88 pages • 2 hours read
Geoff RodkeyWe're Not from Here
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 17 Summary: “A Prattfall Too Far”
At lunch, Iruu comes to Lan’s table and asks Lan to do the Zhuri-walk from class again. Nervously, Lan lopes across the cafeteria, fills a glass with Zhuri food, and returns to the table to do a pratfall and spill the liquid everywhere. Lan hurts their hip in the process, but it doesn’t matter because they’d “never smelled anything as delicious as that doughnut laughter” (169). Before Lan can do anything else, a guard shocks them with an electric weapon, and Lan passes out.
Chapter 18 Summary: “Mixed Messages”
Lan wakes in the principal’s office, where the principal asks why Lan spilled the Zhuri food and fell. Not wanting to tell the truth with a guard present, Lan says it was an attempt to fit in. The principal takes Lan’s side and orders the guard to wait outside the school building from then on. The annoyed guard leaves.
Lan asks the principal why making smell is discouraged, and the principal explains that smell causes trouble but also implies that not all smells are equally troubling. Lan follows up with a question about the presentation on humans, asking if it would be illegal to include things that cause emotions in humans. The principal has no problem with this so long as the purpose of including these things is educational. Lan spends the rest of the school day in the principal’s office, recovering from the guard’s electric shock and planning “the Classroom Presentation That Might Help Save the Human Race” (174).
After school, Lan returns home with a hostile escort guard. Marf is there doing something with Ila, but neither will talk about it. Marf gives Lan her Krik robot, wanting him to have something to remember her “if we don’t see each other again” (178). Marf leaves, and Lan gets a text from their mom. She tells Lan to turn on the television because it’s showing something about what happened at school and the news isn’t good.
Chapter 19 Summary: “The Door in the Floor”
The news segment makes it look like Lan tried to violently drag a Zhuri kid to the floor; it also takes the principal’s words out of context so that he seems to be condemning rather than supporting Lan’s actions. There’s an emergency meeting scheduled for the next morning to decide what to do about the humans, but it’s likely that Lan’s family will have to leave Choom—possibly the next day.
Lan’s mom tells Lan to work on the presentation about humans, which she hopes will persuade the Zhuri not to kick the humans off the planet. Ila wants to help and shows her family a secret compartment in the floor of her room where she keeps a guitar Marf helped her build. Marf paid Ila to record a new song, but Ila’s not sure what Marf is going to do with the music. With nothing else to do, the family stays up half the night putting together a movie that’s equal parts comedy and Ila’s singing. Lan goes to bed hopeful but is woken up in the middle of the night by “the screams of Zhuri soldiers pointing electrified prongs at [Lan’s] face” (187).
Chapter 20 Summary: “Everyone Agrees (Except When They Don’t)”
The guards are there for Ila’s guitar and to arrest Lan’s family. The guards drag them from the house, where Lan sees a horde of protesters “spread across the electric fence almost the whole distance to [the family’s] house” (190). Leeni and other members of the immigration division arrive, ordering the Executive Division Zhuri to leave because they don’t have authority to arrest the humans. The executive Zhuri finally agree, but Leeni is sure they’ll be back soon with orders to override the Immigration Division’s authority.
Leeni tells Lan’s family that Marf has been illegally selling videos of Ila’s singing and that many Zhuri like the videos but cannot act against the Executive Division. Lan asks if they could spread the video if it were educational. Leeni says yes, but education only happens at school and the Executive Division is responsible for escorting the humans to school. Looking nervous, Leeni adds that he could take Lan to school early.
Chapters 17-20 Analysis
These chapters build toward the novel’s climactic sequence. Lan’s increased attempts to elicit emotions from the Zhuri meet with violence, a tactic the government uses to keep citizens in line—especially citizens who are believed to be violent themselves. The Zhuri response to Lan’s comedy shows the power of younger generations. Unlike the adults, the younger Zhuri are open to the idea of comedy and laughter.
The news broadcast in Chapter 19 brings the government’s control of media to a new level. Until now, the news has shown old human images of violence and relied on the viewer to make the connection to the current situation. The broadcast about Lan’s father being injured at work didn’t specifically show Lan’s father being violent, but here, the news shows footage of Lan that is modified to appear violent. The principal’s words are also taken out of context; something he said about the guard’s actions being hurtful is made to sound like Lan’s actions were hurtful. These deliberate modifications suggest the government is nervous. They know people are starting to disagree with the ban on emotions, and they are taking more drastic steps to make their case for human violence and the destructive power of emotions.
Despite the escalation of government propaganda and violence, several characters choose to resist official Zhuri policy. Ila previously voiced concern that the Zhuri would respond to her singing with a swarm like the one that killed the Nug, which makes her decision to let Marf record her all the more significant. Likewise, Leeni offers to take Lan and Ila to school despite working for the government and fearing the repercussions. The choices these characters make reinforce the idea that bravery involves acting despite fear rather than without it.
