Ariel Windwood is used to meeting peculiar people at the breakfast table. Her mother, Concetta, is a writer whose characters hang around the house until their story is finished. Then they disappear, like steam from the bathroom mirror. But some characters dislike the way they've been written. They play up, so Concetta sends them off to the Island, a magical place with a School for Rebellious Characters.
Ariel and Zed aren't happy with their roles, either. They're misfits, thrown together for the holidays and they don't even like each other. But when Concetta sends them to the Island, where everyone and everything is unpredictable, they discover fresh possibilities: eccentric friends, dangerous adventures, a formidable enemy, and a new understanding of themselves and each other.
