The Incredible True Story of Blondy Baruti by Blondy Baruti & Joe Layden

Author:Blondy Baruti & Joe Layden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

CHAPTER 15

* * *

Although I missed basketball, I decided to move on from the situation and try to be happy. I asked our school volleyball coach if I could participate in some of their practices. He was more than happy to give me a chance—after all, we didn’t have a lot of 6-foot-8 guys on the volleyball team. Unfortunately, I was a rather terrible volleyball player. And I didn’t improve much with practice. Still, it was kind of fun to give it a try.

One morning in late February, a school security officer summoned me from class.

“Blondy is needed in the main office,” he explained. The teacher let me go, and I followed the officer through the hallways. He did not say why I had been called. As soon as I entered the office, I got a bad feeling. Terry was there waiting for me.

“Come on, Blondy,” he said. “We’re going home.”

At the house, Terry and Laurie sat me down and said they had some news to share. By the looks on their faces, I knew that it was not good news. I began to panic. My heart started racing and I broke out in a cold sweat.

“What is it?” I asked. “Am I in trouble? Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Terry said. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But there is a problem that we have to address.”

He proceeded to tell me that representatives from Golding Academy, the school that had originally recruited me, had inquired about my whereabouts. They were surprised to learn that I was in Arizona, when they were the ones who had recruited me, and Patrick had told them I had never left the Congo. So, naturally, they were upset to learn otherwise. They said that my visa had been written specifically for me to attend Golding, so technically I was in the country illegally.

“They want you there within twenty-four hours,” Terry explained. “Or they will call immigration and you will be deported.”

“Deported?” I said, repeating a word that was among the most frightening in my limited English vocabulary. “For real?”

Terry nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

The thought of going back to the Congo was terrifying. In my mind, I would rather have been sent to jail than return to the Congo. At least in jail I would be fed and clothed. In the Congo there was no guarantee of either of these things.

“It will be okay,” Terry said, trying to sound reassuring. “The coach says you’ll be able to finish your junior year up there, and they will take good care of you.”

Terry also said that if my visa issues were straightened out, then maybe I could return to Arizona for my senior year. As it turned out, only some of this story was true. Terry and Laurie had massaged some of it in order to make it more palatable to me, and to protect me from some of the scarier parts. In fact, here is what actually happened.

I couldn’t play basketball at Mesa High and I needed

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