"What's going on?" Seth asked, setting one of the glasses in front of his uncle. Then, he sat down on the seat across from him with the other glass of tea, but was too nervous to drink it.

Herman looked into his eyes and asked reluctantly, "How much time do you have until school is out, Seth?"

"A week. Why?" Seth asked, wishing that his uncle would just get to the point already.

"That's good," Herman said, taking a deep breath. "You won't be missing a lot of ...