Elizabeth Jones’ face is flushed from the heat. Izzy Peress is singing with her eyes shut, head thrown back and braces gleaming under the red light bulb perched above the school bus’ rear emergency door. Baleigh Clark is dancing wildly enough that someone wonders aloud if she’s having a seizure. Lily Hier drums with her hands and an empty plastic bottle atop the seat in front of her.
Welcome to Club Raider, a rolling sing-a-long show conducted by the Lebanon High girls lacrosse team.
The squad’s bus is rumbling and swaying somewhere through the dusk on New Hampshire Route 11 and headed back from Laconia, although good luck discerning just where, because the windows are fogged over. Libby Stone waves aloft a portable speaker the size of a small brick that’s connected to seatmate Zoe Soule’s smartphone via wireless technology. At the moment it’s blaring Ignition by R. Kelly, the girls belting out the lyrics at the top of their lungs.
“Maybe more singing and less shouting?” wonders Jones during a pause and before the sonic arrival of Nelly Furtado’s Promiscuous. “What a concept that would be.”
Roses are red
Some diamonds are blue
Chivalry is dead
But you’re still kinda cute
Lebanon (0-4) has surrendered 58 goals so far this spring and, an hour ago, lost by 14 at defending NHIAA Division III champion Laconia. There are coaches who would make their teams ride silently after such a setback, but not the Raiders’ Sara Ecker, 45. These are teenagers, enduring trying times. Will they remember the disheartening losses as vividly as these raucous sessions? Ecker hopes not. The coach believes sports should entail not just hard work and discipline, but also fun and silliness.
Not once in 23 years has Ecker ridden in the back of the team bus. She keeps an eye and ear on the proceedings to ensure decorum, but that location is the players’ space, usually populated by juniors and seniors with underclassmen riding in the middle.
There are one or two irritated exchanges over which song is chosen or how someone is not including someone else in their chatter. But the ride home is almost completely filled with singing, arm-waving, exaggerated dance moves and laughter. Lots of laughter. It verges on hysterics when Anna Wolke cues up a phone video showing her long-haired, bespectacled father miming various basketball moves. The footage was shot at the sport’s Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., and Hier is so amused she nearly topples into the aisle.
Conversations arise between songs. Hannah Bunten is mystified and outraged that someone’s hacked into her Twitter account and posted images of scantily clad women. Lexie Roberts uses her phone to display the various hair bun styles she’s considering for upcoming proms at Lebanon and Hartford High, the latter of which her boyfriend attends. This engenders fierce debate, followed by grumbling about how Peress never pays attention in math class (“She is so loud!”), yet still complains when she gets only one or two test questions wrong.
Lebanon High students can go online and see their test results from earlier in the day and their class grades to that point.
Somewhere in the forward darkness, a mournful voice announces “Ah, man, I got a 70.” Of course, parents also have such quick access, which creates accountability and stress.
Back to the music. Here comes Kyle’s iSpy. Clark repeatedly pleads for something from Chance the Rapper. Soule at first rejects her, then finally plays Sunday Candy just so Clark will cease and desist. Many of the songs are by contemporary rappers, but Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody makes a cameo, as does Fountains of Wayne’s hit Stacy’s Mom and Uncle Kracker’s Follow Me.
Anna Wolke, on the inside seat alongside Hier, turns sideways, her back to the bus wall, her legs across Hier’s lap and her feet, clad in bright pink Adidas sneakers, sticking into the aisle. Peress, who wears her emotions not just on her sleeve, but on every article of clothing in her wardrobe, plays a frantic air guitar and points at teammates while she sings. She seemingly knows every word to every song.
Now it’s on to an a cappella version of Kelly Clarkson’s Since You’ve Been Gone, which is deemed highly lame and suddenly cut off by the more risqué lyrics of Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me. He was apparently caught red-handed with the girl next door, both of them naked and … oh, never mind. Fergielicious by Fergie and will.i.am comes on, and Clark rustles up support for requesting it at the prom, which will then be a sign for all the lacrosse girls to ditch their dates and dance as a group.
On the approach to Grantham, various uplifting tunes from the iconic Hannah Montana movie are belted out. Clark says she’s getting lightheaded from the exertion. The consecutive strains of school, a game and its after-party are beginning to show.
A mellow vibe overcomes the bus, leading to a return by Chance the Rapper, this time with Juke Jam. The recent breakup of a prominent Lebanon High couple is discussed and lamented. (“They were soooo cute together.”) The bus pulls into the school parking lot. The girls rise, load themselves with backpacks, gear bags and sticks and shuffle off in a slow-moving line. Several are singing Rolex by Ayo & Teo. Ashlyn Taber clutches Stone’s pillow, which is shaped like a red, floppy-eared dog.
Ecker walks the bus and deems it clean. There’s a chorus of thank yous to longtime driver Don Spaulding and the players disperse into the dark. There’s dinner to eat, homework to complete, and the first school bell sounds in fewer than 12 hours.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.