Of course she had known about Freddy's little crush. They had been best friends for years and years. She was a perceptive girl and had noticed that he kept looking at her. Her back may be turned when she was playing her bass during practice but she could still feel his eyes transfixed on her buttocks at practically every opportunity he got.
Mind you, he wasn't the only one. Plenty of guys stared at her. Especially at her bottom.
She didn't mind too much though. Katie had gone through years of being invisible girl and since the band nearly won at Battle of the Bands the first time they had entered, she had noticed the amount of groupies that followed the band around.
Other than the official groupies, Eleni and Michelle, they now had a rather large fan club and each band member had their own little personal fan club and they all pretended to hate all the attention, but everyone knew that they absolutely loved it.
She had even seen Laurence Tsai, ex loser, sauntering down the hall accompanied by a whole crowd of girls. He was now definitely Mr Cool, as Dewey had labeled him back when he started the band. She couldn't stop the giggles as she watched him acting up a bit, and Zack and Freddy had stared at her as if she had lost her mind. She hadn't been able to stop laughing so she pointed a shaky finger at him and they both laughed as well.
Things had definitely changed. And definitely for the better.
She had found out about Freddy's feelings when she had found a song he had written about her. He had been out of the room at the time and Zack and her had been chilling in his bedroom. Zack wanted to find his diary as he was curious about what made him tick…well, either that or he was just nosey. She had tried to stop him as she knew some of his secrets that even Zack, Freddy's best guy friend, didn't know. She was next to him and they had been squabbling over a notebook he was sure was the diary. It wasn't but she wasn't going to risk it. They had heard a creaking stair and both had dropped it. They had both scrabbled around gathering all the pieces of paper that seemed to have flown all over the room. Katie had an armful and then she caught sight of her name on the topmost sheet. At first she thought it was just some notes she had leant him for a test or something. Then she saw the tablature and chords.
"Hey, Zack, look at this, it's a song. Freddy wrote a song?"
"This is actually pretty good. We should show it to Dewey."
"Not without his permission first. Hang on…"
As her eyes scanned the lyrics she realized that it was a love song to HER! Oh my god! At last! Took him long enough!
"Dude, read the lyrics. They're really good. Not only that…finally I've found out how he feels about me! I've been waiting for this for about…oh god knows how many years!"
"Um, 6 years, in case I'm mistaken. You really didn't know? I thought everybody did. Why do you think Freddy's fan club hate you so much?"
"I don't know. I never really thought about it. Explains a lot though."
"Like why he keeps staring at your ass during practice…and any other time of day he thinks he can get away with it. And why he always stares longingly at you when he thinks no one's looking. I love watching the way he is around you."
"And I just love seeing you blunder around our very own Ms Hathaway."
"I think we both need help. You help me and I'll help you. Deal?"
She grinned at him and they did the exclucivo School of Rock handshake.
Freddy walked back into the room as they finished it.
"What's going on?"
"Katie's a little sloppy on the handshake. I was just tutoring her in the finer details she missed out." Zack lied with a fluidity that was quite shameless.
That had been 6 months ago and not much had come of it, as far as she knew. She had had a few words with Summer and hinted at the fact that Zack liked her but she had said nothing concrete. The problem was that she thought that Zack might have spoken to Freddy recently about it, if his hints about "Certain girls" were plausible.
She heard the shouts subside next door and called out for the boys to come and help her. Both boys came at a run and fell over each other in the doorway.
"Oh, sorry, I thought I called for Zack. Not you Freddy." She said and pouted that famous bassist pout.
Freddy left looking very put out and Zack went to sit on the bed next to Katie.
"What's the problem Katie?"
"You remember about 6 moths ago when I found out about Freddy's feelings and we promised to help each other out? Well what have you said to Freddy?"
"I'm not telling you. You'll just have to wait and see. Um, can you not come to practice tomorrow, we are preparing something and we don't want you to know it yet"
"I doubt I can stand up well on this leg for a long time anyway. I need to rest it well. Freddy!" she shouted suddenly.
He rushed in and tripped over his own feet and fell flat on his face at Katie's feet.
"I like my men at my feet."
"Bugsy Malone!"
"A dime in the jar boys. I wanted to ask a favour Freddy. Can I hold a sleepover for some of the girls in the band? Its kinda urgent. Girl talk."
"Sure, I'm gonna keep well out of the way. Girl talk can get quite nasty if a guy is mixed up in it."
"Thanks. Oh, and girl talk is perfectly affable with a boy around; we have girl talks with Fancy Pants Billy all the time, he's one of us. It only gets nasty when we find a boy eavesdropping when we are playing Truth. Then that boy had better look out; we can be meaner than the worst bully, because we know how to be subtle…and how to hurt a guy most."
"Am I the only one who is really scared?"
"Nope, I am too."