The Secret Sanctuary (Weird Creatures Club, Book 1)

Two children from the same city, Marco and Alila, unacquainted with each other, receive a visit by the same peculiar man at their school. He informs them that they have been accepted at a mysterious model school. Up until this time, both Marco and Alila felt like outcasts and were miserable.  Marco has on his back a dolphin fin that causes him not only trouble in his personal life, but also makes him suffer from unbearable pain when trying to hide it under his clothes.  He also has a deep fear of the sea, which once swept away his mother. Alila, on the other hand, is addicted to intense periods of grief.  Every time she thinks about her harsh past or contemplates her present day miseries, she breaks out in tears. And every time she cries, tremors surround her.

The two children accept the proposal and start out on an adventurous journey to the new school. Initially, they’ll run the risk of finding themselves in an especially competitive institution that in some ways resembles a military camp. But thanks to their good luck as well as their ingenuity, they reach their destination. There they begin to discover a whole world that they had not known up until then... a world governed by unusual codes and rules, where the learning processes follow strange paths. They meet weird teachers, make close friendships with children like themselves, and they experience emotions that attend one’s first love.

Meanwhile, they find themselves in the crosshairs of a former student who had demonstrated delinquent behavior and harbored hatred for the school and the teachers. Through a long and perilous adventure, they manage to fight their fears, to accept themselves and their strengths, and to begin the exciting journey towards adulthood. It is their first school year in the secret sanctuary.