Excerpt:
Gizi sprinted down the hill into the cornflowers, though not in the direction the wolves had gone. She ran instead toward a distant mound of granite boulders high on a rise to Laszlo's left, to the east, a mound that had once been an imaginary castle to a much younger Laszlo. Beyond it, Laszlo spied a person — a stranger — scrambling frantically away. Panic seized him.

"Who's there?" he yelled, tearing off after Gizi. As he drew nearer, he saw that the person was small and gangly and wondered if it might be a child. "Gizi!" he yelled. "Herd!"

The dog surged ahead and in no time had overtaken her quarry. With one pounce she flattened the stranger to the ground.

When Laszlo caught up, he was surprised to discover that Gizi had headed a girl, and a very angry one at that. She wore a filthy tunic made of coarse wool and littered with burrs and leaves. Her legs were long sticks, her feet bare and grimy, her short black hair roughly chopped, as if my dull shears. The features of her face — chin, nose, eyebrows, cheekbones — were sharp except for the blazing black orbs of her eyes. She appeared to Laszlo to be about his age, the age when one's face flames with red blemished. Hers were made all the redder by fury. Laszlo felt sure he had seen her before in the village, and then realized to his horror that she was the girl always trailing behind Pere Raoul — the parish priest!

The girl addressed him with a sneer, then suddenly leapt to her feet, clearly with a mind to escape. Laszlo dove for her legs and brought her back down. He climbed to her chest, grabbed her arms, and tried to pin them down, but her flailing fists kept breaking free and striking wildly at his throat and face. All the while, Gizi ran around them, snarling and snapping.

"What are you doing here?" Laszlo said to the girl, just as she jerked her hands free yet again and pounded them against his chest. One blow landed at the base of his breastbone, knocking the wind out of him. As he gasped for air, the girl twisted her hips, tossing him to the ground, then was up and off once more across the meadow. Gizi bounded after her and brought her down again with little effort. When Laszlo could breathe, he caught up to them. He prodded the girl with his crook and she spun at him as if she'd caught fire.

"Don't touch me!" she hissed, swatting the crook away. "I'm not one of your sheep! And get that monster away from me!"

"Gizi, back," Laszlo said.

His dog whimpered, but reluctantly moved away. Laszlo addressed the girl again in as calm a voice as he could.

"My name is Laszlo," he said.

"I know who you are," she snarled, her eyes narrowed into slits. "And now I know what you are!"