Riverdale presents: The Midnight Club (English version)

Episode 11

It wasn't the first time I'd ended up serving a level 3 detention on Saturday mornings, but the classroom wasn't usually as crowded and the company was certainly better.

Sitting in the back seat, I looked around: I was attending P.E. and English classes with Fred Andrews. We were on the same football team, and we exchanged a few words every now and then, but nothing more.

Tom Keller, on the other hand, was practically unknown to me, and I didn't really like him. Too rigid and law-abiding. Who knows, maybe his family had disinherited him when they found out he got drunk at the high school prom and got punishment for it. I grinned to myself at that thought.

With Marty Mantle, instead, we were business partners. We shared a passion for transgression and whenever the opportunity arose, we jumped at it, like that of providing alcohol at the freshmen's party.

Finally, Alice Smith aside, there was all the underworld of Riverdale's self-righteous respectsbility: Hal Cooper, the most popular kid in school. A devil disguised as an angel, who always got away with his dodgy affairs thanks to his neat appearance and ambiguous manner; Sierra Samuels, the activist who fought for the rights of others but forgot to do it for her own; Penelope Blossom, the respectable top of the class, who always did the right thing except this time; Hermione Gomez, the little saint who had apparently forgotten to wear an areola at the freshmen's party.

My gaze lingered on the latter, but I averted it as Principal Honey entered the classroom.

<< Reflection and responsibility. >> he began. <<This is the purpose of a level 3 detention.>> He paused. <<At the end of these three days of detention, I expect each of you to have reflected and come to the awareness of what your responsibilities are. In the meantime, to help you think better, you need to write a 1000-words essay on what the prospects are for your future and how to put them into practice. >>

<<A thousand words?>> Hal exclaimed.

<<Your own vocabulary doesn't come even close to a hundred or so, Cooper, you'll never make it.>>  Marty countered from the other side of the class.

<<Shut up, Mantle.>>  Hal replied him. << It is thanks to you that we are here. >>

<<Yeah, because the gin that circulated in your body at the party was drunk by itself. >> I replied.

<<But are you serious? >> Penelope intervened under the amused gaze of Mr Honey.

<<Let them continue, Miss Blossom. Don't you find them funny? >> his sarcastic smiled, but then he became serious. <<Not even a minute has passed and they are already about to fail even the level 3 detention. >>

For a moment we all fell silent.

<<I must remind you that with four level 3 detentions you fail the school year and you already have three in your loyalty card, moreover you accumulate all at once? >> Mr Honey smiled again in a treacherous way this time.

<< Reflection and responsibility. >> he continued before handing us the line papers on which we should write our comment. Then he sat down at his desk, looked at the clock placed above the blackboard and concluded: << tick tock ... >>

My prospects for the future ... I almost laughed as I looked at that lined paper. A thousand words ... to have had it! I would have settled for the hundred of Cooper's vocabulary at that point. The truth was that - on reflection - there were no prospects for my future. In a few months I would finish the school and what lay ahead of me? Nothingness.