“You think because you’re a Santo that this behavior will be excused?” he sneered at me.
“No, I think because you’re an ass, this class will verify that when the board asks questions when Ms. Bryant lodges her formal complaint against you for bullying.”
He stood there for a few moments, and I waited. I knew right then he was either going to explode or wilt. My money was on the former; he was too far up his own ass to recognize he was in the wrong.
“Both of you, out, before I call campus security.”
Knew it. Dick.
Standing abruptly, I looked at him with the same disdain he had for me. I didn’t need to look at Ava to know she was shell-shocked. “Ava, get your stuff.”
With quick jerky movements, she packed her things and then stood beside me. I could practically feel her shaking. Unlike me, shedidneed this class. Turning to look at the rest of the spellbound class, I considered them. “You ready?” I asked them, and with satisfaction, I saw more than half of them pack away their laptops and things.
I watched Leitch as he saw the majority of his students stand and simply walk out of the lecture hall. He looked confused, and leaning down to his height, I spoke softly. “I think you need a sabbatical or something, because I can’t say it’s going to go down well that your class had a mass walkout because of you. And so close to finals?” I tsked. “Doesn’t look good.” Moving past him, I took Ava by her elbow and guided her out of the room.
We were outside with most of the class with us when she turned to me. Her wide smile and incredulous laugh as she launched herself at me was welcome because, with Ava, sometimes she used her fists to communicate, and I hadn’t been too sure which way she would land on this.
“Ash, you are myhero!” she cried out as some of our classmates started calling out their agreement.
“Yeah, well, he had it coming,” I told her as I got my phone out of my pocket. Hitting my dad’s number, I called him. Counting them quickly, I asked Ava to take a note of all the names of the people outside with us.
“What have you done now?” he greeted me, and it was how Dad always greeted me, thinking he was funny. I doubt he’d be laughing today.
“Orchestrated a mass walkout of a class.”
I heard him catch his breath and then clear his throat. “Do I need to know why?”
“Professor’s a dick and has been picking on Ava all semester. I was fed up with it.”
“And walking out in protest was the only way to handle it?” Dad asked me skeptically.
“It was either that or punch him . . . I thought I picked the better option.”
“Smartass. Okay, let me think. Which professor?”
“Leitch.” I heard him shuffling papers and wondered where he was. “You’re at home?”
“Yeah, wait a minute.” I heard his hand cover the phone, and I waited as I watched Ava talk to our classmates. Classmates who had never once spoken up for her or themselves. Christ, getting off with Red in the bathroom was supposed to relax me, not make me even more tense.
“Ash?” my dad asked as he came back onto the line.
“Yeah.”
“I need Ava and at least two others, not you, two others to all make a complaint, right now. Go to the main administration building, report it directly to the dean’s office, and let me know when it’s done.”
“Got it.” I looked around at my classmates again. “They won’t get into trouble for walking out?” I asked Dad quietly.
“No, not if enough people collaborate, but the formal complaint has to be made swiftly.”
“On it.” I said goodbye and thought quickly. Had it just been me and Ava, I wouldn’t have been too concerned, but as I looked at the students I had encouraged to leave, I felt slightly responsible for their spur-of-the-moment decisions. “You need to make it formal, Ava,” I told her quietly. She lost some of her cheer but nodded. “Who out of this bunch can we get to make a complaint as well?”
Wordlessly, she handed me her list. I looked at it and then her. “All of them?”
“He really is a dick,” she said with a bitter smile. “I genuinely thought it was just me being oversensitive, but everyone saysthe same. He’s cruel, demeaning and a bully. We aren’t learning anything.”
“This will be easier than I thought,” I told her as I looked around at the students milling around. “I need two more people to make the complaint — it can’t be me. Who do you think?”
Ava turned and pointed to a tall, lanky guy and a small blonde who looked like she had been displaced from the 1950s. “Garret and Meg, he seems particularly hateful toward them.”
