1. HOOT BY: CARL HIAASEN

2. MAIN CHARACTERS Roy Eberhardt: new middle school student, moves a lot because of dad’s job, gets picked on by school bully, smart and caring. Mullet Fingers (Napolon Bridger): shoeless running boy, is not close with his mom or dad, does not live in a house with his family, cares for the owls, moves around a lot. Beatrice Leep: Mullet Fingers’ step-sister, looks after Mullet Fingers, looks out for herself well because she is strong. Officer David Delinko: police officer, spends a lot of time trying to find out who is destroying the land where the pancake house is being built, knows the owls’ homes will be destroyed. Dana Matherson: school bully, causes Roy a lot of problems.

3. SETTINGS Coconut Cove, Florida: the town in Florida where Roy lives. Trace Middle School: the middle school that Roy attends. Land where Mother Paula’s All American Pancake House is going to be built.

4. CHAPTER 1 Dana bullies Roy on the bus and Roy sees a boy running on the sidewalk without any shoes on. Police officer, Officer Delinko, is sent to look at the land where a restaurant, Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House is going to be built. Curly, the person in charge of the new restaurant, is upset because the land has been destroyed. Curly is upset because the building of the restaurant will not happen on time. Roy wonders why the running boy is not in school and wants to him find him.

5. CHAPTER 2 Roy sees the boy without shoes running again. Roy tries to leave the bus to chase after the boy but Dana grabs Roy. Roy really wants to follow the boy so he punches Dana in the face so that Dana lets him go. Roy breaks Dana’s nose and gets in trouble. Roy chases the shoeless boy but does not catch him. Later that day, a girl notices that Roy is wondering about the shoeless boy and tells him not to worry.

6. CHAPTER 3 The land where the restaurant is being built is destroyed again. Officer Delinko finds alligators in the portable toilets. Officer Delinko has to watch over the land of the building to find out who is causing trouble.

7. CHAPTER 4 Officer Delinko sees two owls early in the morning while he is watching the land. Officer Delinko falls asleep on his job. Curly wakes up Officer Delinko and he sees that someone has painted his police car windows black.

8. CHAPTER 5 Roy goes back to where he was following the boy the day before. Roy finds a trash bag full of deadly snakes. A voice yells for Roy not to move. A boy named Mullet Fingers helps Roy to get away from the snakes without getting hurt. Roy realizes that Mullet Fingers is the boy he saw running without shoes on. Mullet Fingers makes Roy leave.

9. CHAPTER 6 Roy tries to go back to where he saw the snakes with Mullet Fingers and brings a cardboard shoe box. On the way to Mullet Fingers, Curly sees Roy looking at the land where the pancake house is being built and yells at him to leave. As Roy is running home in the rain, he runs into Beatrice, the girl who told Roy not to worry about the shoeless boy. Roy goes to find Mullet Fingers and he is gone.

10. CHAPTER 7 Beatrice takes Roy into an old truck and makes him give her his shoebox. Roy tells Beatrice that the sneakers inside are for the shoeless boy he met. Beatrice tells Roy she will give Mullet Fingers the shoes if Roy leaves him alone. Beatrice tells Roy that Mullet Fingers is her stepbrother.

11. CHAPTER 8 Curly will lose his job if anything else happens on to land where the pancake house is going to be built. Watch dogs come look after the land to make sure it does not get destroyed. A fence is put in around the land and the mean dogs come during the night.

12. CHAPTER 9 Roy is scared to go back to school because Dana, the school bully is back. Dana finds Roy to beat him up in the janitor’s closet. Snakes were put inside of the fence where the guard dogs were to protect the land where the pancake restaurant is being built.

13. CHAPTER 10 Beatrice helps Roy when Dana is beating him up. Beatrice and Roy see that Mullet Fingers has been bitten by a dog. Beatrice says that Mullet Fingers put the snakes into the place where the dogs were. Mullet Fingers tells Roy that the restaurant cannot be built because owls live on the land.

14. CHAPTER 11 Officer Delinko goes to check on the land and sees and hears owls instead of dogs. The snakes had scared the dogs away. Curly decides that he needs to stay in the mobile home on the land to try to find the people who are the destroying the land. Roy’s mom gets a phone call saying that Roy is in the emergency room because he has been hurt.

15. CHAPTER 12 Roy, Beatrice, and Mullet Fingers go to hospital because of Mullet Fingers’ dog bite. Mullet Finger’s tells the doctor that his name is Roy so that Mullet Finger’s mom can not find him. Roy’s parents go to the hospital because they think Roy has been hurt. They find out he is not the one who is hurt. Mullet Fingers, the hurt boy runs away from the hospital.

16. CHAPTER 13 Roy tells his mom and dad that Mullet Fingers wants to save the owls from having their homes destroyed. Roy’s mom tells him that he has lied at the hospital while trying to help a friend. Roy tells his mom that Mullet Fingers ran away from the hospital because he did not want his mom to know that he was there.

17. CHAPTER 14 Roy tells Mullet Fingers that even though owls live on the land, the restaurant will still be built. Mullet Fingers says he is going to try to save the owls from being hurt anyway. Mullet Fingers tells Roy to meet him that night at the building place.

18. CHAPTER 15 Roy is scared about getting in trouble if he tries to save the owls. Roy is sad and angry because he does not understand how it is okay to ruin the owls’ homes. Roy makes a plan to make Curly think that Dana is the one destroying the land and he is put in jail. Mullet Fingers keeps fighting for the owls without getting in trouble.

19. CHAPTER 16 Curly thinks that the person who has been destroying the land has been found. Curly sees that someone has damaged the machines used to build the new restaurant. Curly knows that Dana is not the one destroying the land. Beatrice and Roy decide to help Mullet Fingers with his plan to save the owls.

20. CHAPTER 17 Curly tells everyone that there are no owls on the land. Officer Delinko goes to visit Dana in jail and decides that he is not really the one who is destroying the land. Roy goes to feed the owls and Curly sees him. Curly tells Roy that owls do not live on the land anymore.

21. CHAPTER 18 Officer Delinko sees and hears the owls while looking after the land. He thinks about what will happen to the owls if the restaurant is built. Roy sees an article in the newspaper inviting people to come watch as they begin the building of Mother Paula’s All- American House of Pancakes. Roy shows the newspaper article in class and tells his classmates that the owls will be killed if the restaurant is built.

22. CHAPTER 19 Officer Delinko tells Curly that he is scared for the owls. Roy’s parents allow him to go to event where they will begin the building of Mother Paula’s All-American House of Pancakes. Beatrice is able to go to the event as well.

23. CHAPTER 20 The event begins and the people of the town come together. Roys yells that building the restaurant will destroy the homes of the owls and he will not go to the pancake house. Mullet Fingers climbs into the hole where the owls live and says that if they bury the holes, they will have to bury him too. Beatrice, Roy, Mother Paula and other children circle around Mullet Fingers and stop the building from starting.

24. CHAPTER 21 Roy finds out that Mullet Fingers’ real name is Napoleon Bridger Leep. Roy does not know if the pancake house is still going to be built. Roy’s dad finds out that Mother Paula’s is not allowed to cover the holes where the owls live. Mother Paula’s All American Pancake House is not allowed to be built and the owls are safe.

25. The End!