55 pages • 1 hour read
Tae KellerJennifer Chan Is Not Alone
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 22-30Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 22 Summary
Pete uses his connections to get Mal, Ingrid, and Kath inside the radio station. The receptionist, June, is eager to cooperate with the sheriff’s son and allows them to observe the office freely. They enter an empty booth, and Mal abruptly asks Pete if he feels bad about being a bully. Pete defends himself and says Jennifer isn’t fragile and that they became friends after the capoeira incident. Then, Pete turns the tables and accuses Mal of bullying Jennifer by sharing secret photos. Mal is shocked to learn that everyone knows about the pictures, including Kath and Ingrid. She admits that what she did was wrong but thinks Pete is worse for telling Jennifer about the photos. When Pete argues that he didn’t say anything and doesn’t gossip like girls do, Ingrid shouts at him for being sexist and a bully. Flustered by their attacks, Pete leaves, and Kath tells Ingrid that she’s “awesome.”
Chapter 23 Summary: “Then”
The narrative shifts to the past when Jennifer confronts Reagan, Tess, and Mal about taking photos of her without her consent. Mal feels embarrassed for Jennifer, whose new haircut makes her look like she’s imitating Reagan’s style. Reagan and Tess laugh, and Jennifer asks why they hate her. She tells Reagan she is a terrible person, and when Mal steps in to get Jennifer to leave, Jennifer calls her a coward and storms away.
Reagan accuses Jennifer of stealing Pete and her hairstyle. When Mal disagrees, Tess accuses her of being disloyal. Reagan thinks Jennifer is pathetic and makes up lies about her life, and Mal recalls Reagan’s own lie about faking her mother’s death. Tess thinks Jennifer’s quirkiness is an act, and Mal accidentally mentions Jennifer’s interest in aliens. The girls pressure Mal to reveal what she knows, and Mal tells them about Jennifer’s notebooks. When Mal tries to explain that Jennifer’s belief in aliens is like believing in God, Tess corrects her and argues that God comforts people while aliens don’t. Reagan asks Mal to show them Jennifer’s notebook.
The chapter ends with an entry from Jennifer’s journal, Volume VI, called “Dark Energy.” Jennifer describes dark energy as an expanding force that opposes and overpowers gravity. She finds the mystery of dark energy scarier than aliens.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Now”
Back in the radio booth, the girls broadcast a brief message, telling the aliens they come in peace. They also broadcast three beeps but only hear static in response. As they wait for a response, Ingrid wonders how Jennifer was able to defuse Pete’s bullying. She tells Mal that she was angry at her for not defending her from Pete’s taunts. Mal argues that she couldn’t do anything to stop Pete, and Ingrid retorts that she didn’t care enough to intervene. Mal apologizes to Ingrid, and Ingrid tells her that her faith teaches her to forgive. She forgives Mal, but she doesn’t forgive Pete. Ingrid confesses that she was the one to tell Jennifer about the photos, and she questions her own motivations. She doesn’t know if she told her because it was the right thing to do or because she didn’t want to be the only target of bullying. Mal thinks about all the secrets everyone hides and about how much they have hurt Jennifer. The radio suddenly begins beeping, and Ingrid records the sounds. June discovers the girls at the controls and calls their parents.
Chapter 25 Summary
Mal’s parents try to get her to talk about her problems, but Mal is too afraid of their disappointment to tell them the truth. She doesn’t know what her parents think of her and yells at them for not trusting her unconditionally. She storms to her room, and Ingrid and Kath video call her with the news that they’ve deciphered the beeps as a Morse code message for “H-O-W […] A-R” (189). Mal’s mother enters the room and tells Mal that she’s a good kid and that she and Mal’s father trust her. Mal asks her mother, “Do you think I’m Korean?” (191). Mrs. Moss responds, “Of course,” and asks Mal how she sees herself. Mal thinks about what Reagan has taught her and answers that it’s more important to consider how others view her. Mrs. Moss sighs and tells her that only she determines who she is and what matters is how she treats other people and the impact she makes in the world.
The chapter ends with an entry from Jennifer’s journal, Volume VI, called “Expanding.” Jennifer describes running away from home and her father’s death. She appeases her mother’s wishes to make friends and tone down her interests in aliens. She agrees to make an effort to wear fashionable clothes and try trendy hairstyles. Jennifer hopes for a fresh start in Florida and promises not to worry her mother and run away again.
Chapter 26 Summary: “Now”
Back in the present, Jennifer has been missing for four days. Mal tells Ingrid and Kath to meet her in the basement bathroom where she knows they’ll be alone. Before they show up, Mal finds Reagan on the bathroom floor, crying. Reagan is upset that the other students are blaming her for the photos and Jennifer running away. She claims it’s not her fault. Mal tells her she’s not a bad person and that it doesn’t matter what others think, even though she knows that what she is saying isn’t entirely true. She thinks about how alien abductions can make someone feel special and chosen. She compares the feeling to when she first met Reagan and how Reagan got her out of PE class.
Mal then tells Reagan that they did something bad that might never be fixed and that maybe they are bad people. She explains that her goal is to find Jennifer and hopefully make things up to her. Reagan accuses Mal of neglecting her. She doesn’t think it’s worth finding Jennifer and wants to protect Mal from the possibility that something tragic has happened to Jennifer.
Chapter 27 Summary
After Reagan leaves, Kath and Ingrid enter the bathroom. Ingrid has told her mother that they’ve been looking for Jennifer, and Ingrid believes that the bullying, not aliens, is what caused Jennifer to run away. Mal insists on the aliens, and then, Kath confesses that she was the one who caused the beeps at the assembly.
The chapter ends with an entry from Jennifer’s journal, Volume VI, called “Where Are You?” (207). Jennifer talks about waiting for the aliens to contact her and wanting to go out and find them herself.
Chapter 28 Summary
Kath explains that she made up the alien signal at the assembly to convince Ingrid to join their search for Jennifer. As part of her observance of Yom Kippur, Kath wants to atone for hurting Jennifer’s feelings and feels she is to blame for her running away. She admits that she avoided being Jennifer’s friend to keep Ingrid and her from being bullied. Mal realizes that she can’t let her friends take on all the guilt and tells them about the Incident.
Chapter 29 Summary: “Then”
On the day of the Incident, Mal reasons that the confrontation in the bathroom will put an end to Jennifer’s pushiness and Reagan’s competitiveness. Reagan goads Mal by reminding her that Jennifer belittled her. In Mal’s mind, she can’t recall if Jennifer ever treated her in a mean way, but she knows that she doesn’t like the way Jennifer looked at her and made her feel. Tess claims that Jennifer is trying to usurp their power. Mal texts Jennifer, but Jennifer responds that she is disappointed that Mal isn’t a true friend. Mal interprets Jennifer’s criticism as “an act of violence” and hatred (213). She then texts Jennifer a false claim about seeing a UAP, and Jennifer trusts her and agrees to meet her in the basement bathroom.
Chapter 30 Summary
Mal waits in the bathroom while Reagan and Tess hide in a stall. The girls laugh and proclaim that they have the most power in the school, and that Jennifer needs to be taught a lesson. Jennifer asks Mal about the UAP sighting and is interrupted when Reagan and Tess come out of hiding. The girls taunt Jennifer and read from the journal Jennifer had given Mal. They take turns tearing up the pages, and Mal wonders if she’s possessed or behaving true to her nature. Jennifer tries to still her fears and “be mature,” but the girls continue to mock her for writing about making a difference in the world and thinking that her quirkiness makes her special. Jennifer runs out of the bathroom, and Mal looks at her terrified reflection in the mirror.
The chapter ends with an entry from Jennifer’s journal, Volume VI, called “A Question.” Jennifer imagines the press interviewing her when she becomes famous and tells them that the key to her success is finding people who believe in her.
Chapters 22-30 Analysis
These chapters continue to demonstrate the theme of Fostering Empathy and Kindness to Combat Bullying. At school, Pete is known to bully Jennifer and Ingrid, with no one challenging his behavior. His father’s authority gives him free rein even in the town, and Pete enters the radio station with “all obnoxious kinds of confidence as he swaggers up to the front desk” (165). The children are allowed to explore the radio station unmonitored since they showed up with Pete, and everyone at school defers to him, too. When Ingrid asks Mal why she didn’t defend her from Pete and other bullies, Mal weakly argues, “But nothing I did would’ve stopped them” (181). Mal accepts Pete’s power as a given, but Ingrid understands that his power is not innate—it is a privilege that is socially enforced. Ingrid takes a stand against him and perceptively argues with Mal that “maybe [people] just don’t care enough to do anything, and everything else is only an excuse” (182). The moment teaches Mal to think about how her own apathy perpetuates power imbalances. She admits, “Maybe I didn’t care enough to do enough” (182), and she begins to grasp how she is complicit in causing Jennifer and Ingrid pain by being indifferent to their feelings.
The novel’s climax highlights the theme of The Importance of Facing the Truth. It is narrated as a flashback when Mal finally confesses to what happened during the Incident. Mal retells the story and deflects her own active participation in it. She describes her voice as if it were not her own, suggesting that her actions were also not of her own doing but the bad influence of Reagan. She states, “My voice didn’t sound like my own. It sounded like Reagan’s almost, when she was making fun of someone” (216). When Jennifer looks at her with pleading eyes, Mal makes a similar excuse that she gave Ingrid and contends, “I didn’t know what she wanted me to do. What could I do?” (218). Yet, the Incident could not have happened without Mal’s active involvement. Mal was the central cog in the ambush as she was the one to lure Jennifer to the basement with a fake text and provide the notebook for the destruction. Still, Mal believes she was just doing what her friends encouraged her to do, under the belief that they were defending themselves. During the Incident, Mal admits, “This was pointless. And mocking, and mean” (218). Then, she more honestly assesses, “I felt possessed. Like I wasn’t me. Or maybe this was me and I just didn’t know it” (220). The confrontation ends with Mal looking at her own frightened reflection and closing her eyes. The scene implies that Mal recognizes the cruelty of what transpired but refuses to see that she is responsible.
In addition to Mal’s uncertainty about whether she is a good person, she also struggles to understand her ethnic identity. In a moment of vulnerability about who she is, Mal asks her mother, “Do you think I’m Korean?” (191). The question delves into an aspect of biracial and Asian American identity that addresses the pressures of assimilation and the desire to preserve one’s heritage. Mal chooses to suppress her ethnic difference in a predominantly white town because it helps her feel like she fits in, especially given her fears of being an outsider. In Chapter 21, Mal acknowledges that she had never identified as Asian before until she met Jennifer. However, Mal questions her Korean identity out of a fear that her mother doesn’t see her Asian heritage reflected in her daughter. Mrs. Moss responds that “Of course” she sees Mal as Korean, and Mal needs that reassurance that she has not let her mother down or drifted from her cultural identity.
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