High School Musical (Riverdale)

Start of Something New

It was a magical New Year's Eve at the Lodge lodge in the mountains. Gleaming white snow covered the ground, stars sparkled in the crisp, clear air, and everyone was beginning to get in the party mood.

Everyone, that is except for Jughead Jones and his father, F.P. who were still on the basketball court, playing one-on-one. They were covered with sweat, but they were having too much fun to stop.

Jughead had the ball, and he was doing a good job at getting around his dad. After all, Jughead was on the high school basketball team. Not only that, he was the team captain. He had the smooth move and explosive action of a real one.

But F.P. was more than just Jughead's dad, F.P. was also the basketball team's coach. So F.P. gave his son advice as they played.

"Keep working left, Jughead," F.P. said. "The guy guarding you in the championship game won't expect that. You'll torch him."

Jughead nodded, breathing hard. "By going left—" he said.

"He'll look middle, you take it downtown," his dad–and coach–explained.

Jughead nodded again. "Like this?"

He spun around his father, jumped, and sunk a reverse layup. The ball whistled cleanly through the basket. "Nothing but net!"

His father grinned. "Sweet."

They could have played all night, but just then Jughead's mom walked into the gym. She was wearing a sequined party dress and clearly had things other than B-ball on her mind.

"Boys? Hello?" She called. Once she got their attention, she went on. "Did we really fly all this way to play more basketball?"

Jughead and his dad glanced at each other slyly. They knew she didn't really want an answer to that question, but they gave her one anyway. In perfect unison, they shrugged and said, "Yeah."

Gladys gave an exasperated sigh. "It's the last night of vacation. The party . . .? Remember?"

Actually, they had both totally forgotten the big New Year's Eve party that the resort was holding, but they knew it wasn't wise to admit that.

"Oh, right, right," F.P. said quickly. "New Year's Eve," He hesitated, then asked, with some fear. "Do we have to wear funny hats?"

"Absolutely," she said firmly. "And we're due in half an hour. Jughead, they have a kids' party downstairs in the Freestyle Club."

"Kids' party?" Jughead protested. That much him sound like a toddler!

"Young adults," his mother quickly amended. "Now go shower up."

With heavy sighs, Jughead and his father did as she said.

As Jughead took one last glance at the basketball court, he thought, The basketball championship game is in a couple of weeks! I should be practicing, not going to some stupid "kids' party"! Besides how much fun could hanging out with a bunch of kids possibly be? . . .
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Meanwhile, in another part of the lodge, another mother was about to tear her daughter away from another fascinating activity.

Betty Cooper was comfortably curled up in an overstuffed chair in the sitting room.

She was enjoying the peace and quiet—everyone was already at the party—and had totally lost herself in a book called If You Only Knew Me. It was the best book she had read since, well, since the last book was checked out of the library, and she couldn't wait to get to the end.

However, she didn't even get to the next page. The book was lifted right out of her hands, and she looked up to see her mother standing over her.

"Elizabeth, it's New Year's Eve," Alice said. "Enough reading."