Chap­ter 15 of If These Wings Could Fly begins with Juniper and the nar­ra­tor spend­ing a peace­ful morn­ing togeth­er in their back­yard, with the crisp air of ear­ly autumn set­tling in. Despite the sea­son’s chill, the weath­er remains unsea­son­ably warm, which leads to Camp­bell rid­ing her bike out­side, even though she’s still recov­er­ing from a recent mishap involv­ing a rose­bush. This acci­dent near­ly end­ed her bik­ing sea­son ear­ly, but her resilience shows as she con­tin­ues to enjoy the ride. Mean­while, the nar­ra­tor is bal­anc­ing mul­ti­ple respon­si­bil­i­ties, includ­ing cal­cu­lus home­work, research for the school news­pa­per, and frus­tra­tion over an art elec­tive that has­n’t been going well. Juniper, on the oth­er hand, finds solace in read­ing a book of fairy tales, escap­ing into a world of imag­i­na­tion while the nar­ra­tor strug­gles with the pres­sures of their aca­d­e­m­ic and extracur­ric­u­lar life.

As they sit in the back­yard, the per­sis­tent caw­ing of crows around them becomes a con­stant source of irri­ta­tion. The nar­ra­tor men­tions their ongo­ing research into the increase in crow pop­u­la­tions in towns across the coun­try, includ­ing a near­by town where an aston­ish­ing fifty thou­sand crows have been count­ed migrat­ing from Cana­da. This fact catch­es Juniper’s atten­tion and sparks a dis­cus­sion about the local crow pop­u­la­tion and its sud­den rise. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, the nar­ra­tor also reflects on the suc­cess of Auburn’s foot­ball team, some­thing that feels pecu­liar to them, giv­en the town’s focus on the sport. While the crows remain a con­stant dis­trac­tion, the con­ver­sa­tion shifts between curios­i­ty about the local wildlife and the team’s suc­cess, high­light­ing the con­trast between nature’s uncon­trol­lable forces and the more struc­tured aspects of the town’s life.

As more crows land near­by, the nar­ra­tor impul­sive­ly decides to throw raisins at them, ignor­ing a local ordi­nance Juniper had men­tioned in a recent paper. The rebel­lion against the rules brings a moment of joy to both of them, and they laugh togeth­er over Juniper’s lost leather cuff bracelet, which she feels guilty about mis­plac­ing. The play­ful inter­ac­tion tran­si­tions into a more seri­ous con­ver­sa­tion about how oth­er towns have dealt with their crow pop­u­la­tions, some even resort­ing to hunt­ing prac­tices to scare the birds away. This dark­er side of the sit­u­a­tion makes Juniper uneasy, as she begins to ques­tion the safe­ty of the local crows. The dis­cus­sion of the crows’ vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty intro­duces a sense of respon­si­bil­i­ty for the ani­mals that hadn’t been present in their ear­li­er, more light­heart­ed ban­ter. It serves as a reminder of the com­plex­i­ties in their seem­ing­ly sim­ple inter­ac­tions with nature.

The mood light­ens again when Juniper reveals that she has been writ­ing let­ters to Joe, a crow she admires, leav­ing treats for him in hopes of receiv­ing gifts in return. The nar­ra­tor is ini­tial­ly skep­ti­cal, but Juniper’s earnest­ness con­vinces them to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Joe might actu­al­ly be gift­ing her some­thing. She proud­ly presents a shiny mar­ble, claim­ing that it is a gift from Joe, which she believes is a sign of the crow’s affec­tion. Just as the moment is filled with won­der and child­like joy, Camp­bell enters and mocks the idea, try­ing to under­mine the authen­tic­i­ty of Juniper’s belief. How­ev­er, Juniper remains unfazed, con­tin­u­ing to share her let­ters to Joe with the same con­fi­dence and hope she had when she first began this whim­si­cal exchange. The play­ful mood lingers, even though there is an under­ly­ing ten­sion between the sis­ters, as their inter­ac­tions con­tin­ue to reveal dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives on the world.

The chap­ter takes a sud­den turn when Campbell’s bike is run over by a truck return­ing to the neigh­bor­hood. The nar­ra­tor wit­ness­es Campbell’s heart­break and frus­tra­tion as she stands motion­less in the yard, fac­ing the unex­pect­ed loss of her beloved bike. This loss sig­nals a shift in the tone of the chap­ter, turn­ing what had been a light­heart­ed and nos­tal­gic scene into one of emo­tion­al weight and uncer­tain­ty. Campbell’s future in bik­ing now seems uncer­tain, and the real­i­ty of this set­back leaves her feel­ing help­less and vul­ner­a­ble. The emo­tion­al impact of this event deep­ens the nar­ra­tive, show­cas­ing the fragili­ty of youth­ful dreams and the way unfore­seen cir­cum­stances can abrupt­ly alter the course of one’s plans. The play­ful atmos­phere from ear­li­er in the chap­ter fades, replaced by the raw­ness of dis­ap­point­ment and loss, mark­ing a poignant moment in the sto­ry.

The chap­ter high­lights the con­trast between the care­free moments spent in nature and the harsh real­i­ties that can quick­ly dis­rupt one’s life. Through the light­heart­ed moments of con­nec­tion with the crows and the more somber moments of loss, the nar­ra­tive explores the com­plex­i­ties of life’s unpre­dictable nature. The char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly Juniper and Camp­bell, are shown nav­i­gat­ing both the joy and pain that comes with grow­ing up, pro­vid­ing read­ers with a deeply relat­able expe­ri­ence. These emo­tion­al shifts are skill­ful­ly woven into the nar­ra­tive, giv­ing depth to the char­ac­ters’ rela­tion­ships with each oth­er and the world around them.