Hoot

by

Carl Hiaasen

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Hoot makes teaching easy.
Themes and Colors
Conservation and the Natural World Theme Icon
Bullying and Corruption Theme Icon
Morality, the Law, and Protest Theme Icon
Parenting and Support Theme Icon
Friendship Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hoot, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Friendship Theme Icon

Even as Hoot illustrates how neglectful or absent parenting can hurt children and make their lives extremely difficult, it also shows that there’s an antidote to some aspects of questionable parenting situations. While Hoot doesn’t go so far as to suggest that having close friendships with peers is enough to totally remedy an unsupportive or dangerous situation at home, it does show that having a friend can make one’s home life more bearable and, in some cases, provide a much-needed escape. Roy, having grown up with stable and supportive parents, takes an interesting view of friendship: because he’s so close with Mr. Eberhardt and Mrs. Eberhardt, he doesn’t feel such a pressing need to try to make friends after the move to Coconut Cove. But for Beatrice and Mullet Fingers, who eventually become Roy’s best friends, friendship with Roy offers not just an outside perspective on how to best go about saving the burrowing owls on the future site of a Mother Paula’s pancake house, but emotional and physical support they don’t have access to at home. Despite Beatrice’s rough and tough demeanor, for instance, Roy discovers that she still sometimes needs emotional support and a safe place to stay. So, when her dad Leon and stepmom Lonna get in a loud and physically violent fight, Roy lets Beatrice sneakily spend the night in his room, offering her a much needed break from her guardians. Similarly, Roy uses his relative privilege to make sure that when attack dogs bite Mullet Fingers and the bites get infected, the boy gets treatment without his parents finding out that he’s in town (Lonna, his mom, doesn’t want Mullet Fingers and sends him away to military schools). It’s worth noting that on the whole, Hoot presents the fact that Roy, a child himself, must provide this kind of care and support to his friends as tragic. However, the novel still presents friendship and the support friends can show each other as something wholly positive and capable of making bad situations bearable.

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Friendship ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Friendship appears in each chapter of Hoot. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Hoot PDF

Friendship Quotes in Hoot

Below you will find the important quotes in Hoot related to the theme of Friendship.
Chapter 1 Quotes

Roy gasped.

“Whassamatter, cowgirl? Had enough?”

This was Dana, hissing in Roy’s right ear. Being the new kid on the bus, Roy didn’t expect any help from the others. The “cowgirl” remark was so lame, it wasn’t worth getting mad about. Dana was a well-known idiot, on top of which he outweighed Roy by at least fifty pounds. Fighting back would have been a complete waste of energy.

Related Characters: Dana Matherson (speaker), Roy Eberhardt, Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy, Beatrice Leep/The Girl
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

“Matherson is the menace! He hassles all the smaller kids on the bus.”

“Nobody else has complained.”

“Because they’re scared of him,” Roy said. Which was also why none of the other kids had backed up his story. Nobody wanted to nark on Dana and have to face him the next day on the bus.

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Miss Hennepin (speaker), Dana Matherson
Page Number: 19
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Roy trailed him back to the bulldozer, where Beatrice remained perched on the blade, cleaning her eyeglasses.

[...]

Mullet Fingers tapped him on the arm. “Listen.”

Roy heard a short high-pitched coo-coo. Then, from across the open lot, came another. Beatrice’s stepbrother rose stealthily, tugged off his new sneakers, and crept forward. Roy followed closely.

The boy was grinning through his fever when he signaled for them to stop. “Look!”

“Wow,” Roy said, under his breath.

There, standing by the hole and peering curiously at one of the meatballs, was the smallest owl that he had ever seen.

Mullet Fingers chucked him gently on the shoulder. “Okay—now do you get it?”

“Yeah,” said Roy. “I get it.”

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy (speaker), Beatrice Leep/The Girl
Related Symbols: Owls, Bulldozers
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Roy stood rooted in the center of the road. He had an important decision to make, and quickly. From one direction came the police car; running in the other direction were his two friends...

Well, the closest things to friends that he had in Coconut Cove.

Roy drew a deep breath and dashed after them. He heard a honk, but he kept going, hoping that the police officer wouldn’t jump out and chase him on foot. Roy didn’t think he’d done anything wrong, but he wondered if he could get in trouble for helping Mullet Fingers, a fugitive from the school system.

The kid was only trying to take care of some owls—how could that possibly be a crime? Roy thought.

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt, Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy, Beatrice Leep/The Girl, Officer David Delinko, Mr. Eberhardt, Lonna Leep
Related Symbols: Owls
Page Number: 128
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

“They were asking him all kinds of nosy questions, Mom, and meanwhile he’s about to keel over from the fever,” Roy said. “Maybe what I did was wrong, but I’d do it all over again if I had to. I mean it.”

Roy expected a mild rebuke, but his mother only smiled. Smoothing the blanket with both hands, she said, “Honey, sometimes you’re going to be faced with situations where the line isn’t clear between what’s right and what’s wrong. Your heart will tell you to do one thing, and your brain will tell you to do something different. In the end, all that’s left is to look at both sides and go with your best judgment.”

Well, Roy thought, that’s sort of what I did.

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Mrs. Eberhardt (speaker), Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy
Page Number: 160
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

“Ever since I was little,” Mullet Fingers said, “I’ve been watchin’ this place disappear—the piney woods, the scrub, the creeks, the glades. Even the beaches, man—they put up all those giant hotels and only goober tourists are allowed. It really sucks.”

Roy said, “Same thing happens everywhere.”

“Doesn’t mean you don’t fight back.”

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy (speaker), Mr. Eberhardt
Related Symbols: Owls
Page Number: 172
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

Again Roy was astounded by the immense flatness of the terrain, the lush horizons, and the exotic abundance of life. Once you got away from all the jillions of people, Florida was just as wild as Montana.

That night, lying in bed, Roy felt a stronger connection to Mullet Fingers, and a better understanding of the boy’s private crusade against the pancake house. It wasn’t just about the owls, it was about everything—all the birds and animals, all the wild places that were in danger of being wiped out. No wonder the kid was mad, Roy thought, and no wonder he was so determined.

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt, Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy
Related Symbols: Owls
Page Number: 205
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

“Dad wants my brother to come back and live with us again, but Lonna says no way, José, he’s a bad seed. What the heck does that mean, Tex? ‘Bad seed.’ Anyway, they’re still not speakin’ to each other, Lonna and my dad. The whole house feels like it’s about to explode.”

To Roy, Beatrice’s situation sounded like a living nightmare. “Need a place to hide out?” he asked.

“That’s okay. Dad says he feels better when I’m around.”

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Beatrice Leep/The Girl (speaker), Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy, Mr. Eberhardt, Mrs. Eberhardt, Leon Leep, Lonna Leep
Page Number: 234
Explanation and Analysis:

“Honest,” Roy said. “I looked it up on the Internet. Those owls are protected—it’s totally against the law to mess with the burrows unless you’ve got a special permit, and Mother Paula’s permit file is missing from City Hall. What does that tell you?”

Mullet Fingers fingered the camera skeptically. “Pretty fancy,” he said, “but it’s too late for fancy, Tex. Now it’s time for hardball.”

“No, wait. If we give them proof, then they’ve got to shut down the project,” Roy persisted. “All we need is one lousy picture of one little owl—”

Related Characters: Roy Eberhardt (speaker), Mullet Fingers/The Running Boy (speaker)
Related Symbols: Owls
Page Number: 243
Explanation and Analysis: