Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hoot, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Conservation and the Natural World
Bullying and Corruption
Morality, the Law, and Protest
Parenting and Support
Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Officer Delinko has been driving past the construction site at least twice per day. The only interesting thing he’s seen was the dog trainer running around and shouting at the dogs this morning, but he believes Curly that it was a training exercise. Eager to see the dogs in action, Delinko decides to drive past on his way home. But when Delinko gets to the site, the dogs don’t seem to be there. Delinko makes some noise, trying to rouse the dogs—but he only gets a response when he whistles, and it’s a faint coo. A tiny owl flies up from the ground and lands on a bulldozer, making Delinko smile. Officer Delinko decides to stop tomorrow and ask Curly about the dogs, and he pulls a torn strip of green fabric off the top of the fence. It looks like it tore when someone climbed over.
Officer Delinko has no idea that he shouldn’t necessarily trust Curly: Curly is trying to keep Mother Paula’s out of the news, which means not reporting things to the police. Now that the novel has revealed why Mullet Fingers is trying to stop construction on the site, the symbolic fight between the owls and the earthmoving equipment comes more to the forefront. Delinko still hasn’t put together that the owls will be displaced once the bulldozer gets moving, but the tiny owl sitting on the bulldozer nevertheless highlights how small and helpless the owls are next to big, powerful machines that will transform this lot into a suburban restaurant.
Themes
Beatrice shouts at Roy to run faster; she’s riding the bike, Mullet Fingers is slumped over the handlebars, and Roy is running behind. Mullet Fingers collapsed and fell from the fence at the construction site, and it’s clear that the infected dog bites are making him sicker. Still, Beatrice refuses to get Mullet Fingers medical attention. When Roy sees a police cruiser, he stops and waves at it. This causes Beatrice to drop the bike and race, carrying Mullet Fingers, into the nearby neighborhood. Roy decides to follow the only two people he can kind of consider friends, and he also worries that he could get in trouble for helping Mullet Fingers, since Mullet Fingers is a “fugitive from the school system.” And how can it be a crime for Mullet Fingers to look out for the owls? When he catches up to Beatrice, she asks what they can do.
Because Beatrice doesn’t believe she can trust adults, she’s not willing to take Mullet Fingers to a doctor or hospital, let alone ask the police for help. Roy, on the other hand, not only has a dad who works in law enforcement—he also believes generally that adults are there to help kids like him. However, Beatrice forces Roy to choose his friends over seeking out adult help. In this way, Roy begins to join Beatrice in growing up and taking on more adult roles himself. Still, he justifies what seems like his choice to help by reminding himself that it’s likely not a crime to advocate for helpless, innocent animals.
Themes
Curly is through with attack dogs. He knows the only way to protect the construction site is to spend nights there—but he’s annoyed when his wife isn’t upset that he’ll be away for the weekend. So he sullenly packs his bag and heads to the site. There, he carefully walks to the trailer, worried about the moccasins, and turns on ESPN. He fingers his revolver, which he plans to use to shoot a snake, though he hasn’t fired a gun since he got out of the Marines 31 years ago. During a commercial break, an ad for Mother Paula’s Pancake House comes on. Kimberly Lou Dixon is made up to look like an old woman, but she’s clearly pretty young. Will Curly get to meet her when she comes for the groundbreaking ceremony? Can he ask for an autograph?
Things are continuing to get worse for Curly. He wants to be valued and appreciated, but his wife isn’t helping in that regard, and Chuck Muckle isn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy type who would make Curly feel good for surveilling the property himself. Because of this, it’s another sign of how much Curly needs to keep his job that he’s here—and willing to pull out a gun for the first time in decades to protect himself and the property.
Themes
Just then, the cable goes out. Curly hasn’t spent a night without TV in years and he doesn’t know how else to amuse himself. Going to rent a movie at the minimart is out of the question: he’d have to risk the snakes lurking around the construction site. Can a snake wiggle into the trailer? Curly once heard about a boa constrictor that appeared from a bathtub drain in New York City, so it seems possible. Anxiously, Curly gets up. He hears rustling in the bathroom, so he pulls out his gun and slams open the door. Unfortunately, he realizes the culprit is just a tiny mouse only after he shoots the toilet, destroying it.
Curly’s experiences with the alligators, the water moccasins, and now the mouse suggest that he’s pretty uncomfortable in the natural world. Everything that lives in nature—even cute and non-dangerous mice—is threatening. This is played for humor in this passage, but it also sets up a contrast between Curly and Mullet Fingers. Whereas Mullet Fingers is so comfortable with nature and animals that he can camp and keep snakes in a bag, Curly is brought to hysterics by a mouse.
Themes
Get the entire Hoot LitChart as a printable PDF.
Mr. Eberhardt is reading when Mrs. Eberhardt comes to tell him that Officer Delinko, the policeman who brought Roy home, is at the door. In the living room, Officer Delinko shares what he saw: a boy who looked like Roy waved at him and then ran away with some other kids. They left a bike laying in the street. Mrs. Eberhardt says it can’t be Roy; he wouldn’t run and besides, his bike has a flat tire. Officer Delinko says the bike was stolen from Trace Middle School this afternoon, so Mrs. Eberhardt gravely says Roy’s not a thief. Officer Delinko says he’s just doing his job and offers to show the Eberhardts the bike. Privately, he hopes Mr. Eberhardt can put in a good word for him someday when he’s ready to be a detective—or maybe even join the FBI.
Put simply, Officer Delinko is sucking up to Mr. Eberhardt to try to boost his career. The implication is that normally, Delinko wouldn’t inform parents that a kid who maybe looks like their child was behaving oddly out in public; Delinko is doing this on the off chance that it’ll help him advance. Readers, however, can deduce that Delinko did indeed see Roy, and the Eberhardts’ reaction confirms that they’ve taught Roy to trust adults in general—and law enforcement in particular. But out on his own, Roy is making different choices than his parents might want him to.
Themes
Before Mrs. Eberhardt can say it looks like Beatrice’s bike, Officer Delinko asks if she and Mr. Eberhardt recognize the strip of fabric he found. They don’t. The phone rings, so Mrs. Eberhardt goes inside to answer it. Eagerly, Officer Delinko asks Mr. Eberhardt if Roy said anything about writing a letter to the police chief. Roy didn’t, and Mr. Eberhardt is fed up with how pushy Officer Delinko is. But before Officer Delinko can give his sergeant’s name, Mrs. Eberhardt races out with the car keys. Roy is in the emergency room.
It's telling that even Mr. Eberhardt finds Officer Delinko overbearing. The novel portrays Mr. Eberhardt as a good person who’s also really good at his job, and he clearly finds Delinko lacking and focused on the wrong things. It then creates tension when Mrs. Eberhardt shares that Roy is in the emergency room. That she immediately is ready to go see him, though, is something the novel casts as a good thing. She’s involved and cares about her son.
Themes
