Title: Spazzy McGee
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of this and you know it. So don't sue me.
Summary: One-shot. Freddy and Zack never talked much in the actual School of Rock movie. Freddy was the bad boy with a sudden increase in demerits before Dewey came. But was he always like that? And why did he become friends with Zack? Here's my version of the back-story behind Freddy Jones.
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My name's Freddy Jones. I'm happy, in a great band, and I have an even greater best friend named Zack Mooneyham. But things weren't always this way. Things used to be Hell, school in particular, until that day Dewey came to sub for my class. I thought he'd be a dumb pushover like all the other subs. I wondered how long it would take me to get this dude to send me to Miss Mullins.
Yeah, I was the bad boy of my class. Well, more like spaz boy. When my family moved and transferred me to Horace Green in 3rd grade, I started off fine. I was still pretty much a normal kid. But about two weeks after I started there, one of the other kids, a girl named Katie, noticed that I was twitching during recess one day. I remember her laughing as she pulled her friend Summer over to see me.
She was acting like I was the main attraction of some freak show! As the other kids curiously crowded around, the laughter started, followed by harsh teasing and name-calling. Crowds always made me nervous, but a crowd of kids huddled around me, laughing at me? This was way too much for me to bear. I fell to the ground, curling up into a ball, screaming at the top of my lungs and shaking with a magnitude that would rival an earthquake.
A teacher ran over to the circle of kids surrounding me, yelling at them to go back to playing. He picked me up and carried me to the nurse's office. I remember sitting on a hard chair, crying, wondering what was wrong with me and why everyone else thought I was weird as I waited there for my mom to come pick me up.
She took me to the doctor's right away, and they identified me as a poor little kid with a severe case of A.D.D. I always had trouble paying attention and containing myself, so this came as a huge shock. I didn't think it was that bad. Apparently my mom didn't either. But this kinda explained my horrible attention span and frequent outbursts in class.
That night, I had problems falling asleep; due to the ridiculing even I understood that I was in for the next day at school…
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Sadly, that torture didn't just last a few days, or weeks even. I never missed the snickers and jokes directed at me as I entered a room. I was able to put up with the torment for a few months before I realized I was better than that, before I understood that the cruel taunts of my classmates really shouldn't have gotten to me like that. I finally realized that I should stick up for myself.
There are two things I could have done in that situation. One, be polite and respectful, and be assertive in explaining that I was sick of the teasing. Or, I could have turned into a little badass who stopped caring about being nice to my peers and getting good grades, and become a bully, trying to get back at the other kids. One shot to guess which path I chose.
I did it because I was sick and tired of the constant torment. I started hanging out with this kid named Frankie a few months later. I had a much bigger attitude than he did, and I was more vengeful, but he was bigger than I was. We were the perfect bullying team. Kids were annoyed yet intimidated by us. Frankie, he wasn't really a friend, more like my hit man. So I was pretty much a loner with a rotten attitude for a while there. Everyone made fun of me at Horace Green, and I was finally getting recompense, at least through my point of view. Then Dewey came.
I always thought I was worthless as soon as I was diagnosed with that A.D.D. Hell, even my music teacher put me on "percussion." She probably the strain of anything else would damage my stupid little brain. Well I bet I showed her when I got placed as the drummer for School of Rock!
Anyway, you ever wonder why the Gold Star Chart had 4 demerits all in a row for me? It was because starting in 5th grade, I cared less and less. There was no place for me, the spazoid with A.D.D. who disrupted everyone and could never stay still. But when Dewey came late that fall, and formed School of Rock, it was like I found my niche. Behind a set of drums was where I belonged.
Now, I never really talked to Zack at all before the day Dewey took the band to the Battle of the Bands audition. After Dewey dragged me away from the crack heads in their van that I ran off with, Zack did the nicest thing anyone had ever done to me the whole time since I started at Horace Green. The words are still so clear in my mind: "Freddy, dude, don't ever do anything like that again! What if you got hurt or…kidnapped or something? We wouldn't have an awesome drummer, and we couldn't have that, now could we? "
We continued conversing for much of that day. At the Battle of the Bands concert, we still weren't great friends. In fact, we'd only talked once or twice since the day of the audition. But something had sparked. A friendship had been ignited.
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Over the few months after that first concert, we continued to become better and better friends. I got Zack to open up and not be so stiff. He got me to calm down and stop trying to pass off such a tough exterior. We've helped each other so much over the past five years. I went from being a bully and a sarcastic slacker to a slightly less sarcastic drummer in an awesome band with my friends. Yes, plural, friends. Zack was just the first one. I stopped being friends with Frankie when I realized I had other people who cared about me, who real friends who would always be there for me.
Anyway, now my life is put back together, and as long as I have my friends and remember to take my meds, everything is going great, and I plan on keeping it that way for a long time.
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Well I hope yinz liked it! I know it's not that good, probably kinda lame, but I tried. Feel free to email me anytime.