For a moment I tried to convince myself that the huge throng of students outside the Dean's office weren't there for the protest. Maybe something else was going on. Maybe 100 students all independently decided to change their majors.

"Let him speak!" yelled a student holding a placard. The placard read Art is dead, in purple and yellow marker.

I wrinkled my nose. Purple and yellow? Maybe he was right.

"Oh, god damn it," Nick hissed.

"What?" I said. Nick was staring over the top of the crowd, towards the Dean's office. I stood on my tiptoes, but still couldn't see over the sea of people. "What's going on?"

Nick ignored me and started shouldering his way through the crowd. I whined and followed after him. Whatever he had seen, it couldn't be good.

Nick worked his way towards the front of the crowd, and I struggled to keep up. Everyone was focused on whatever was happening in front of the Dean's office, and while Nick was big and rough enough to shift them out of the way, I was having a much harder time getting people to let me through.

"Excuse me!" I insisted, "Hey! Move over, please! I'm trying to get through!"

I could just see the back of Nick's head cutting through the crowd. I tried to duck under someone's raised arm and caught a noseful of art student body odor.

"Eww!" I gagged, and then reflexively cried out, "Nick!"

I wasn't asking for help — he was the last person I would ask, anyway. It was just instinct at this point to yell at Nick when something bad happened. Still, I was slightly relieved to see his head turn. He rolled his eyes and starting pushing back towards me.

"Come on, dipshit" he said, holding out his hand.

I scowled. It was going to take a lot more than a bad smell before I was willing to let Nick lead me around by the hand like a child. I grabbed him by the wrist, which I deemed to be slightly more dignified.

"Take me to the front of the crowd," I ordered him.

"No shit," said Nick.

With Nick's assistance, getting through the sea of protestors was much easier. Before too long we had made it to the front, and I could see what was going on.

At the top of the steps leading up to the Dean's office, there was a small group of people gathered in hushed conversation. I recognized the Dean, Victor Monroe, a balding older man with an air of permanent exhaustion. He was surrounded by other faculty members, including — my stomach curdled — Lucy Collins, who we were supposed to be meeting with right now. Lucy seemed to be explaining something to Dean Monroe, who nodded wearily, then looked over at Kermit Tsu.

At least, I assumed it was Kermit Tsu. It was hard to imagine it could be anybody else. He was much younger than anybody else up there, probably only a couple of years older than Nick and I. He looked far more... alternative, too. Father always said that artists were hippies, but Kermit Tsu looked more like a punk. His hair was cut into a messy sort of mohawk, which he clearly hadn't been putting much effort into maintaining, as his head was covered with the same dark stubble as his unshaven face. He had dark makeup around his eyes, and his arms and chest were wreathed with intricate tattoos.

To be fair, none of that technically disqualified him from being a member of faculty. Great Oaks was a pretty liberal college, after all. I was still quite sure it was Kermit Tsu, though, because he was almost completely naked.

"Oh my god," I gasped.

"This fucking guy," Nick muttered.

Kermit was wearing nothing except for a pair of boxers and — presumably as some kind of artistic statement — a strip of duct tape over his mouth. He didn't even have shoes on. He should have been freezing in the cold autumn air, but he seemed stubbornly unaffected by it. He was glaring at the faculty with an air of righteous indignation.

So this was the guy we had been waiting on for the past month. I felt a little flutter of uncertainty. I had been rooting for him to get expelled, I realized, and even though I had my own (very good!) reasons, seeing Kermit in the flesh made me feel a little less certain about it. This was an actual person, albeit clearly a very strange one.

It looked like Dean Monroe had finished conferring with the rest of the faculty members. He approached Kermit Tsu and said something to him, then waited expectantly for a response.

Around us, the crowd died down. Nick and I weren't the only ones who had been watching what was going on. The chants of "Free Kermit Tsu" and "Art is not a crime" stopped and we waited on bated breath for his reply.

Kermit looked at Dean Monroe, steely-eyed, then looked out at the crowd. He scanned his eyes over us, looking for... I don't know what. He turned back to the Dean and after a few sickening seconds, he nodded.

The students around us cheered uproariously. Nick looked at me. For the first time I could remember, he looked nervous. Then he glanced down, and scowled. I followed his gaze and realized I was still holding onto his wrist, and had been squeezing it pretty hard. I let go.

"I don't think this is good for us," Nick said.

"Oh, really?" I said, "Very perceptive."

Kermit Tsu stepped forward and the crowd hushed. He reached up and tore the strip of duct tape from his mouth dramatically. It looked like it ripped out some of his facial hair, and I winced, but Kermit didn't seem phased at all.

He raised a fist into the air and shouted, "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house!"

The crowd roared again. Nick shook his head in disbelief.

"Fucking Kermit Tsu," he said.

"Oh my god, right?" said a voice to our side. I turned, and saw Miel, holding a megaphone and gazing up at Kermit in total adoration, "He's so wise. And so hot."

She lifted the megaphone to her mouth, "Art is not a crime! Painting a predator fucking a goat is not a crime!"

She lowered the megaphone and turned to us, "I really have to thank you both. Honestly, even with all of these people supporting us, I didn't think the Board was gonna listen! But then Dean Monroe saw your names on the petition, and he went totally quiet."

I stared at her in shock, "What?"

"Yeah!" said Miel, "It's like you guys were the deciding factor, for some reason."

She raised the megaphone again, "Stand up for women! Not for goat fuckers!"

"Glad we could help," Nick said, "Hey, how do you feel about guys staying over?"

Miel shrugged, "I'm not really dating, I'm kind of interested in this one guy."

She raised the megaphone, "He's really talented and hot!"

She lowered the megaphone, then after a second her face turned beet red and she raised it again, "Forget I said that! I mean, fight injustice!"

The crowd murmured in confusion. Up on the stairs, I saw some faculty members turn towards our direction. I locked eyes with Lucy, who winced and started towards us.

"Come on," I said to Nick, "We have a meeting to get to."