Max (aka Maximum Ride), the 14-year-old girl from both of the aforementioned novels, leads a band of mutant orphans hiding from the sinister scientists at "the School, " who grafted avian DNA onto their genes, giving them wings (plot points established in When the Wind Blows). When the School's henchmen-"Erasers, " "half-men, half-wolves" (one of whom is their rescuer Jeb's seven-year-old son)-kidnap six-year-old Angel, the youngest member of "the flock, " Max and company will stop at nothing to rescue her. Well, nothing except to aid a stranger, bond with some real birds, eat lunch and take lengthy naps