I have tried a few free hosts, mostly for testing programs. The two I would recommend are
Byethost and
X10hosting.
Byethost has an easy script installer where you can try out programs like Joomla, Wordpress, etc. But they don't use cPanel for their interface. They will also let you set up more than one account, if you use different emails for them.
X10hosting is a little better in my opinion, but will only allow one free account. If you use them, I recommend the ad free plan, but you can always change your plan. They use cPanel and also have quite a selection of scripts that can be installed easily through Fantastico.
I understand that you intend this as a test site, just be sure to understand that free hosts are notoriously unreliable and may even close up shop with no notice. Like Lisa, I too have been burned by a free host.
If you do anything you care about on a free site, be sure to back up and just realize that you could lose everything you have hosted there.