The Colony by Nanette L. Avery

They weren't always friends, not until they found out they had something in common. And then they started to wonder; how many others were like them; others with the same secret. That's how it started, with a secret, and then it grew into The Colony. So begins the tale of a boy, Yoshi, a girl, Saachi, and their caricature of a mother, they call Henrietta. But behind the closed doors of what appears to be an ordinary row house on an ordinary street, the reader finds the children's secret world and their private language. Spoken exclusively between the siblings, it is intelligible only to them. This wickedly strange story is a hybrid of mystery, thriller, satire, and dark comedy where the need for order that their aloof and reckless parent cannot satisfy, is fulfilled through youthful companionship from a group called The Colony. Stepping in as Saachi's protector, Yoshi mingles between the planes of trust and delusion in a world also shared with the eccentric neighbor they call the dragon, and Sikes, a vagabond street-sleeper afflicted by his own set of demons. Contrary to garden-variety children, Yoshi's new friends work as a motivator for him and his sister to disobey societal rules where play develops a darker side with external consequences. Childlike innocence works to distract and disguise retaliation against their mother's drug-centric lifestyle as the novel takes on a psychological twist and wanders into The Colony.