Years passed before anything remotely interesting would happen again. Apart from Dewey Finn being arrested a month after Battle of the Bands for Disturbance of the peace. The band continued under the guidance of Ned, which turned out fine. Ned became less of a stiff and started playing in a band, as well as continuing his career as a substitute teacher. School of Rock never really got too far. The entire band just decided to stay local and underground until Dewey got out of jail. They didn't know that it would take 6 years. Freddy, who was now 16, was able to drive himself to drum lessons. Ned, who had never played the drums in his life, recommended he take lessons to keep him advancing. Today, the traffic had been obnoxiously slow and he was over 20 minutes late for his lessons. He honked loudly for a long period of time and finally, there was a break in traffic and Freddy pulled into the parking lot. He hurried into the building as fast as he could, but was stopped at the front desk by a woman who looked out of place to work at a rehearsal hall as well as a piano store, with bright purple hair and green eye shadow.
"Freddy, Mr. Frau, your instructor, has already started rehearsing with another client. You'll have to wait." Little did he know that Stan Frau, his 34 year old drum teacher, was really playing a tape of a drum rehearsal and making out with his 19 year old red head girlfriend. He didn't mean to seduce her during one of the rehearsals, but things just sort of happen that way. Freddy sighed and gave a two finger wave of thanks to Clementine, who was the girl with the purple hair. He had waited almost 15 minutes sitting down in an uncomfortable plastic chair outside the drum hall when his A.D.H.D finally got the best of him. He couldn't just sit and twitch his fingers anymore. Instead, he got up and traveled around the rest of the large building. There was a separate hall for each instrument they offered lessons for. The company was well known for it's exceptional instructors, as well as pianos. He passed the trumpet hallway, the harp, the guitar, the flute. Finally he reached the vocal lesson hallway. It was the hallway nearest to the door, but he had never really paid attention to it before. Come to think of it, Freddy had never noticed half of the hallways before only because the drumming hallway was all the way in the back next to the piano showroom. As he wandered down the hallway, he studied the white board sign-in sheet that hung next to each door. They were no different from the ones that hung in his familiar drum hallway, except the writing on these sign in boards were much neater. Female writing. There was hardly any girls who played drums, at least that Freddy knew. There was one girl who came in right after him with obnoxiously bright natural red hair and more freckles than anyone he ever knew. But he paid no mind. He squinted and ran his hand through his spiked blonde hair, today with black tips. He had discovered non permanent hair dye that was nice for decorating his hair. The color always stood out well. Freddy studied the names on door number 4. Brooke Baker was the first name on the list. Normal enough. Marie James. Marcy Stone. Molly Markowitz. Markowitz. That wasn't a name Freddy had ever heard. It sounded Jewish. But most anything that ended in w-i-t-z was usually Jewish in his mind. His fingers ran over the white board, smudging the dry erase marker accidentally so now it read rooke Baker arie James. arcy Stone and olly Marokwitz. Hey, at least the Markowitz part was still there. He was amused by that. As Freddy picked up the dry erase marker again to fix the names, he dropped it suddenly as the door slammed from behind him. Freddy's fingers twitched as he felt the adrenaline rush through his body from being caught of guard. He certainly wasn't frightened. Fredrick Joseph Jones did not frighten at all! He peeked around the corner of the hall to see who was leaving. He only managed to catch the back of the person. A girl. Thin and tall, pale with short black hair. He took a mental note, just because his Ritalin was on overtime and he couldn't do anything but take notes of how the cracks in the black and white tile spelled out "SFSSP." The girl had jeans, probably from the gap and a red skirt with black lace trim. And a black hooded sweatshirt. Freddy narrowed his eyes. There was something written at the bottom in white lettering. He couldn't quite see it. So he pushed past the first set of the glass doors to the second and pressed his face up against the glass. He squinted harder. It read "ARE YOU STARING AT MY ASS?" and then something smaller in the corner. Freddy laughed, and then turned around on his heel when he heard Clementine shouting his name.
"JONES! HEY FREDDY! ARE YOU DEAF?!" Freddy pushed through the doors and back into the main room.
"Sorry. But glass is pretty fucking hard to hear through, Clem." He said with a smirk, pulling on his black pants.
"Yeah, I'm sure. What're you doing out there anyway?" Clementine asked, pulling her purple hair back into a pony tail and tapping some buttons on the computer keyboard behind the desk as she took inventory of a bunch of "Easy Harp Songs for Easy Harp Players" books that had just been shipped in. Not exactly a desirable name for a music book, Clementine thought.
"Nothing." Freddy lied.
"Checking out Molly, huh?" Clementine asked, lifting up a pierced eyebrow. Freddy loved that piercing and the little purple die that was attached to it. That's what got his attention to Clementine in the first place. She didn't always have brightly colored hair. It used to be a dull blonde. But she always had that eyebrow piercing. Maybe he just had a natural draw to people who were a bit like him. Freddy drew his eyes away from Clementine's flesh mutilations. Clem pushed another few buttons.
"She takes vocal lessons here. Only shows up for about half of them, though." Clementine continued.
"Yeah? Sounds like me and school." Freddy said quietly, folding his arms onto the counter. The Purple haired worker began shifting through a stack of sheet music and books. She finally pulled out a packet and laid it on the counter, pushing it toward Freddy with her silver and blue nails.
"This is the piece she's working on." Clementine said.
"Why would I care about that?" Freddy huffed.
"Because I know you like to know as much as you can about a girl that you like without actually having to talk to them about it." Clementine retorted.
"That's bullshit!" The drummer barked.
"You're bullshit, Freddy." Clementine stuck out her tongue. Freddy hushed himself and took the sheet music. The title read "Strings That Tie to You." He spent the next few minutes quietly leafing through the song. He could hear the notes in his head, and decided it wasn't a normal piece for someone to sing, but it would probably sound good with a back up band. He was disturbed by Clementine, who had just huffed and made a handful of noise, throwing the books she had been counting onto the floor, grabbing her orange parka and kicking the rolling chair that sat behind the desk into a filing cabinet.
"That's it! I quit!" Clementine screamed and huffed out the door. Freddy blinked, setting the sheet music down onto the counter and looking around. Well he certainly wasn't going to pick up the books. Then he remembered why he had broken up with Clementine in the first place. She was too impulsive, even for Freddy. They had made a great match for a while, but when Clementine started talking about running away to China town or getting married in Vegas, Freddy broke it off as fast as he could. Sometimes he wondered if he regretted it, having not found a serious girlfriend since Clementine. There was a few girls he had taken out on dates, or invited to parties after School of Rock had done a show. But not a steady girlfriend. The red head girl appeared from the drumming hallway and walked passed Freddy with a grin, wiping the side of her mouth with a look like she had an amazing secret.
"Go ahead, Freddy. He's all yours. He's a little tired today, it's too bad you didn't get here earlier." The red head said. Freddy just flipped her the bird.
"Go to hell." Freddy muttered, wandering into the hallway. He stopped at the sign in board and quickly scribbled "Fredrick Jones Esquire III" onto the white board, and read the name above his. It was Mary-Ann Diaz.
"Well look at that, you do learn something new every day, even if you don't go to school." Freddy said, feeling a lopsided smile tug at the corners of his lips. He didn't notice the little heart that Mary-Ann had doodled next to his name, nor the fact that there was a boom-box in Mr. Frau's rehearsal room. He could notice the secret words that the cracks spelled out secret words, but not that his instructor was having an affair with a college freshman.