thunderation

THE CHEER BEGINS with one girl shouting, Thunder! and then the rest of us answer, Thunderation!

Then together we say,

We’re the best team in the Nation.

What do we fight for?

Domination!

We’re a winning

Generation!

Our team is Dynamite, and we’re gonna win tonight, so sound off! Sound off! . . . For some reason, this is the cheer I remember staying with me.

It goes on. More words. More steps. Someone gets up on someone’s shoulders, then flips down, turns, splits. Then we all split. And maybe this is why I remember it. The cheer ends this way—the way me and T-Boom did, the way me and Kaylee did, the way me and my daddy did—ends with the splitting. With all of us splitting.

And the bone-cold silence that follows the thunder.