Kate Nagy

Kate is a little girl from Budapest, the daughter of school-teacher Sandor Nagy. Kate lost her mother at a young age, prompting her father to overcompensate by catering to her every whim. This has produced a spoiled, incorrigible child who habitually hides her ill-intent behind a mask of innocence. Finally at his wits end, Sandor sends Kate to Marton, his brother, hoping that Marton's skill at handling animals would prove applicable to taming his wild daughter. This is where the novel begins.

At the Nagy ranch, Kate is forced to face the consequences of her misbehavior. When she climbs into the rafters, for example, she finds that she's unable to get back down, because the oven she climbed up on is too hot to touch. While Marton might have extracted her from the rafters, sparing her the consequences of her actions, he instead leaves her there for...