(i)                  What is your impression of Officer Delinko? (NB: the qn will cue you on how many impressions to elaborate on)

One possible impression:

Officer Delinko is persistent when discharging his duties as a police officer. He follows any leads, clues or hunches he has to catch the perpetrator of the acts of mischief at the Mother Paula’s construction site, even if these leads appear to be tenuous (weak). (EVIDENCE 1:)He explained to Mrs Eberhardt that “The boy who was running away looked like Roy, but I can’t be sure. I’m only checking with you folks because you’re his parents …’ When he had an impression that the boy he saw looked like Roy, he took the initiative to check with Roy’s parents to find out more information or establish the truth. He followed up on a possible clue to see if more facts or information would surface from the clue to help him understand what was going on.

(EVIDENCE 2:)He also put away the stolen bicycle he found near the place into his car trunk to check with them if they knew anything about it. He told Mr and Mrs Eberhardts “It’s in the car if you want to take a look”, and opened his trunk to show them the blue beach-cruiser model, perhaps hoping that they might have something to say about it that might throw light onto what was going on. In fact, it was a good move to check with them, as Mrs Eberhardt actually might have said something that might throw light on the case, seeing as to her, the bicycle “looked like the same bike ridden by Roy’s new friend, Beatrice”. However, in this instance, Mrs Eberhardt’s thoughts was interrupted by Officer Delinko’s next question.

(EVIDENCE 3:)Thirdly, Officer Delinko took out “what appeared to be a torn-off shirt sleeve”, asking Mr and Mrs Eberhardt if it looked familiar to them and ‘fudging a little bit’ that he found it nearby where he found the stolen bicycle, even though the construction site where he found it was ‘actually several blocks from where he’d spotted the kids’. Even though the ‘ragged strip of fabric’ was found at the construction site which was some distance from he saw the young people, he acted on a possible hunch he might have entertained that it could be connected to the young people he saw. He even stretched the truth a little in order to enable him to question the Eberhardts about it, and in fact arousing Mr Eberhardt’s suspicion that ‘the police man wasn’t telling him everything about the green rag.” 

From the actions he takes, we could see that he was persistent in following the leads, clues and possible hunches he has so that he would come closer to explaining the happenings he encounters in the course of his duty as a police officer.

 

Roy is also a reflective person. When asked where he is from by people in Montana, he reflects that though he was born in Detroit, Michigan, it did not really qualify as his place of origins as the Eberhardts had moved away from there when he was a baby. To Roy, a place where he belongs should be a place where he has lived in for a significant period, where he loved and had fond memories of. Montana, a place ‘so beautiful … Roy wanted to stay forever’ was to him his hometown. He is able to reflect that his hometown should be a place where he has lived happily and where he has formed an emotional attachment to, not just a place where he was born. Moreover, he is able to reflect that even though Florida has ‘Disney World’, a fact which Mr Eberhardt reminded him with ‘forced enthusiasm’, ‘Disney World is an armpit’ and a poor substitute indeed for the ‘snaggle-peaked mountains, the braided green rivers, the sky so blue it seemed like a painting Roy’ that  Montana offers. We get the impression that Roy is someone who thinks deeply about things and forms his own opinion, rather than blindly accepting conventions or other people’s suggestions if these do not make sense to him upon reflection