In an effort to protect burrowing owls living on a vacant lot about to be turned into a Mother Paula's Pancake house, Mullet Fingers has been committing acts of vandalism like placing baby alligators in the port-a-johns and letting deadly water moccasins loose on the property, albeit Mullet Fingers has taped their mouths shut before doing so. They entrust Roy with this secret but do not reveal the boy's real name to him, which proves to be a plus as the kids become embroiled in illegal activities - theirs and others.

Nicknamed Mullet Fingers because he can catch the silver, super fast fish with his bare fingers, Beatrice is keeping him secret and helping him out when she can. After the last school he returns to Coconut Cove, but not to his home, preferring to sleep in a rusted out ice cream truck in the local junkyard and the nearby everglades. An embarrassment and nuisance to his mother, she repeatedly ships him off to boarding school from which he promptly runs away. This boy turns out to be Beatrice's younger stepbrother. Eventually the two become friends, Beatrice rescuing Roy from Dana's grips more than once and recruiting him to help with the secret of the shoeless running boy. She menaces Roy, but he doesn't back down. Tall, powerful and with a head of curly blond hair, Beatrice cuts an imposing figure. When Roy comes close to making a discovery, he is confronted by the school's soccer star, Beatrice Leep.

Intrigued, Roy seeks out the boy while avoiding Dana, both of which prove difficult. Roy's first scrape with Dana, which results in near strangulation and a broken nose during the morning bus ride, coincides with his first glimpse of a mystery boy, tanned and agile, running barefoot through the houses and foliage on the side of the road. Their last home in Montana was hard for Roy to leave and his adjustment to his new middle school is proving rough, mostly because an the over-sized thug named Dana Matherson who has decided to make Roy his target. Roy Eberhardt is the only child of a stay at home mom and father who is a Federal Agent who moves his family often.

Hoot carl