Hoot

So-named by his stepsister for his ability to catch mullet fish with his bare hands, Mullet Fingers—his real name is Napoleon Bridger Leep—is the mysterious boy whose fleet-footed dashes across town, mysterious hideouts, and resistance campaign to stop the Mother Paula’s restaurant construction from killing a colony of owls, capture Roy’s imagination. Mullet avoids his cruel mother and lives outdoors or in an abandoned panel truck. Beatrice, his sister, brings him food and clean clothing, and she protects his secrets.

Mullet is the chief rival of the main opponent, the Mother Paula’s corporation. With Roy, he brings attention to the endangered owls and frustrates the corporation’s plans to ride roughshod over endangered animals. He emerges from the woodlands and disappears back into them like a forest deity who protects nature.

Tall with curly blond hair and red-framed eyeglasses, Beatrice Leep is “a major soccer jock […] with a major attitude” (39). Known for tossing a football player into a fountain for treating her rudely, Beatrice is part of the conspiracy to save the burrowing owls from being buried under the new Mother Paula’s restaurant. She guards her brother, Mullet Fingers, from discovery as he performs nightly acts of vandalism meant to delay the bulldozers. At first, she is suspicious of Roy for his interest in her brother, but she realizes he means well, and she allies with him to protect Mullet and help win the battle against the restaurant. Beatrice is tough, but she has a soft heart symbolized by her love of peanut butter cookies, which she brings to Mullet and otherwise eats when she can. Though she is a supporting character, Beatrice tends to dominate her scenes with her larger-than-life personality.

A large and rather stupid bully, Dana harasses younger students and picks on Roy. Roy fights back, injuring Dana, who bides his time and later beats up Roy. Roy tries to reason with him, but Dana is too proud to listen, so Roy tricks him into getting arrested, and Mullet later dupes Dana into helping him escape. Dana’s home life with a passive father and vicious mother warp him—his last name sounds like “mother’s son,” and, indeed, his life is tormented by her cruelty—and he becomes a casualty of bad parenting. Dana’s family mirrors that of Mullet, whose uninvolved stepfather and cruel mother drive him not to viciousness but to protest. Dana is one of two challenges that Roy faces; the other is the equally mindless and cruel corporation that plans to kill the owls that stand in its way.

Officer David Delinko “had joined the police force because he wanted to solve crimes and arrest criminals” (40), but he is not very bright and mostly does traffic duty. He gets a chance to perform surveillance at the vandalized Mother Paula’s construction site but falls asleep and gets his car windows spray-painted. Demoted to desk duty, Delinko still stops by the site on his way to and from work. He finds Roy caught in a thunderstorm and returns him home, where he tries awkwardly to ingratiate himself to the Eberhardts, hoping they will write a thank you note that will go on his record. When Roy tricks Dana into searching the construction site for cigarettes, Delinko arrests the boy, and the officer’s fortunes improve.

Delinko represents the town’s well-meaning but shallow concerns. His incompetence means he is no one to turn to for help, but it also means Mullet and Roy can get around him with ease. Like the town, Delinko realizes that local development should not harm innocent creatures.

Leroy “Curly” Branitt is the supervisor at the Mother Paula’s construction site. Curly must fight against Mullet’s frequent acts of vandalism, but, like Delinko, he is not very bright, and his attempts to restore order go comically awry. Though he chafes at ill-treatment by the corporation, Curly loyally defends its construction site. Curly’s given name, Leroy, is similar to Roy’s name, but his impatience echoes the corporation’s hurry to make more money. Where Roy becomes the voice of Mullet’s protest, Curly is the local face of the corporation’s campaign.

The story’s bone of contention is a colony of burrowing owls threatened by the construction of a new Mother Paula’s pancake restaurant. They nest in underground burrows, and they are “only eight or nine inches tall […] dark brown with spotted wings, whitish throats, and piercing amber eyes” (41). The owls are protected, and their presence, if known, would quash the restaurant’s construction, so the corporation hides its knowledge of the bird colony. Mullet tries to stall construction by vandalizing the site. Roy leads a public protest and procures information that reveals the corporation’s conspiracy. By the story’s end, the owls are safe again and supported by everyone in town.

Vice President for Corporate Affairs Chuck Muckle puts intense pressure on Curly to get the Mother Paula’s construction site ready for its groundbreaking ceremony. Muckle does not care about local problems at the site; he has a corporate image to protect, and he harangues and threatens Curly about stopping the vandalism. Muckle’s name suggests someone who will muck things up not just for Curly but for the burrowing owls and the Coconut Cove community. He is the source of corporate pressure against the owls and Mullet. His impatient arrogance represents the company’s callous disregard for the owls.

A late-1980s runner-up for Miss America, Dixon portrays Mother Paula on TV. She has a tight schedule, as she will shortly star as the Queen of the Mutant Grasshoppers in the upcoming film Mutant Invaders from Jupiter Seven. Construction manager Curly must, therefore, clear up the problem with the vandals so that she can continue, unhindered, her stellar career. Dixon is an example of the banal truth behind the silly fictions often served up by corporate America as it tries to portray itself as more elegant and benign than it is.

Dixon turns the tables on the company when, informed of the owls at risk from construction, she resigns her role as Mother Paula. Dixon is an example of an ordinary, somewhat jaded person who rejects phoniness and embraces a good cause. 

Mrs. Eberhardt is Roy’s mother. She is a decent person and good citizen, if somewhat innocent of the darker side of humanity. She cares deeply about her son, keeps a tidy home, and treats Roy gently when she learns he has been covering up for Mullet. Roy loves his mother and tries to protect her from the worst effects of his risky behavior on behalf of Mullet and the owls. She and Mr. Eberhardt are the rocks of stability in Roy’s life as they move from place to place. Their love and support help him to make the right decisions during the owl crisis.

Roy’s father works for the U.S. Department of Justice. He is very smart and quickly figures out that Mullet is defending the burrowing owls from the planned construction atop their nesting site. He monitor’s Roy’s interest in Mullet but trusts his son to do the right thing. He also uses his professional skills to acquire critical evidence that implicates the Mother Paula’s corporation in a conspiracy to hide a damning environmental report about the owls on the company’s property.

Vice Principal Viola Hennepin takes student reports at face value. She disbelieves Roy’s claim that Dana is beating him because no other students support the claim. She is too removed from the reality of school life to understand that the children are afraid to testify. She also hides behind their silence to avoid taking responsibility for the problem. She does, however, notice the finger marks on Roy’s neck. To her credit, she gives Roy an official punishment—suspension from bus rides—that also protects him from Dana. For Roy, though, Hennepin ultimately is an example of the uselessness of adult bureaucrats, who make few efforts to protect children and effectively permit bullying to continue.