This is my first fanfic, so I don't expect it to be very good. The story is told by all of the band members. I don't own School of Rock, I only own the plots and any new characters. Also, I am Australian, so I have had to write this story with my very limited knowledge of American schooling. Please bear with any mistakes I have made or correct them if you want.

CHAPTER 2 - SURPRISES

LEONARD

The bell rang to signal the end of class. Leonard could hear the sighs of relief from most students. Everyone stood up and rushed for the door. Leonard waited for his friend, Marco, who was writing down last minute notes.

"Come on, Marco, I'll let you copy my notes," Leonard said impatiently.

"Thanks man" Marco smiled gratefully and quickly packed up. The boys walked out of the now empty classroom and saw Alicia and Michelle waiting for them.

"Hurry up guys, we've got assembly now" Alicia said.

Assembly took place in the assembly hall, the oldest building in the school. It looked exactly the same as every other building, but was at the very back of the school grounds. There was just enough room in between the back wall of the hall and the school's back fence, for a few teenagers to hang out. That was the place where all the 'cool' kids spent their lunch breaks and where they went when they were skipping class.

When Leonard and his friends reached the hall, they hurried to their seats. The hall was filled with seats, for the students. All the seats were facing a large stage, where teachers sat and delivered their notices. The hall was quite empty at the moment, but when it was filled with students, the hall became quite hot and crowded. After a while, the rest of the students began to trickle in. Leonard saw some of his fellow band members. He waved to Gordon, Larry and Eleni, who came over and sat down with Leonard. Then Tomika, Zack and Frankie found them.

"Summer is sitting with her new friends again," said Zack, sourly.

"Again! That crowd is no good for her!" exclaimed Alicia.

"Tell me about it. The Summer Hathaway I knew would never be late to class like she was this morning," Tomika added.

"Yeah," Frankie agreed, "that crowd is going to turn her into a groupie or something."

"Hey!" Michelle and Eleni cried in unison.

"No offence" Frankie said to avoid being slapped.

The group continued with their chatter. Marta, Billy, Freddy and Katie joined them just before assembly was due to start. Leonard was scanning the crowd, for no reason in particular. He glanced up at the stage.

"Hey!" he called out to the band, "look! It's Mr. S!"

The band looked up at the stage and there was Dewey Finn, sitting next to the school's principal and looking quite nervous.

"His real name is Dewey" Freddy said, trying to be clever.

Katie shut him down rather quickly, by saying "no one cares, Spazz."

Freddy was going to reply with another smart comment, but the school principal stood up and the entire hall fell silent.

The principal's name was Ms. Silverman. Most of the students thought she was quite a good principal. She was rather young and nice. She was more intelligent than most teachers these days and could tell when students were lying or telling the truth. She was also quite calm and friendly, and both staff and students liked her.

"May I have your attention please?" Ms. Silverman said in her usual polite, gentle tone, "thank you. I'd just like to say welcome back to Horace Green Junior High. I hope you all have a wonderful year. And I'd like to introduce Mr. Finn, our new music teacher. Would you care to say a few words, Mr. Finn?"

"Ah…" Dewey looked around, unsure of what to say, "no, that's alright."

Ms. Silverman paused and frowned slightly. But she quickly shook that off and smiled again.

"Ok then," she said, "now you may all go to lunch."

TOMIKA

The hall filled with noise as students left for lunch. Soon only the band members remained, excluding Summer of course. She had obviously gone off with her new friends – the cool gang. They weren't cool, only Summer thought they were. The band members thought they were posers and rebels. And not funny rebels like Freddy. Just plain bad news. Definitely not good for Summer.

"Mr. S!" Michelle called out.

"Hey rockers," he said, jumping off the stage to greet the band.

"Yo Dewey man," Freddy said, arms crossed, "why didn't you tell us you were teaching here?"

"I wanted to surprise you," Dewey replied coolly, "surprise!"

"I knew you were studying to be a teacher, but I never thought you'd be teaching here," said Gordon, a mixture of surprise and happiness in his voice.

"Well, now you do," Dewey said, not quite comfortably with all the attention, "now why don't you go off and enjoy your lunch. I always try to."

"OK"

"Bye, Mr. S"

"Talk to you later"

"See ya at band practice"

The band members slowly left. Finally, only Tomika and Dewey remained. There was something Tomika wanted to talk about. Dewey had helped her before with this sort of problem and she hoped he could her again. Dewey had his back to Tomika and couldn't see her. Tomika tapped him lightly on the shoulder. Dewey jumped a bit, but when he turned around, he calmed down.

"Oh, Tomika, you gave me a fright," he said, "was there something I could help you with?"

"I hope so, Mr. S," she said, "or is it Dewey?"

"You better call me Mr. Finn, otherwise people might want to know why I'm called Mr. S."

Tomika realised that most of the staff and students had not been told about what happened several years ago, when Dewey pretended to be a teacher.

"Right, well Mr. Finn, you remember when we first met? I was worried about my weight and you made me feel better about it."

"Yeah and since then you've slimmed down quite a bit."

It was true. Tomika was still the biggest girl in the band, but much less than she had been in grade 5.

"That's sort of what I wanted to talk about. I may have slimmed down, but I've got a little sister. She is so much smaller than me. And she's smart and popular and all the guys like her. She's everything I want to be. It used to be ok, because I only saw her at home. But now she's started school here and I can't escape her. I can't stop thinking about how much better than me she is."

"Tomika, listen. Just because you're sister is smaller and more popular that doesn't mean she is better than you are. You know, I had this cousin when I was your sister's age. He was basically like a big brother to me. And I thought he was so cool, I wanted to be just like him. I bet that's the same with your sister. She probably thinks you're better than she is. And I'll bet that your sister is not perfect. I'm sure she has some bad points."

"Well, she is a bit of a flirt and she listens to pop…"

"There you go. See she isn't better than you. Anyone who listens to pop is way worse than someone in a rock band. And I'm sure she can't sing nearly as well as you can."

Tomika smiled.

"Thanks, sir. That really helped."

"I'm glad. And I'm really sorry. I would love to talk more, but I have to go to some 'Meet the Staff' lunch. Just remember what I said."

"Ok, bye sir."

"Bye, see you at band practice."

Dewey rushed off out the door and soon Tomika followed, a bit slower. Dewey was right. Her sister wasn't better than she was. Just because she was more popular and prettier and… As Tomika walked out of the hall, she wasn't quite as confident about what Dewey said. Dewey hadn't met her sister. He didn't know how perfect she really was…

LARRY

Zack, Billy, Marta, Katie, Freddy and Larry were sitting on two benches, which were positioned so the group was facing each other. Alicia and Gordon were sitting on the asphalt, having their own private conversation. Frankie, Eleni, Michelle, Leonard and Marco sat on some other benches quite close to them. Frankie, Michelle and Eleni kept throwing dirty looks at Billy. Frankie's cheek was still quite red where Billy had punched him. Tomika was no where to be seen.

"So, what do you think of Mr. S teaching?" Katie asked Zack.

"It should be pretty cool. He's really good at music and he can teach us a lot."

"Zack," Freddy said with feint shock, "sure, it's cool, but not because he can teach us. It's cool because Mr. S will let us get away with so much."

"I thought his name was Dewey," Katie muttered.

"I don't really understand Mr. S," Marta said, "he's a bit weird."

"I agree," Billy added, jokingly, "and he has no sense of style."

The group laughed, remembering their 5th year when Billy really didn't have much of a clue about style.

"That's got nothing to do with it, Fancy Pants," Freddy said, "I'll prove it to you. We can get away with nearly anything."

"Be careful, Freddy," Larry said cautiously.

"I always am."

Larry shook his head. There were many words to describe Freddy, but careful was not one of them. Larry hoped that Freddy wouldn't get himself into too much trouble. But knowing Freddy, nothing would be able to save him from trouble.

Larry looked up and saw Tomika heading towards them. When she reached them, Marta made Billy and Zack move down, so there was room for Tomika on the bench. Alicia took her attention away from Gordon for one second.

"Hey," she said, "where've you been?"

"Talking to Mr. Finn," Tomika replied.

Katie turned to Freddy.

"HA!" she shouted, "you were wrong. It's not Dewey!"

"Yeah, yeah…" Freddy said, blushing slightly, "hey, look at that girl over there."

"Don't change the subject," Katie said, "I'm not finished paying you out."

"No seriously, Katie."

Everyone turned to look where Freddy was pointing. A small, slim girl – she must have been in grade 6 – was talking to some friends of hers. She had very dark skin and her long, black hair was done up in millions of braids. The girl was surrounded by other girls and boys, all who were laughing at some joke the girl must have told. The amazing thing was the girl looked remarkably like…

"She looks a lot like you Tomika," Zack said.

"That's because she's my sister," Tomika said, her voice slightly bitter.

"Oh…" replied Zack.

"HEY!" Freddy yelled, "Tomika's sister!"

"No," Tomika said, getting up and trying to cover Freddy's mouth, "don't do that!"

The girl looked around, past her friends. She saw Freddy waving to her and trying to avoid Tomika. She excused herself from her friends and began to walk over.

"I'm sorry," she said to Freddy, "but do I know you?"

"Uh…not really," Freddy said, not at all put out, "I'm friends with your sister." The girl gave Tomika a look filled with hate and disgust.

"Oh…" she said, "well, my name's Tammin."

"I'm Freddy," he said, completely oblivious to the cold glare that the sisters were giving each other, "and that's Katie, Larry, Alicia, Gordon, Zack, Marta and Billy. Or as I like to say Posh, Mr. Cool, Brace-Face, Road Runner, Zack Attack, Blondie and Fancy Pants."

Most of the group gave Freddy a strange look. For one, most of the band members never used their nicknames. Plus Alicia no longer had her braces, so it made no sense to call her Brace-Face. However, Tammin seemed not to notice.

"You're so funny, Freddy," Tammin said, giggling.

"I try," he replied, smiling, "and please, call me Spazzy." Tammin giggled again.

"Well, I'll see you around," she said, fluttering her eyelids and waving as she walked back to her friends.

"Ok, bye" Freddy said in an almost dreamy tone.

Katie slapped Freddy over the back of the head, immediately bringing him back to the real world.

"Ow!" Freddy cried, rubbing the back of his head, "what was that for?"

"You were flirting with Tomika's sister!" Katie said, slapping him again.

"Was not"

"Were too"

"Was not"

"Were too"

"Was NOT"

"Were TOO!"

"Ok, ok," he admitted, "maybe a little. I mean she is kind of cute." Katie slapped him again.

"My God, Freddy," she said, exasperated, "you are so predictable."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing."

"No, tell me."

"Just that you fall for every pretty girl who will have you. It makes me sick."

Freddy and Katie continued arguing, but Larry had since tuned out. He looked over at Tomika. She looked somewhat downcast. Larry stood up and gently pulled her away from the rest of the group.

"Are you ok?" he asked, frowning with concern.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Tomika replied, not entirely sure of herself.

"Are you sure?"

"…No. It's just my little sister is so much better than me. She's even got Freddy falling for her and just look at the amount of new friends she has."

"How great a person is, is not measured by how popular they are. It is measured by how kind they are. The fact that your sister only spoke to the so-called 'coolest' of us and ignored the rest proves that she isn't that kind. Remember 5th grade? You stood up for Mr. S. and me That makes you a good person and way better than your sister. At least that's what I think. And isn't it what your friends think that counts?"

"Yeah, thanks Larry."

"That's ok. What are friends for?"