Hoot Chapter 14 Summary

  • Roy bikes to Beatrice's house so they can swap info on the night before but she says it's not a good time. It's clear to Roy that things are tense at the Leep house.
  • So, Roy heads over to Dana's house instead.
  • Once again, he tries to talk some sense into Dana and get him to stop the bullying.
  • But that's a lost cause since Dana's not smart enough to see how beating up on Roy always ends badly for Dana.
  • Next stop is the junkyard to check on Mullet Fingers.
  • The boys talk about the owls and Roy tells Mullet Fingers that if Mother Paula's has the proper paperwork, they can't do anything to stop construction.
  • Mullet Fingers smiles at the suggestion that Roy is on his side.
  • And he tells Roy how he's been watching his home disappear to bulldozers and construction and that they need to fight back.
  • He goes on to say how Beatrice wrote to Mother Paula's telling them about the owls but all the siblings got back was an impersonal standard letter.
  • Mullet Fingers then tells Roy he wants to show him something and to follow him.
  • The two arrive at an old shipwrecked stone-crab boat from the 1970s.
  • Roy loves it here. He even thinks to himself how he probably could have found it himself if he wasn't too busy missing Montana.
  • They talk about Mullet Finger's strained relationship with his mom, and how he's never met or seen his father. It's quite the bonding experience between the two.
  • All of a sudden Roy notices something happening in the water and Mullet Fingers becomes super excited.
  • Mullet Fingers has Roy hold onto his ankles while he stretches out over the water and retrieves "a bright blunt-headed fish that sparkled like liquid chrome" (14.183).
  • It's a mullet. And also how Beatrice's stepbrother got his name.
  • Returning back to shore, Roy asks Mullet Fingers what he has planned for the construction site later that night.
  • If you want to talk the talk, you gotta walk the walk. And Mullet Fingers tells him that the only way to find out is to show up.