Monsieur Girard’s grip on my ear tightens as we pass the hedges around the garden. My pulse pounds between his thumb and forefinger.

Heat fills my chest as I look at the front lawn. The neighbor’s dog has left his calling card on my freshly mown grass again.

Everything I do today is turning bad.

Girard balances a cardboard cake box on his left palm like a waiter. He drags me up the gravel driveway toward the house. Milly, our cleaner, is waving her feather duster at an invisible cobweb behind the living room window. Her face turns pale and then she disappears, leaving the curtain swaying.

My heart sinks when I see Mom's sports car parked at an odd angle at the foot of the steps. Not because it’s there, but the way she’s left it looks like she’s stressed out.

Girard’s blue-and-white striped apron stretches across his round stomach as he puffs his way up to the porch. He stands for a moment, like he's searching for another arm, and finally lets go of my ear. If it hurt before, the return of blood to my earlobe is agony. I rub it hard. My eyes water with a mixture of relief and shame.

Girard shakes some life back into his fingers before pulling the brass knob next to the door. Despite the pain, a little piece of me admires the skill it’s taken for him to hold my ear all the way back from Main Street.

The ding-dong of the bell is muffled in the hallway beyond the door. I stare at the edges of the door, examining the grainy wood where the paint hasn’t soaked in. The painter’s done a sloppy job. Seconds tick by. It feels so dumb to be standing outside my own front door.

Mom will be in the kitchen, juggling the little pastries she makes for her ladies’ meetings. The next meeting is happening at our house later today.

She always insists on baking something herself. She wants to brag to the group that her treats are "mostly" homemade. But in truth she isn’t a great cook. Which is why I’ve found myself in this situation.

A slightly burned, buttery smell seeps under the door. Mom must be clattering around in the cupboards, and can’t hear the bell. Milly will be on her way.

The sun-soaked brick steps leading up to our porch make me think of the musician from earlier. He was playing his guitar outside the hardware store in town. His fingers danced perfectly over the strings.

The intro to "Stairway to Heaven" had me hooked. I remember my dad listening to this song with my uncle when I was a kid. It’s what made me like their old music. The guitarist’s voice outside the hardware store had the same raspy twang as Robert Plant, the lead singer of Led Zeppelin.

It was awesome sitting there, through all thirteen minutes of the classic song. The sun reflected off the paving stones onto my face. I imagined I was sitting on a street in California, not hanging around Hicksville on a boring afternoon in the middle of summer vacation. The errand I’d been asked to run was briefly forgotten.

A few people stopped to listen to the guy play. As the last “he-ea-ve-en…” rolled off the musician’s tongue, I clapped loudly. The others either looked away or barely nodded in appreciation.

A man in a suit with his tie pulled away from his collar waved a packaged sandwich at the guitarist. He told the guitarist he played  well, then asked where he came from.

“I’m a citizen of the world,” said the guitarist.

How cool is that?

“I’m just passing through town. Been hungry for the past few days,” the guitarist added.

The musician looked at the sandwich in the Suit’s hand. He nudged the open guitar case on the ground in front of him with his foot. The Suit was about to unwrap his sandwich, but put it in his briefcase instead.

The guitarist looked around from one person to the other. He asked if anyone would be willing to give him some coins for his entertainment. I thought he was brave.

There wasn’t much cash in the guitar case. He might have made lots of money in New York City, but this crowd didn’t have a clue.

A couple of old ladies turned away. One of them shifted her eyes to a dress in a nearby window. It was obvious she was ignoring him. I wanted to tell her she was rude. I wanted to yell, “Hey, lady! You’re getting free entertainment!” But I kept quiet.

Another big guy in a hoodie snorted and mumbled something I didn’t understand. He shoved his burger into his mouth in one go, like someone might take it away from him and feed it to the musician. He waddled away with a blob of mayonnaise shining on his lip.

The Suit threw a dime into the guitar case. Sheesh, these people! The generosity!

I looked down to my hand. I held the ten bucks Mom had given me to “hurry along to the Parisian Cake Shop, Danny darling, and buy a box of those yummy French macarons." Without thinking, I shoved the money toward the musician and told him to get himself a good dinner.

I don't normally give money away to people begging, even extra coins. But he deserved it.

His eyes shone with thanks as he started strumming another song. Neil Young, I think it was. I kept grinning like a stupid kid.

Milly fumbles with the latch. The badly painted wood disappears in front of my eyes as the door swings open. I smile weakly and lower my head in shame.

“Oh! Mrs Middleton! I think you'd better come quick. I think there's been trouble with young Daniel,” Milly says.

Trouble indeed.

We step into the hallway. Mom walks quickly toward us. Her skirt swishes against her legs. She’s holding a bunch of freshly cut roses in her hand. One eyebrow turns into a sideways question mark when she sees my glistening eyes. They’re still watering from the pain in my ear. She looks from me to Girard, and back again.

“Didier! Quelle plaisir!” Mom says.

I know what that means. I took French in ninth grade. "Such a pleasure!" Yuck. And she called him Didier. I hate how she always has to practice her French with him.

Mom is probably one of Monsieur Girard’s best clients. She orders cakes and treats from him if she and Milly can’t handle the number of guests at her parties.

It won’t be such a pleasure when she finds out why we’re here in the hallway.

She turns to me. “Danny, what are you doing? What took you so long?”

Without waiting for an answer, she reaches past me and takes the box of macarons from Girard’s hand.

“Daniel, honey, go and pop these in the fridge," Mom says. "We don’t want them sweating in this heat. Chop-chop.”

She shoves the box at me. Blood rushes to my head.

Girard’s mouth hangs open in a gaping “U” shape. His arm is outstretched, hand still holding the air where the box was a minute ago.

Mom suddenly seems to realize the weirdness of Didier Girard standing in her hallway. For a moment, the only movement comes from the feathers on Milly’s duster, ruffled by a breeze from the open door.

I sneak away from them and hurry toward the kitchen.