In Chap­ter Fif­teen of “If These Wings Could Fly,” Juniper and the nar­ra­tor enjoy a qui­et morn­ing in their back­yard while the chill of ear­ly autumn hangs in the air. As the weath­er remains unsea­son­ably warm, Camp­bell is out rid­ing her bike, despite a recent mishap involv­ing a rose­bush that almost end­ed her bik­ing sea­son ear­ly. The nar­ra­tor jug­gles cal­cu­lus home­work, news­pa­per research, and frus­tra­tion over an art elec­tive that hasn’t gone well, while Juniper reads a book of fairy tales.

Amidst their work, the annoy­ing caw­ing of crows sur­round­ing them becomes a recur­ring dis­trac­tion. The nar­ra­tor has been research­ing the influx of crows in towns across Amer­i­ca and shares that a near­by town has seen around fifty thou­sand crows as they migrate from Cana­da. This aston­ish­ing fig­ure sur­pris­es Juniper, spark­ing a dis­cus­sion about the local crows’ num­bers and the ongo­ing foot­ball suc­cess of Auburn’s team, which the nar­ra­tor finds pecu­liar.

As crows land near them, the nar­ra­tor impul­sive­ly throws raisins, dis­re­gard­ing a local ordi­nance Juniper had men­tioned in a recent paper. This rebel­lious act brings joy to both, and they laugh over Juniper’s lost leather cuff bracelet, which she feels guilty about mis­plac­ing. They dis­cuss meth­ods oth­er towns have employed to scare away crows, reveal­ing the dark­er side of hunt­ing prac­tices in their area, which gives Juniper an uncom­fort­able thought about the safe­ty of the local crows.

The light­heart­ed mood shifts as Juniper reveals that she has been writ­ing let­ters to Joe, a crow she admires, leav­ing treats for him in hopes of receiv­ing gifts. The nar­ra­tor is skep­ti­cal but con­sid­ers the pos­si­bil­i­ty after Juniper presents a shiny mar­ble she claims is a gift from Joe. Camp­bell, their sis­ter, dis­rupts their fun by mock­ing the idea, but Juniper’s earnest­ness remains intact as she con­fi­dent­ly shares her let­ter to Joe.

The chap­ter takes a dark­er turn when Camp­bel­l’s bike is run over by a return­ing truck. The nar­ra­tor wit­ness­es Camp­bel­l’s heart­break and frus­tra­tion as she stands help­less­ly in the yard, grap­pling with the loss of her bike and an uncer­tain future for her bik­ing adven­tures. The emo­tion­al weight of her sit­u­a­tion paints a somber con­clu­sion to an oth­er­wise play­ful and nos­tal­gic scene.