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Chapter 16
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
Bracing himself, Curly picks up the phone. Chuck Muckle is on the line, asking why he can’t hear bulldozers in the background—it’s Monday morning, after all. Begging to not be fired outright, Curly shares his story of Saturday night’s events. When Muckle asks, Curly says he didn’t report the earthmover seat thefts to the police so it wouldn’t end up in the paper. This pleases Muckle—but Muckle is angry that the replacement seats won’t arrive until Wednesday. Still, he shares that Wednesday is the last day that Kimberly Lou Dixon can attend the groundbreaking ceremony, so once that’s over Curly can start clearing the site. All Curly has to do in the next two days is lock down the construction site.
Once again, Curly is on thin ice with his boss, who is wholly unwilling to sympathize with Curly’s plight. Muckle prioritizes finances and public image over anything else, and so he threatens Curly to keep Curly in line. Still, the fact that the seat theft is holding even someone as powerful as Chuck Muckle back highlights that corporate greed and development aren’t all-powerful. Even Muckle must rely on the bulldozers and their operators to achieve his goals, which means he’s vulnerable to Mullet Fingers’s shenanigans.
Themes
Curly asks what happens to the owls. Muckle reminds him that there are no owls; it’s not illegal to destroy empty nests. (Clearly, Curly thinks, nobody told the owls they don’t exist.) And if an owl does happen to show up, Curly can tell people it’s a chicken or something. Then, Muckle says he’ll be accompanying Kimberly Lou Dixon to the groundbreaking ceremony—hopefully he and Curly will have nothing to discuss.
Notably, this is the first time Curly explicitly acknowledges that owls (and not just their burrows) live on the construction site. He doesn’t argue with Muckle, likely because he needs to keep his job and so must keep Muckle happy. But bringing the owls up at all suggests that Curly is developing some amount of sympathy for the animals and would ideally like to know that they’re going to come out of this okay.
Themes
Beatrice is already gone when Roy wakes up. During breakfast, Mr. Eberhardt reads the newspaper article about Dana’s arrest; Mrs. Eberhardt is incensed that Dana’s name isn’t given, since he’s under 18. Kids at school are eager to talk about Dana’s arrest and pester Roy, but Roy is careful not to gloat or say much. The police have no reason to believe anything Dana says, but Roy doesn’t want to get in trouble in case word of the fake cigarettes gets out. After homeroom, Garrett finds Roy and shares that the police caught Dana because Dana couldn’t run, due to having rattraps stuck to his feet. The traps broke three of his toes. Roy doesn’t believe it. When he doesn’t see Beatrice at lunch, Roy approaches the other soccer girls. One says Beatrice is at the dentist because she fell and broke a tooth. This seems unlikely and concerns Roy.
Again, Roy must continue to police his behavior since he knows he did something morally and legally questionable in framing Dana. Essentially, though he believes he did the right thing for a variety of reasons, he also knows he could get in trouble for his actions, and he’d rather not have that happen. Since Beatrice was in Roy’s room until the early hours of the morning, and because Roy knows Beatrice is an athlete and is therefore coordinated, it doesn’t quite add up that she just fell badly enough to break a tooth. Especially since Roy knows that her home situation isn’t very safe and supportive, he seems to suspect foul play.
Themes
At the police station, Officer Delinko and the sergeant enter the captain’s office. The captain praises Delinko and asks what Dana has said, but Dana hasn’t said much. During the interrogation, Dana was stubborn and confusing, and he changed his story after getting a lawyer. The men also discuss that Dana is a thief, but he doesn’t seem like the sort to put gators in a toilet. Still, the captain says he’s going to tell people that the Mother Paula’s vandal is in custody. Officer Delinko brings up the green shirt he has, which is too small for Dana. However, the captain says they need a warm body and now they have one—and if “certain people” don’t make sure no more crimes happen on the Mother Paula’s property, they’ll be on parking duty from here on out. They just have to make it to Wednesday.
Through this conversation, readers learn how rampant corruption is in the Coconut Cove police department. Everyone in this meeting seems to know, on some level, that Dana isn’t the real vandal. And yet, they’re so concerned with looking competent to the Mother Paula’s corporation that they’re all willing to try to charge and imprison Dana, who’s essentially innocent (even if he’s guilty of various other crimes). And threatening the sergeant and Delinko with parking duty is a threat to end their careers if they don’t cooperate, which discourages them from doing the morally right thing (searching for the real vandal).
Themes
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Then, the captain says he has good news: Officer Delinko can resume field work, and the sergeant wrote a letter praising Delinko’s work in catching Dana. And because Delinko has experience with the case, he’ll be working 12-hour night shifts to surveille the property. If he falls asleep, he’ll be fired. Delinko and his sergeant leave the captain’s office, and the sergeant says that Delinko does, unfortunately, have to work the nights alone.
Threats of being fired for any mistake aside, getting back into the field is exactly what Delinko wants—now, he has the opportunity to prove himself. However, at this point Delinko doesn’t seem to question yet whether he should prove himself (that is, whether he should go along with his superiors) or whether he should try to track down the real Mother Paula’s vandal.
Themes
Following this, Officer Delinko stops at a souvenir shop and then pulls in at the Juvenile Detention Center to see Dana. Hopefully Dana will admit to at least one of the crimes. Dana accepts a stick of gum from Delinko and says he hasn’t been thinking about what he did; that’s why he has a lawyer. Delinko offers to speak to the judge if Dana can help him out, and he asks if Dana painted the windows of his squad car. Dana denies it rudely and asks if Delinko has cigarettes in his shopping bag. Delinko says he actually brought Dana a friend and drops something in Dana’s lap. Dana shrieks and leaps away. Once he’s gone, Delinko studies the rubber alligator. Anyone afraid of a rubber alligator isn’t capable of putting real ones in a toilet, so the perpetrator is still out there.
Here, readers learn that Delinko is actually far more moral than he’s let on thus far. In many ways, he seems to agree with Roy: Dana committed a crime and isn’t a nice person, but he’s not the one responsible for causing mayhem at the Mother Paula’s site. Also interesting here is the way that Delinko attempts to befriend Dana a bit in order to get more out of him. While there are many reasons why Dana is hesitant to trust a police officer, the fact remains that he wholly rejects Delinko’s overtures, suggesting that friendship isn’t something he considers valid or worthwhile.
Themes
Roy uses his family’s computer to research the burrowing owls. Finally, he finds what he needs, prints two pages, and then bikes to the Coconut Cove City Hall. Inside, he approaches the building and zoning desk and asks for the Mother Paula’s Pancake House file. The clerk, amused, asks Roy to give the property’s legal description and then asks Roy if this is for a school project. Roy decides it’d be fine to lie, so he says yes. The clerk brings out an armful of files, but the file with construction permits is checked out. With fake kindness, the clerk suggests Roy choose a different topic for his project, but Roy promises to return tomorrow.
It’s not entirely clear why the clerk is being so unhelpful here, but it is suspicious—is the clerk trying to hide something? Either way, that the permitting file is missing suggests that something is afoot, and Roy picks up on this. This is in part because Roy’s parents have taught him to view adults like the clerk as there to help, so when faced with a shockingly unhelpful adult who’s being unhelpful for seemingly no reason, Roy recognizes that this isn’t normal.
Themes
Next, Roy purchases live crickets at a bait shop. After waiting for Mullet Fingers in the junkyard for a few minutes, he bikes to East Oriole and Woodbury. Keeping an eye out for Mullet Fingers and for “clever surprises,” Roy accidentally startles an owl. The owl flits to a bulldozer—which is missing its seat. Roy guides the crickets out of his box and into the fence, ignoring a honking horn. A truck pulls up before Roy can flee on his bike, and a bald man (Curly) grabs Roy and threatens to send him to jail. When Roy says he was just feeding the owls, Curly’s face turns white. Curly says there are no owls here, just wild chickens. Roy retorts that he saw an owl and he knows why Curly is afraid. Curly finally lets Roy go. Roy bikes home triumphantly, imagining he’s biking up a mountain in Montana.
Some of Roy’s internet research seemingly included looking up what the burrowing owls eat—crickets rather than meatballs. Readers are missing some important information here (such as exactly why Roy thinks he knows what’s scaring Curly), but all signs point to it being illegal to develop land where owls are currently nesting. Roy then becomes a liability to Curly and the Mother Paula’s corporation, as he seems to be the only one willing and able to do the research and check that the company is following all the rules. It seems possible that Roy will be able to save the owls by exposing the pancake house’s corruption.
Themes
