In Chap­ter Twen­ty-Four of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the pro­tag­o­nist arrives home with a smile, reflect­ing on a pleas­ant evening, but that quick­ly turns to dread upon dis­cov­er­ing chaos in the kitchen. A shat­tered dish lies in the sink, along­side burnt chick­en and boil­ing water, indi­cat­ing a dis­as­ter that occurred in her absence. As she inves­ti­gates, she hears a whim­per and finds her sib­lings, Camp­bell and Juniper, hud­dled in the dark liv­ing room. They reveal that things went awry while she was gone, with Camp­bell react­ing angri­ly to burnt food, break­ing dish­es in the process.

As the ten­sion builds, the pro­tag­o­nist sens­es unspo­ken fam­i­ly dynam­ics and strug­gles, espe­cial­ly regard­ing their father’s volatile tem­pera­ment. She is con­cerned for her moth­er, who may be upstairs, and the fear of what could hap­pen next hangs in the air. There are hints that the father’s anger could esca­late fur­ther, and the qui­et that fol­lows is more fright­en­ing than shout­ing. The sib­lings con­verse qui­et­ly about their day, reveal­ing their fears and inno­cence amidst the chaos.

The pro­tag­o­nist attempts to reas­sure them while grap­pling with her own wor­ries about their father’s behav­ior. Sounds from upstairs sug­gest con­flict, but when their par­ents final­ly appear, the father’s smug demeanor does­n’t alle­vi­ate the ten­sion. As the atmos­phere fills with loud music, the moth­er’s dis­mis­sive atti­tude trig­gers frus­tra­tion and anger with­in the pro­tag­o­nist.

Strug­gling to deal with the emo­tion­al tur­moil of her home life, she engages in clean­ing and straight­en­ing up, des­per­ate­ly try­ing to restore some sense of nor­mal­cy and safe­ty. In a moment of solace, she encoun­ters Joe, a crow, who brings back Juniper’s lost leather cuff, sym­bol­iz­ing hope amid despair. This ges­ture res­onates deeply with the pro­tag­o­nist, reflect­ing on the idea of loss and the poten­tial for recov­ery.

Draw­ing par­al­lels between Amelia Earhart’s sto­ry and the folk­lore of crows, the pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plates the nature of brav­ery and sur­vival, sug­gest­ing that per­haps, like the crow, find­ing safe­ty can also mean choos­ing to stay away from home—a poignant med­i­ta­tion on fear­less­ness in the face of chaos. The chap­ter encap­su­lates themes of fam­i­ly strug­gle, courage, and the intri­ca­cies of find­ing one’s place in a tur­bu­lent envi­ron­ment.

In Chap­ter Twen­ty-Four of “The Choco­late War,” Broth­er Leon urgent­ly con­tacts Archie regard­ing the fail­ing choco­late sale, express­ing his anx­i­ety over the sit­u­a­tion. Despite Archie’s ini­tial instinct to respond defen­sive­ly, he cau­tious­ly ques­tions Leon about the extent of the prob­lem, which Leon describes as dire. The sale is more than halfway over, yet half of the choco­lates remain unsold, results indi­cat­ing a sig­nif­i­cant drop in momen­tum. Leon accus­es Archie of not being effec­tive, although Archie admires his relent­less demeanor under pres­sure.

Ear­li­er that day, Archie had received con­cern­ing infor­ma­tion from Bri­an Cochran, Leon’s book­keep­er, who revealed that Leon was in a pre­car­i­ous posi­tion regard­ing the school’s finances. Cochran had lis­tened in on a tense dis­cus­sion between Leon and Broth­er Jacques, where Jacques accused Leon of mis­us­ing school funds and being “overex­tend­ed” finan­cial­ly. The men­tion of twen­ty thou­sand box­es of choco­lates paid for with ques­tion­able funds raised alarms about Leon’s mis­man­age­ment.

Leon resumes the con­ver­sa­tion by remind­ing Archie of the influ­ence he sup­pos­ed­ly has over his peers, sug­gest­ing that Archie’s mis­cal­cu­la­tions have led to this deba­cle, par­tic­u­lar­ly ref­er­enc­ing Renault’s refusal to par­tic­i­pate in the sale. Archie reflects on this chal­lenge but then attempts to shift focus away from blame. He high­lights the broad­er problem—students are fatigued by recur­ring sales efforts, ref­er­enc­ing inef­fec­tive strate­gies from the pre­vi­ous year’s sale.

When Leon’s frus­tra­tion peaks, he under­scores the urgency by demand­ing that Archie get Renault to com­ply with sell­ing the choco­lates. He warns that if the sale fails, Archie and the Vig­ils will also face con­se­quences. This rev­e­la­tion empha­sizes the high stakes of the sit­u­a­tion, ignit­ing Archie’s inner con­flict. Ulti­mate­ly, Leon’s threat hangs heavy as he abrupt­ly ends the call, leav­ing Archie con­front­ed with both the urgency and com­plex­i­ty of the impend­ing cri­sis.