White sheets of water, knocked high in the moonlight by his churning feet, gleaned like thousands of tiny white stars

it means that the hockey puck was traveling very fast.

you did not put the article. so i cannot answer the question.

awnser:

jem is "moody and silent" after the pants incident. the new school year starts, and scout finds second grade just as boring as first. one day, she and jem are walking home together when jem reveals that when he found his pants that night, they were all folded up, and the tears had been crudely sewn up, as if someone knew that he would be coming back for them. he finds this highly eerie. then, they find a ball of twine in the radley oak tree knothole. again, they aren't sure if it is a gift for them or not, so they leave it for a few days. when it remains in the hole for a few days, they take it, and decide that anything left there is okay to take.

figurative language is a resource that fiction writers use to make better descriptions of what they want to write about or express. they can improve their stories, as they can elaborate more vivid and colorful sentences. this way, the reader will be able to have more detailed images in his/her mind.

places, objects, people and even feelings or emotions can be described with a lot of detail to metaphors, similes and personifications. making different kinds of comparisons to make a description more specific, as well as assigning human qualities to non-human objects (and vice-versa) can be very useful for science fiction writers.  

on the other hand, alliterations allow writers to elaborate more entertaining and creative sentences. it consists in using a sequence of words that start with the same consonant letter. they can be used to emphasize something important the writer wants to express, or just as a fun literary device.