Corzo, Frankie: ... with strangers. They looked and sounded nothing like the people of the town. Many wore bright orange vests over ragged clothing that was sopping wet, as if the fisherman had hauled them out of the sea. Dark scarves covered the hair of the women. The children shivered the way Kanella did every winter when the winds carved the sea into steep, frothing waves and the boats huddled in the harbor for days.

The fisherman helped the strangers climb down onto the pier, where they stood or sat in trembling clusters. The old fisherman called in a shaking voice to people at the restaurants along the pier, "Come help us. They are cold and hungry. We need a doctor." Soon people emerged from the restaurants with water and platters of food, but some of the strangers seemed too ill and weary to eat.

Kanella watched hungrily as the bolder dogs and cats darted in among their wet shoes to seize fallen bits of bread, cheese or fish. The animals worked quickly, afraid of being kicked or chased. Yet it was the strangers who flinched and backed away, as if they were the ones who should be frightened.

As the spring sun climbed higher and grew hotter, more and more strangers arrived on the island. Some continued to come on the fishing boats. Others appeared, sodden and silent, up on the olive green decks of coastguard ships. But most of them landed in black rubber rafts so crammed with passengers that they seemed more underwater than above.

Kanella's sharp eyes would spot the rafts crawling across the sea as she stood outside her burrow above the town. Then she would hurry down to the harbor. She was hoping to find scraps of food left on the pier, but she was also curious. Where did the strangers come from? They shrank away from cats and dogs, so they scared her a little less than the townspeople did. Wherever they came from, they were weary, tired and thin.

Strangers of another kind were arriving now too. They came not over the sea but along the highway in cars and buses. Many of them looked and sounded like the summer tourists, yet these people didn't climb up to visit the castle or swim in the sea. They walked fast and spoke urgently. Day and night they were in the harbor, bringing blankets, dry clothes and food to the boat stranger. Sometimes they helped carry sick people off the rafts onto the pier. The sick people would lie under blankets while helpers knelt beside them, or rushed around them, pointing and hollering.

Kanella knew what it meant to be so hungry and tired that you could hardly stand up. Still, she did not move in to take the scraps that the helpers sometimes fed to the other dogs. Then one day, she saw one of the rescued children give a piece of cheese to a cat. The child did not seem afraid, even when her parents pulled her back and scolded her. Kanella could almost imagine accepting food from a hand that small.

Two. The bearded man.

One morning, some helpers led a crowd of boat strangers through the white walled streets of the town, then along the highway cut into the face of the cliffs. Kanella followed, keeping her distance. The inaudible and shimmered far below. Cars and trucks snarled and rattled past. The large group came to a wide, bare lot beside the road. Last summer, cars would park here in rows. Tourists would drink, dance and yell at the moon from the balcony of a building that shook with drumbeats and shone with light. Sometimes Kanella found tasty scraps in the dark behind the building. Nuts, salty olives, oily strips of fried potato that looked like fingers.

But at summer's end, the building fell dark and silent. It remained that way now. Maybe the town no longer had room for tourists with so many boat strangers landing. In the bare lot beside the building, two huge tents had sprung up. Around them were smaller tents and huts. Kanella ran around the edges of the camp, her nose skimming the ground. Everything smelled new, even the toilet shed with its harsh chemical scent.

From a distance, she tried to see into the giant tents. Many boat strangers sat inside, eating or quietly talking. Behind them, others lay wrapped in blankets on mats. Never before had she seen people sleeping on the ground like her. One of the huts gave off rich mingled aromas of food. Was it a sort of restaurant, like the ones along the pier? If so, a dog would not be welcome, but scraps might be found around the back. Maybe potato fingers, fish ...