Marwand is a twelve year old Afghan boy who lives in America, but he is home in Afghanistan to visit his family. He previously tried to befriend the dog that lived in their compound, but it bit his fingertip off and ran away. He and his teenage uncles and cousins decide to go looking for it. They don't see much, but Marwand learns all about Logar from his uncles, who hold his hand and point out all the different roads and catch him up on who is dead. They see the butcher's son as he walks down the road and ambush him. They throw stones as the man as he runs away. Marwand asks why they did that, and he finds out that the butcher's son had courted Marwand's mother's younger sister. He'd been rejected many times (by the father, not by her—she was in love with him) because he was poor, and yet he continued to come back, which caused the girl to threaten to slit her own wrists. They'd ambushed him to discourage him from coming back. As their search goes on, they decide to pray, formally, and lay out their scarves in the dirt. As they pray, a few villagers who pass by join their line, and when they are done, one of the shepherds who'd joined them tells them that a dog attacked his sheep recently. He points them in a new direction, and they go on their way. They find a mulberry tree and eat from the branches, which makes Marwan feel sick. As they try to decide whether or not to go on, they look to Marwan to decide, but Marwan has to poop, and so he runs to hide. As he poops, he is knocked over by a dark shape, the dog they were looking for. He goes to wash off in the stream, and then crawls back to the road, cold. One of the boys, Zia, prays, and the other two are after the dog. Marwan and Zia huddle together on the road as they wait for the others to come back with the dog, and they fall asleep there.