In Chap­ter Fifty-Three of “If These Wings Could Fly,” the pro­tag­o­nist attends a town hall meet­ing ded­i­cat­ed to dis­cussing how to remove crows from Auburn. Unable to secure a ride, she decides to bike three miles in Decem­ber, opt­ing against ask­ing her par­ents for help due to recent ten­sions. Upon arriv­ing at the munic­i­pal build­ing, she encoun­ters a lone crow—a detail that strikes her as she shares a brief exchange with the bird.

Inside, the meet­ing begins with the game war­den report­ing on pre­vi­ous crow hunts, reveal­ing a dis­ap­point­ing out­come: while over six hun­dred crows were cap­tured in a pri­or hunt, the recent effort yield­ed none, as the crows elud­ed the hunters, seem­ing­ly aware of their attempts. The pro­tag­o­nist con­tem­plates the notion that the crows might indeed remem­ber the hunts, prompt­ing her to con­sid­er con­sult­ing her ornithol­o­gist.

The atmos­phere is heavy as res­i­dents express frus­tra­tion over the crows’ dis­rup­tive behavior—raiding trash and attack­ing garbage bags. Mr. DiMar­co, a not­ed fig­ure in town, seems dis­mis­sive of the con­cerns raised by res­i­dents, which deep­ens the pro­tag­o­nist’s dis­like for him. As com­plaints con­tin­ue, one man claims the crows killed his cat, which leads anoth­er coun­cil­man to urge focus on ver­i­fi­able argu­ments.

Amidst this dis­cus­sion, Mrs. Stieg, a neigh­bor and rose gar­den­er, shares her dis­tress over the crows dam­ag­ing her pre­cious plants. Her pas­sion­ate tes­ti­mo­ny about the years of care required to cul­ti­vate her rose gar­den res­onates with some atten­dees, and she calls for expert inter­ven­tion to erad­i­cate the nui­sances. The room buzzes with mixed reac­tions.

Ulti­mate­ly, when a vote is called on Town Ordi­nance 4420 to fund crow erad­i­ca­tion, the room goes silent. The pro­tag­o­nist bold­ly votes “nay,” but her opin­ion drowns in the over­whelm­ing cho­rus of “aye” votes from her neigh­bors. As she rush­es out­side, she is met by a cacoph­o­ny of crows mir­ror­ing the meeting’s sen­ti­ments, embody­ing the con­flict between humans and the avian invaders. The stark imagery of crows echo­ing “nay” sig­ni­fies an intrigu­ing con­nec­tion between their world and the town’s con­cerns.