Hoot

At school, the students avoid Roy. Garrett collars him and tells him to go home or face Dana’s wrath after school. Roy realizes he will have to avoid Dana for the rest of the school year. Hennepin can do nothing more than scold Dana. If he tells his parents, they will probably pull him from school and enroll him in a private school with uniforms and Latin.

Roy’s only other option is to fight Dana. He knows he will probably lose, and that fighting Dana is perhaps stupid. He also worries about how his mother would feel if her only child was seriously injured. She already lost one baby to a miscarriage; for this reason, Roy avoids the daredevil stunts that his peers perform.

After school, he stalls with the history teacher, Mr. Ryan, then sprints for the bus, hoping to be the last person on, finding a seat away from Dana. He almost makes it.

Earlier in the day, Curly arrives at the construction site to find the dogs running inside the perimeter fence, chased by a frantic Kalo. Delinko pulls up in his cruiser, but Curly tells him it is just a training exercise, and Delinko leaves. Kalo finally gets the dogs tucked into his truck. He whirls on Curly and accuses him of planting snakes on the property. Kalo drags Curly from one spot to another, showing him all nine cottonmouths.

Kalo turns to leave, steps into an owl burrow, and twists his ankle. Refusing help, he limps off to his truck, shouting that Curly is never to call him again and that he will file suit with the company to pay for his ankle injury.

Curly calls the alligator wrangler who arrives three hours later, scours the site, and announces that there are no snakes on the property. Dutifully, Curly calls Muckle, who berates him yet again. Snakes cannot hurt a bulldozer, so construction will begin on Monday.

As Roy jogs for the bus, Dana appears suddenly and pulls him into a janitor’s closet, where, in the darkness, Dana begins swinging wildly. Roy crouches down and crawls toward the door while Dana punches at buckets. Roy nearly escapes, but Dana drags him back into the small room and gets him into a bear hug that takes the air out of his lungs. Roy kicks desperately and hits Dana, who drops him. Dana then falls on Roy and grabs his throat. Roy waits for death. The door opens, and Dana gets lifted off Roy. Roy runs for the bus, but it has already left.

It is Beatrice who saved Roy. She ties Dana, stripped to his underwear, to the school flagpole, then steals a bicycle, plants Roy on the handlebars, and steers toward Roy’s house. On the way, she tells him she needs a favor: gauze and other first-aid materials. Roy says his mother has plenty of that at home.

They arrive at Roy’s house. Beatrice meets his mother and makes up a clever story about how she and Roy need to work on a messy science experiment at her house. Mrs. Eberhardt believes it. While she prepares them a snack, Roy hurries to his parents’ bathroom and obtains gauze, tape, and antibiotic ointment. Back in the kitchen, Beatrice and Roy’s mother are eating peanut butter cookies. Beatrice talks Mrs. Eberhardt into giving them two pounds of ground beef that she says will become part of a “cell decay” science experiment.

As they ride away, Beatrice explains that her dad, Leon, is an ex-NBA star who is now an overweight homebody who eats junk food and watches cable TV. Her mother left two years earlier to become a bird trainer. Leon suddenly married a cocktail waitress, Lonna, whose son keeps running away to live in the woods. Lonna sent the son to military school, but he ran away from that, too. Beatrice protects the boy and hides his whereabouts from Lonna.

They arrive at the junkyard ice cream truck, where Roy meets Mullet Fingers, who lies moaning with a swollen left arm badly bitten by one of Kelo’s guard dogs. Beatrice cleans the arm with soda water. Roy knows first aid, and he applies ointment and bandages to the wound.

Informed that the ground beef is ready, Mullet rouses himself and runs off, wearing the shoes Roy gave him. Roy thinks the boy intends to poison the dogs, but Beatrice assures him he will not. They bike to the construction site, where, despite his fever, Mullet already waits for them. Roy pieces together the bits of vandalism and realizes Mullet committed the crimes. The dogs are gone, so they all climb in the fence and hide behind a bulldozer.

Mullet explains that he was bitten while placing snakes on the lot. He had taped the snakes’ mouths shut and put sparkles on their tails for visibility. He wanted the snakes merely to rile up the dogs, so they would be removed. Mullet later retrieved the snakes, untaped their mouths, and set them free.

Roy asks what all this was for. Mullet answers by taking the hamburger, rolling six meatballs, and carrying them to the owl burrows. An owl appears at one of the holes to retrieve the food. Now Roy understands.

Delinko drops by the construction site and wonders why the guard dogs are absent. An owl flies across the lot. Delinko notices a scrap of green cloth at the top of a section of the fence; he removes and pockets it.

Not far away, Roy races to keep up as Beatrice rides her stolen bike with Mullet lying in a faint across the handlebars. He passed out while climbing back over the fence. As they argue about where to take Mullet—Roy says to the hospital or Mullet’s mother—Delinko’s car appears. Roy steps forward and waves at the car. Beatrice, angry with Roy, drops the bike, shoulders her stepbrother, and disappears between the houses. Roy hesitates then turns and runs after them.

He finds the two under a tree. Mullet’s gauze and the arm of his green t-shirt were torn away on the fence. Beatrice looks at Roy: “What are we gonna do now, cowgirl?” (129)

Curly decides to sleep in the construction trailer over the weekend. It is the only way he can think of to protect the site and his career from further damage. He arrives and, worried about snakes, scampers across the lot to the trailer and locks himself in. He double-checks his handgun and then switches on the TV for a baseball game.

The TV fizzles and goes dark. Curly hears a noise in the bathroom. Gun cocked, he moves toward the bathroom door, kicks it open, and reflexively fires the gun, startling a mouse that runs past him into the hallway. Curly has shot the toilet.

Delinko visits the Eberhardts, where he reports that he saw a boy who looked like Roy and who waved for him but then ran away, leaving a stolen bicycle. He shows them the bike. Mrs. Eberhardt recognizes it as the one Beatrice rode when she visited. He also shows the green scrap of fabric to them. Mrs. Eberhardt is relieved because Roy has no green shirts.

The phone rings, and Mrs. Eberhardt goes to answer it. Delinko asks Mr. Eberhardt if he might write a note of thanks for the policeman’s help returning Roy during the storm. Mr. Eberhardt, annoyed by the pushiness, grudgingly agrees to contact Delinko’s sergeant. Mrs. Eberhardt cries, “Roy’s been hurt!” (138).

Beatrice and Roy get Mullet admitted to the hospital under Roy’s name and address. Roy gives his own name as “Tex.” They know this deception will cause trouble for Roy, but at least it will protect Mullet from his mother and her tendency to send him to faraway schools.

Beatrice and Roy discuss their options. Roy will soon be in trouble for lying about Mullet’s identity. When Lonna finds out, Mullet will be shipped out to a military school. Roy says, “We’ll come up with something,” and Beatrice says, “Know what, Tex? You’re okay” (143). She pinches his cheek and, promising to return soon, gets up to go cook dinner for her father. Roy asks for Mullet’s real name; she has sworn not to tell but says that, if he wants to, Mullet will tell Roy himself.

Roy leaves a phone message telling his parents that he is cleaning up the science experiment. He sits and reads a magazine. A siren approaches. Having seen a gory human death years earlier, Roy does not want to look at one now. He wanders through the hospital until a nurse directs him back to the emergency room. Looking past the front doors, he sees only a police car. Then he hears his mother and father arguing with the staff.

Delinko drove them to the hospital, and now they want to see their son. But the boy in the hospital bed has disappeared. Angry and distressed, the Eberhardts begin searching the rooms. Roy walks into the waiting area and calls to them: “Mom! Dad! I’m right here!” (150). His parents hug him. He admits that he is not the one with the dog bites. They demand to know who the other boy is. Roy says he does not know his name or where he might be. 

Back home, Roy showers and eats dinner. His father calls him to the den, where he shows Roy a page from the boy’s bird identification book. It reads: “Burrowing owl […] Athene cunicularia. Long-legged and short-tailed, with relatively long, narrow wings and flat head. Only small owl likely to be seen perched in the open in daylight” (154). Roy tells the whole story, leaving out only the name Mullet Fingers. He says the construction will bury the owls. His father suggests they will fly away, but Roy worries about the nestlings. His father has no answer for that.

They go for an evening walk and talk about various things until the topic returns to Mullet. Mr. Eberhardt comments that Roy is growing up quickly. Roy worries that his father will report Mullet, but Mr. Eberhardt says, winking, that he cannot if he does not know where the boy lives. He says he will think about the problem.

Late in the evening, Roy cannot sleep, so he reads. His mother visits and gently tells him that the false information he provided at the hospital can get him into trouble. Roy knows this. She says she and his father are very proud of him; she adds that, in these situations, he simply has to use his best judgment. She asks why the boy ran off, and Roy says that his mother does not want him and will send him away.

On Saturday, Garrett calls Roy and asks how Dana got strapped to the school flagpole. Roy replies, “No comment.” Later, his father takes him to the bike shop, where he retrieves his bike with its new tire.

Roy finds Beatrice’s address under “Leep” in the phone book and rides over. He knocks on the door; it is answered by the hugely tall Leon, who calls for Beatrice. She comes to the door and whispers sharply that it is not a good time to talk. Her stepmother, Lonna, appears, smoking a cigarette and demanding to know what is going on. Roy says they have a science project to do, but she says angrily that Beatrice must clean the house all day, “And anything else I can think of” (166). Beatrice suggests that Roy contact her tomorrow. Lonna angrily shoos Roy away.

Roy rides to Dana’s house. The thin and sickly father answers the door, and, when Roy claims he and Dana are working on a school project, pulls out five dollars assuming it is “the usual” price for doing his son’s homework. Roy says nothing is owed. Dana replaces his dad at the door. Stunned and angry to see Roy, he steps outside and takes a swing at him, but Roy ducks, and Dana smashes his hand on a bird feeder.

Roy points out that every time Dana attacks him, Dana suffers a bad outcome, and now the students at school will be laughing at him. Dana retorts that they will not laugh when he is done with Roy, whom he declares is “so dead.” Irritated, Roy says that Dana has not learned from his experience. Dana replies, “That’s right. And you can’t make me!” (169)

Roy rides to the junkyard, where he finds Mullet in the abandoned ice cream truck, lying in a sleeping bag. Mullet looks much better. He thanks Roy for his help at the hospital and hopes it did not get Roy into too much trouble. Roy gives Mullet some water. Mullet gets up and puts on his clothes.

Roy says his father believes the restaurant can do whatever it wants to the owls; Mullet says Roy is not thinking like an outlaw. Roy denies he is an outlaw, but Mullet points out that his performance at the hospital was certainly an “outlaw move.”

Mullet feels anguish at the wholesale destruction of Florida wilderness as people build mindlessly. Roy says it happens everywhere, but Mullet replies, “Doesn’t mean you don’t fight back” (172). He hands Roy the reply Beatrice got from the Mother Paula corporation to a letter she wrote on his behalf pleading that they do not bury the owls. The reply promises that the company cares deeply about the environment and that “every possible effort will be made to address your concerns” (172). It is signed by Muckle. Roy pronounces the letter “Lame.”

Mullet invites Roy to join him at sundown at the construction site and asks him to bring a socket wrench. Roy says Mullet needs to rest. Mullet replies that there is no time for that. Roy says they will catch him and put him in juvenile confinement. Mullet answers that he will escape.

They leave the junkyard together. Mullet invites Roy to see something interesting. They go to a tidal creek where an old crab boat, the Molly Bell, was grounded during a storm and now lies moldering. They sit on the pilot-house roof and enjoy the sun and the quiet of the dense undergrowth around them.

Roy asks Mullet about his parents. Mullet says he and his mother “never connected,” and he never knew his dad. A commotion in the creek alerts Mullet. He gets Roy to hold on to his feet while he leans over the sunken pilot-house, reaches into the water, and catches a small, blue-green mullet as it swims past. Triumphant, Mullet shows it to Roy, then drops it back into the water. Roy asks what Mullet plans to do tonight at the construction site. Mullet just says, “Be there.”

At home, Roy struggles with whether to join Mullet at the site. He feels anguish about the owls watching helplessly as their chicks get buried, but he does not want to commit crimes, either. He needs a plan.

Late in the afternoon, he rides to Dana’s house where he looks through the windows until he finds Dana lying on his bed listening to music. Roy taps on the window until Dana appears, glowering and cursing. Roy backs up, salutes Dana, then turns, drops his pants, bends over, and moons him. Roy walks out to the front of the house. When Dana appears, Roy runs off, just fast enough to keep ahead of Dana, who chases angrily after him.

Even running slowly, Roy tires the out-of-shape Dana, who slows to a limping trot. Roy pretends to tire and slows down until Dana catches up. Dana grabs for Roy’s neck, but it is mainly to help him stand up. He finally collapses on top of Roy, exhausted. Dana smells terribly of cigarettes and body odor. After resting on Roy for a while, Dana gets up and tries to hit Roy. Roy pretends to be hurt and begs for mercy. Dana is about to try again, but Roy suddenly says he can show Dana a stash of cigarettes if Dana promises to stop hitting him. Dana sighs and promises. Roy says the stash is in a trailer on a vacant lot on East Oriole. Dana heads off in that direction.

On Saturday, Curly replaces the trailer’s toilet seat and buys a dozen rat traps, which he fills with peanut butter and places around the trailer. Near sunset, he retreats into the trailer, eats a TV dinner, and watches a videotape of a movie starring Kimberly Lou Dixon before she was Mother Paula. In the film, Dixon plays a cheerleader who gets transformed into a witch and boils college football players.

Curly next watches golf but falls asleep. He is awakened by a noise. Someone is cursing, then a snap, followed by more cursing. Curly bursts through the door and lands on Dana. Curly demands his name. Dana answers, “Roy Eberhardt.” Curly accuses Dana of being the vandal, but Dana fights with Curly and escapes.

On his way home from the market, Delinko sees Dana stumbling along with rat traps stuck to his feet. Delinko gets out of his police car and tries to talk to Dana, who turns and runs. Delinko quickly catches the wheezing boy and puts him in the back of the squad car. Curly appears, points at Dana, and congratulates Delinko for catching the vandal, Roy Eberhardt.

Delinko is ecstatic: He caught the vandal. He quickly disabuses Curly of the idea that Dana is Roy. Curly still wants to press charges, so Delinko offers him the passenger seat for the ride to the station. Delinko turns to Dana and suggests that things will go better for him if he cooperates. Dana refuses, but he says he has a question. He wants to know if either of them has a cigarette he can smoke. 

On Sunday, Garrett loans Roy a skateboard, and they go to the skate park. On the way, Garrett says that he learned from his mother, the student counselor, that Dana was arrested for breaking into the construction site. Roy pretends to be surprised. He is relieved that Dana is off the streets.

Curly is relieved, too, thinking he caught the vandal. At home, he makes it sound, to his wife, like he captured Dana by himself. He remembers that he dropped his gun somewhere at the site, so he drives back and searches for it. He cannot find the weapon, but he does find that all the seats from the construction vehicles have been removed. He searches everywhere. In the commode hole of a portable toilet, he finds, not the seats, but his gun.

Roy and his parents, meanwhile, visit the Everglades, where his parents fulfill a longstanding promise to take their son on an airboat. The craft speeds smoothly across the swamplands as the family observes and photographs alligators, large birds, and lush scenery. Roy realizes that the wildlands of Florida are as spectacular as anything in Montana. He understands now why the landscapes and creatures here are important to Mullet and why protecting them is vital.

At home, the Eberhardts get a message from Delinko describing Dana’s arrest at the construction site. His mother and father ask Roy if he knows anything about it. He says he heard about it from Garrett but says he cannot imagine that Dana cares about owls. He asks his father, though, how to check Mother Pearl’s construction permits, to make sure they are all legitimate. Mr. Eberhardt suggests contacting city hall.

Later, asleep, Roy hears his name. He wakes and hears it again. He is terrified, but it is only Beatrice. She is hiding under his bed. She crawls out and explains that her father and stepmother had a huge fight, throwing things at each other, so she came to Roy’s house to hide. Roy says she can stay. He offers his bed, but she insists on the floor. He gets her a pillow and blanket.

Roy worries aloud that Mullet’s ongoing vandalism will get him arrested. Beatrice does not know how to stop her brother, adding that he is “thickheaded.” Roy says, “Then I guess we’ve gotta join him” (210).