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
Mrs. Eberhardt makes Roy stay home all weekend to monitor him after the golf ball incident. Medically, Roy is fine, but he’s anxious—what will happen when Dana seeks revenge? Fortunately, on Monday, Dana isn’t at school. Garrett says Dana is out sick and shares some of the rumors: Dana will need plastic surgery, and there were “guts” all over the bus. He adds that now, kids think Roy is really tough. Garrett suggests that Roy consider plastic surgery himself so Dana won’t recognize him and beat him up. Ignoring this, Roy asks Garrett who the tall girl with blond hair is; she’s mad at Roy for no reason. Alarmed, Garrett says Beatrice “The Bear” Leep is dangerous. She’s a soccer jock and broke a football player’s collarbone when he touched her bottom last year. Roy, Garrett suggests, should transfer to the Catholic school.
Roy hasn’t seemed all that frightened of Dana up to this point. But now, he realizes he’s crossed a line: breaking Dana’s nose, even unintentionally, made Dana look weak and silly, so Roy knows Dana is going to target him and punish him for his transgression. Garrett, humorously, doesn’t help Roy feel any better. Garrett (and, it seems, other kids at school) see Dana as all-powerful, which highlights how Dana has terrified everyone at school into letting him do whatever he wants. Beatrice has done much the same thing by breaking the football player’s collarbone. Now, nobody is willing to mess with her.
Themes
Officer Delinko is excited to patrol the construction site. He’s bored with his job, which is mostly traffic enforcement. He wants to lock up bad guys and ultimately become a detective, so catching the Mother Paula vandal will prove he has what it takes. So, on Monday morning, Officer Delinko gets up at five a.m. and heads for the site. It’s still dark and nothing is amiss, so he parks. Noticing movement ahead, Officer Delinko squints and turns his headlights on. They illuminate a pair of burrowing owls, each about eight inches tall, which fly away. Officer Delinko hopes he didn’t scare them away from their burrow. He turns off his lights, leans against his window, and falls asleep.
This passage makes it really clear that Officer Delinko isn’t thinking through what it will mean to catch the vandal. If he catches the vandal, the construction project will continue and the little owls he sees will be displaced. For now, though, Delinko’s main focus is on excelling at work and impressing his superiors. Similarly, Roy is so caught up in figuring out what’s going on with the running boy that he’s not considering, for instance, that the running boy might not want his identity revealed.
Themes
Some time later, Officer Delinko wakes up to the dispatcher on his radio, asking where he is. Delinko rouses himself slowly, but shockingly, it’s darker than when he fell asleep. Something starts pounding on the car and finally, the car door flies open. Light pours into the car and Curly scowls at Delinko. Delinko gets out and sees that someone spraypainted his windows black. It’s also 9:30; he’s late for work. As Officer Delinko whimpers about his car, Curly growls and picks up an armful of pulled-up survey stakes.
Delinko has, unwittingly, gotten himself into huge trouble: he not only missed scaring off the vandal, falling asleep meant that the vandal could target him by causing extensive damage to his police cruiser. This establishes Delinko as somewhat bumbling and prone to mistakes, even though he has good intentions.
Themes
Roy knows he has to do something. He can’t spend the year hiding from Dana and Beatrice. So, at lunch, he sits down next to Beatrice and her soccer friends. Roy says he’s not sure why Beatrice has a problem with him—he didn’t mean to upset her and whatever he did, he’s sorry. Beatrice just stares at Roy in shock as he asks how much she weighs. He pleasantly says he’s certain she outweighs him and can beat him up easily, but he’d rather they talk things through in the future. Standing up, Roy tells Beatrice he’s glad they chatted and eats his lunch on the other side of the cafeteria.
Roy knows full well that even if he’s not going to have an easy time making friends, it’s still essential that he gets the bullies to leave him alone—otherwise, he’ll never have the opportunity to make friends since people will fear associating with him. For her part, Beatrice seems shocked that Roy acts so unafraid. This success suggests to Roy that calling a bully’s bluff can be a really effective way to minimize their power.
Themes
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Roy pays Garrett a dollar to sneak into his mother’s office and copy down a home address. After school, Roy asks Mrs. Eberhardt to stop at the address—she assumes it’s a school friend’s. Really, it’s Dana Matherson’s house. Mrs. Matherson answers the door and calls for Dana, who appears wearing pajamas and a mound of gauze taped to his nose. Both his eyes are black. Roy offers Dana his apology letter and tells Dana’s mom that he’s the one Dana tried to strangle the other day. She chuckles and reaches for the letter, but Dana snatches it away. As they fight over it, Roy returns to the car and tells his mom whose house this is.
Roy attempts much the same tactic with Dana as he did with Beatrice. It’s a bit more complicated here, though, as Mrs. Matherson’s behavior suggests that Dana has learned from her to see fighting as a valid option when he doesn’t get his way. Put another way, it may be the situation in Dana’s home that has turned him into the powerful, terrifying bully he is at school. Roy and his mom’s calm conversation contrasts sharply with the Mathersons’ fighting. It also suggests that just as Dana learned violence from his mom, Roy perhaps learned to be calm and collected from his mom.
Themes
