Hoot Study Guide

Chapter 7

Beatrice is riding Roy’s bike and orders him to hop on the handlebars. She is so strong that riding with Roy onboard is a snap for her. They stop when they come to a tall chain-link fence. She leads him to an old panel truck and demands to know what’s in the shoebox. He finally gives in and tells her that he has shoes in the box and that they’re for a kid he met, the one he told her about at school. She wants to know how he knows if the kid even wants the shoes and why he cares about him. Roy finds it hard to answer that question even to himself, so he just says he doesn’t know. They stay quiet while a watchman passes by the old truck, and then, Beatrice tells Roy that she’ll make him deal: she’ll give the kid the shoes if Roy promises to stop his spying. Roy promises her he will, and then asks how she knows the boy. Beatrice tells Roy the running boy is her brother.

At six o’clock, Officer Delinko finally starts for home, but is stuck for a bit waiting for the rain to let up. While he stands there, he ruminates over what he knows about the vandalism, still thinking that it has to be someone who is more intelligent than typical kids. He eventually heads for home. On the radio comes the report of a missing young boy named Roy whom Delinko then sees standing on the corner of West Oriole Street. He stops and offers Roy a lift home.

In the squad car, Roy is at first polite, but doesn’t really concentrate on what the officer is saying. Instead, he remembers what Beatrice had told him before she left him. The running boy is actually her stepbrother, and she nicknamed him that, because he could catch the slippery, free-jumping baitfish with his bare hands. He had been shipped off to a “special” school, but only lasted two weeks before he ran away and hitch-hiked all the way home. His parents don’t know he’s back, and Beatrice says no one is going to tell them. Before he leaves, Beatrice comes up with a plan to explain where he’s been: she bites a hole in his bike tire so it goes flat! The conversation with Officer Delinko continues when he asks Roy whether he’s heard anything about the vandalism at the construction site from kids at school. Roy is uncomfortable being asked to be a snitch so he just offers Delinko a sincere thank you. Delinko stops to talk to Roy’s father - one law enforcement officer to another. As he is leaving, he asks Roy to ask his father to write a letter to his police chief about how he helped Roy. It could be something that could be placed in his permanent file and would help his chances for promotion. Roy says he’ll help in a noncommittal way. Once Delinko is in his car, Roy’s mother asks him if he knows the policeman who fell asleep while at the construction site. The queasy look on Delinko’s face and the way he screeches off in the squad car makes Roy realize the officer his mother is asking about is Delinko himself.

Notes

Once again the reader can see how Delinko is being paralleled to Roy - both are detectives with a sincere desire to learn the truth. However, Delinko does have ulterior motives that Roy does not have. Also, Roy is actually more intelligent than Delinko even though he is the child to Delinko being an adult.