A/N: oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the characters are about 15 to 16 years old. Sorry for any confusion caused. And the characters that don't have last names in the movie are going to adopt the last name of their actor, if that makes any sense.

Disclaimer: I don't own school of rock. Sadly.

Chapter 2

Katie reached her front porch and frantically threw out the contents of her bag and searching for her house key in the mess.

Oh no. Oh no. What if I'm too late? I didn't close Sheila's window either. What if she's climbing out this very second? What if I'm just one second late? WHERE IS THAT DAMN KEY?

She rushed into the house and ran up the stairs after successfully finding the key under her math book. Her heart rate increased as her imagination formed horrific images of what could have happened to Sheila by then. She slammed open the door and awaked her sleeping sister. Not a very smart move.

Sheila started yelling and crying, while Katie rushed to her side and picked her up, feeling guilty at having wakened her little sister. She knew it was not right to be missing school like that, but she could not help it. She hated how her parents used to always leave on 'business trips' traveling to as far as Asia.

They were never there to help her when she had simple problems, whether it was about fighting with Freddy in class when she was younger, or her occasional disagreements with Summer (and even Marta), she never knew how to solve her problems.

She reached into the refrigerator and took out a milk bottle which was already filled with milk, prepared by Katie the night before. Unexpectedly, she suddenly heard rapid knocking on her front door. Who on earth would be visiting her at a time like this?

Maybe it's the mailman with a package from some long lost cousins?

She set Sheila down on the clean kitchen floor, seeing no other possibility, and dashed to the front door. She unlocked it and opened it slowly to find a heavily perspiring Freddy Jones on her doorstep, looking at his feet.

'Jones? What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at school or something?'

'You ARE a…aware of the fact… that I could ask you the… same… question… right?' Freddy panted. 'But that's… beside the point. Followed you… from school. Not even going to ask… why you ran out…' He finally caught his breath and continued. 'or why you're always skipping meals. I just came to…to apolog- where is that crying coming from?'

Katie's eyes widened. Something was wrong with Sheila. She had to go check it out, but could not leave Freddy at the door because it would leave him suspicious that the wailing was coming from somewhere inside the house. It would be no coincidence that the bawling would stop at the same time that Katie left the door, and Freddy would figure that out. (A/N: Not sure if that made sense. Pretend it did. Thanks :) )

'Oh… that's probably the neighbor's kid' Katie lied smoothly.

'But it's not coming from either side, it's coming from somewhere behind you.' Freddy was obviously persistent. During their conversation, Sheila had crawled to the front door, in search of her older sister. She was in the process of tugging at the bottom of Katie's jeans, which were, fortunately, hidden behind the half-open door.

'Uhh. No… I meant the neighbors behind us… Our houses are back to back, and the walls are really… thin… yeah…' Katie prayed that Freddy was too distracted to notice that the only thing behind her house was her extremely huge backyard.

'Oh. okay. I mean, why on earth would there be a baby in your house?'

Yes! He bought it! Good thing he hasn't been in here for such a long time. He doesn't even remember the enormous backyard!

'Yeah. Um… so, why did you come here again?' Katie said, not fully paying attention to what Freddy was doing (Sheila was almost visible from behind the door.) At least Sheila had stopped crying.

'I just wanted to uh… apologize for earlier. I should have let you sit. S-sorry.'

-FREDDY POV-

What am I doing!

I'm supposed to have this image. You can't put a name on it. It's a bad boy thing. I'm insensitive. That's who I am. What's happened? I don't apologize for what I do.

It's normal. Katie Brown and Freddy Jones fight. Teacher tries to stop them. Teacher fails. Katie Brown and Freddy Jones sulk and glare at each other. Katie Brown and Freddy Jones are acquaintances during band practice. Nothing more, nothing less. Next day, Katie Brown and Freddy Jones fight again.

Why are we falling out of schedule? The teacher would be breaking up our fight right about now. If we were in school, that is.

Nothing has changed. Then why are we having a perfectly civil conversation right here?

-THIRD PERSON-

'That's okay,' Katie managed to hide her shock well. Freddy Jones was not usually one to apologize, much less admit that he was wrong. 'Umm… don't wanna be rude or anything, but aren't you supposed to be heading back to school?'

'I guess. Oh wait, Mrs. Quinn asked me to pass you the biology homework,' Freddy said, handing her the pop quiz she missed and a couple of worksheets.

'Thanks. Pop quiz, huh? Glad I missed that!' Katie chuckled.

'Yeah, same. Well, I'll see you at band practice later then?'

'Yeah, sure. Okay, see you bye!' Katie slammed the door suddenly. She had noticed Sheila sticking her tiny hand out from behind the door, and Katie was forced to shut the door in Freddy's face before he spotted her.

'Whoo. That was close. WAY too close. Come 'ere!' Surprisingly, Sheila appeared to have understood Katie's gesture and crawled into Katie's waiting arms. Sheila giggled loudly as Katie tickled and snuggled her.

Katie did not feel like going back to school and facing Mr. Tethers, her public school principal, so after feeding Sheila, cleaning up the house a bit, many failed attempts at teaching Sheila to walk and putting her to sleep, she decided to run down to her dance studio to check if any of her dance partners were there, so she could practice for her weekly performance.

'Hey Kate!' Leon greeted her from behind the dance studio's front counter. Everyone at the studio called her Kate, and it got on Katie's nerves a bit, but she depended so much on the money she made from the performances, she had to avoid every topic that could be a potential argument. Katie greeted Leon and proceeded to the studio, where most of her dance partners were practicing their steps.

-THREE HOURS LATER-

'Okay you guys. That time it was good, but you guys still aren't completely synchronized yet, so we'll work on it for another hour or two. It's 6.20, I'll give you guys a break till 6.45,' their instructor shouted over their noisy chatter.

6.20! Katie had to be at Dewey's new place in ten minutes! She was thankful for Summer's organizational skills (for once), as she had written down Dewey's new address on a slip of paper for her earlier.

'Sorry you guys, I've got to go, leave me a message for the next practice on my phone, thanks! Bye!' Katie ran out of the studio before anyone could say anything and sprinted to her house. Luckily, she didn't live too far away from both the dance studio and Dewey's new place. She grabbed her bass from her room and darted out the door, not forgetting to lock it. She almost got run over by a car as she neared Dewey's residence.

She practically knocked the door of its hinges as she ran in. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up to see what was going on. Summer dropped her clipboard in surprise at the sudden loud bang and her eyes narrowed when she saw who had come in.

'Katie! You're late! AGAIN! Why are you always late? Would it kill you to leave your house just TEN minutes earlier?'

YES. Every minute spent in that dance class is crucial. Or I'd have no money to buy food for Sheila from those perfected performances.

'Summer, lay off man. Give Katie a break, will ya? Loosen up a bit, it's just ten minutes.' Freddy said from behind his drum set. Summer froze. He was defending Katie? Since when? Katie looked over at Freddy and smiled in thanks and he shrugged, as if to say 'no problem'.

'Okay you guys! Zack, don't slack, get to that guitar! Katie, tune your bass, I think it was a teeny bit off at the last practice.' Dewey commanded as he strode into the room and seized his guitar from the couch that Lawrence was sitting on. 'Lawrence! Stop it with the books man! Freddy Jones! Quit staring into the sixth dimension and come back to earth.' Freddy snapped out of his daydream and grasped his drumsticks.

'You guys ready? Okay. Freddy, count it off.'

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A/N: That was a really weird place to stop at. I don't think this chapter went too well. Thank you so much for the nice reviews! You really brightened up my day! THANKS! And there'll be more about Katie's parents later.