word edgewise. And God forbid, if he did throw fists, Hafsa would be in the ER. Unlikely as that was, at the moment there was a dangerous possibility he might still punch a cupboard though just to scare her friend.

"This is not how we planned it! Why did you move the cupboard to the west wall? Why don't you confer with anyone!"

"Hafsa," his voice was tight with anger, "there isn't any space in the west side, Hafsa."

Sidra briefly wondered how it would be if Musa and Hafsa got married. She quickly smothered the thought, but it left an amused smile on her face.

"What's so funny now?" Musa snapped at Sidra suddenly.

Oh, dangerous calm for Hafsa and snapping for me. My mouth can get louder than hers.
"Nothing," she denied, palms up in surrender. Taking her chance, she wrapped an arm around Hafsa's waist, who was still not done with Musa.

"He needs to understand the meaning of teamwork. Team with a capital T," she was saying.

"Okay, okay, Musa is sorry-" Musa glared at her, causing her to quickly add ,"-as you are for losing your temper."

She marched her friend away and assigned the duo jobs as far away from eachother as possible and transferred Melissa W and Karan to deal with the west side issue.Once sure that there was no imminent danger of another verbal spar, she called up Jo
"Hey, where are the boxes?"

There was a great deal of huffing and grunting on the other end. "If you hang up and allow me to walk, without falling down the stairs, they should be there in four minutes."

"Need me to send back up?"

"No. I got it."

She left her phone and went back to the stool, labeling the top shelves.
"Nineteen ninety seven to nineteen ninety eight." She happily went on labeling the rest.

Their companionable silence was disturbed by a yelp followed by a loud crash. Whoever was coming up the basement stairs, had gone right back to square one. She hurried over to the shaft and looked down. A grey eyed, sharp nosed face with a full beard looked up at her sheepishly from the bottom landing. Next to him was Jo Killian, sitting heavily on his posterior.

"Sorry," Jo called, "Nothing fragile in the boxes and they're properly taped. I'll get them."

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

"Not physically," he mumbled shifting uncomfortably on his backside. "But my honour is bruised."

Ayaan hefted the heavy box to his bent right knee and gave Jo a hand up.
"Hope you don't mind me being down here, Sidra. Peter told I could help Jonathan."

Sidra waved it off, saying it's okay as long as he didn't touch anything else. If Peter didn't mind allowing Ayaan to the more private part of the library, who was she to question it?

Luckily Jo wasn't injured despite having tumbled down the whole flight of stairs. And he for the remainder of the day, repeated that it wasn't his unmanly yelp but Ayaan's which they heard.

When the working day tapered to an end, the archives was set up to function. The fourteen individuals and Ayaan eyed the result in quiet satisfaction and a tingling excitement. Their muscles were sore, their limbs ached and most people had grazed knuckles and sweaty palms, but everyone wore a happy smile; one which was derived from the knowledge that they had seen their job through. Taking into account how much time they lost to police presence and the initial mayhem of the break in, they had performed admirably well and wrapped up two days ahead of the deadline. Now in place of the decrepit outhouse interior, stood a newly renovated, functional and comfortable archives room which bore the good and the bad of Crest Fall history for new eyes to view.

"Hip hip. Hurray!" the chant grew into a loud cheering and congratulations circled all around, on a job well done.

"Skipper, say a few words," Musa called, all his anger gone now that the job was done. Except when his eyes met Hafsa's. Then they sparked.

"Ahem," Sidra started. "I'm glad nobody's dead. I'm glad we are all in one piece and I'm delighted I no longer have to breathe down your necks to work faster." A ripple of laughter went out. "But on a serious note, Thank you, guys. Every one of you. Even Ayaan, for working with us in the last leg, when we needed just that little more manpower. Without this wonderful wonderful team we couldn't have achieved this in the time frame we had. We had setbacks, but we made it. And I was joking when I said I had to breathe down your necks. I didn't have to. You each held your own despite the massive stress and your lives outside this building. You make a wonderful team."
She sighed. "That being said, guys I really hope no one is actually going to file a complaint against me in three days. I was joking when I said you could. Don't take it seriously."

The assembly erupted into laughter and a few people threatened to complain about her and her methods.
Thus ended a rewarding day leaving behind another event to look forward to.

For the first time in weeks, Sidra felt lighter going home. A big weight was taken off her shoulders and having the next day off from both school and the library made it all the better. She smiled at strangers and waved back even at Mrs Pastor who mock waved from a store. Sidra was feeling elated and was resolved not to let anything bring her down for the night.