Hoot

The story takes place in a small town, Coconut Cove, that is several miles south of Fort Myers on the southwest coast of Florida. Built near swampland, the town at first bores Roy, but he soon realizes it is embedded in a paradise of watery beauty that makes living there worthwhile. Roy comes to love the town, and he learns to feel, not like a lost Montanan anymore, but like a found Floridian.

Tucked away inside most construction-permit files is an environmental impact report that describes any local plants, animals, and other things that might be adversely affected by construction. The report for the Mother Paula’s restaurant construction is missing. It is found hidden in the golf bag of a corrupt local politician, and it proves that, indeed, a colony of owls lives on the construction site. The report acts as a Holy Grail or gold ring for the plot. Whoever possesses it wins the contest. Roy’s research sets in motion a quest for the missing pages, whose discovery helps complete the case against Mother Paula’s restaurant.

The Molly Bell is an old crab boat marooned in a tidal creek just inland, where it settled after being swept there during a storm in the late 1970s. It is a place Mullet likes for the sunlight and the quiet of the deep forest. Roy visits the derelict boat with Mullet, and they sit on the pilot-house roof and enjoy the sun and breeze. Roy realizes that there are beautiful spots tucked away in Florida that compare well with Montana’s beauty, and this realization helps him miss his old home a bit less.

Part of a chain of restaurants, the new Mother Paula’s in Coconut Cove will be built on top of a colony of burrowing owls unless Roy and his friends can stop the construction. The restaurant’s name suggests motherhood and patriotism, perhaps to appeal to suburbanites, smooth the chain’s entry into new markets, and dampen local dissent in case the new construction causes problems. Ironically, the site is located on East Oriole Avenue, named for a popular bird. As the story progresses, the new restaurant’s image transforms from friendly and desirable—everybody loves pancakes—to that of a mindless destroyer of the local environment. The restaurant stands for corporate and real-estate corruption: a pretty image covering the callous plans of the bad guys.

Burrowing owls “actually live underground […] in old holes made by tortoises and armadillos” (245). Three mating pairs of these owls live on the property intended for a new pancake restaurant. The burrows are topped by large holes in the ground. People keep stepping in them and twisting their ankles. The holes are reminders of the owls’ presence, and the stepped-in holes serve as warnings that, despite their attempts to ignore them, people will keep stumbling over the owls until they realize there are actual birds, just beneath the lot’s surface, whose lives are in peril from the human activity above them.

Much of the early action in the novel takes place aboard the school bus on which Roy travels to and from Trace Middle School and within which he suffers beatings from Dana. Through its windows, Roy first witnesses the running boy, whose blithe sprints past the bus seem to defy convention and make the bus and its occupants appear staid and commonplace. Roy fights back against Dana and escapes from the bus to chase after the boy. This choice kick-starts the plot, even while further school bus scuffles between Roy and Dana are in the offing. The bus symbolizes convention and submission to often-unfair conditions.