I really suggest you guys move away from free website creators/hosting. Places like free webs tend to have really ugly layouts and annoying features (Like the one where a flame follows your mouse cursor).
You can get a domain name and web hosting pretty cheap, and it doesn't talk long to learn the things you need to create a layout. All you really need is html and css, and then you can add some cool features with javascript. It could only take a day/few days to learn html and css, and maybe 1-3 days to learn the basics of javascript. Php is also very useful, so I suggest you learn that too.
A good place to learn from is http://www.w3schools.com/ which I've used before and recommend.
Of course, like Klaushouse said, you could use a wordpress theme, but it would be good to make your own and be able to edit it whenever you want to add anything new to it.
If you want to test anything, you could download and install the Apache HTTP Server (I've heard that Lighttpd is good if you use Linux, but I've never used it) and test some things on your home computer. You could also show people what you've done by forwarding your port 80 (http://portforward.com/ for a guide), but I don't suggest hosting your website on your home computer. If you do want to test some things with Apache I suggest downloading XAMPP (look it up, it comes with some useful things to help you).
