Isabelle and the Elves

This is fifth book in the Twelfth Grade Season (2013-2014) and the thirty-second in the series.

Summery
As the weather gets colder with the coming of winter, Armand finds himself doing more jobs in the kitchen of Otto Specht, something he wouldn't mind doing if there weren't so many onions to chop. Evan, meanwhile has joined him finding the work at Green Meadow too difficult to cope with. On a bright note, Armand has started telling the Otto Specht kids about his earlier adventures. This gains the attention of Grace, a shy 9th Grade girl who recently joined the Otto Specht school having found Green Meadow too crowded.

Meanwhile, at Green Meadow, the other kids start missing being on the Island of Sodor. Armand offers to take them there during winter break. Arriving on Sodor, they meet Thomas who is still trying to forget about his traumatic army experiences.

Isabelle, having never been on Sodor before, goes off to explore the surrounding landscapes, but then loses her path and can't find the way back. A rainstorm comes and she is forced to take shelter in a hollowed-out tree. When nightfall comes, Armand realizes that Isabelle is lost and decides to have a search party the next day.

When Isabelle awakens she finds herself in the care of a hidden kingdom of elves. Isabelle is amazed by the city in which the elves reside in. Meanwhile, the search party goes full on, Armand and some of the kids going by rail on Thomas, Evan and some others going by road, Rose Tui and a couple of others going on foot, and Willa taking to the skies in the Tiger Moth. The search does not end in success as the students complain that Thomas isn't versatile, roadwork halts traffic,  and Tiger Moth's engine breaks down forcing him to land. Tui's group (consisting of Tui, Amelia, Gabriel, and Lukas) is assumed to have gotten lost as well, but unbeknown to the others, they find Isabelle and the elven kingdom and they stay there for the time being.

Time passes with each day and the search is not developing successfully. As Isabelle feels more at home in the elven kingdom, she starts becoming a bit elvish herself. This same reaction occurs to the other students, the longer the period, the more they become elvish.

Armand eventually discovers a catch: everyone who goes on foot seems to go missing, and everyone who goes in a machine return. He decides to experiment with the remaining students and goes on foot. His theory proves correct as they enter into the realm of the elves. By this time, Isabelle has become fully elvish and nearly all the other students are in some stage or so of the metamorphosis. Four years ago this would be something that Armand would scoff at and object to the idea, but now this gets him inspired to learn about the mythology of Sodor as it would help him write down his novel properly.

A day or two later, Thomas starts getting worried and goes off to find Lady to see if she could provide some answers. He finds her and she tells them of the kids predicament as well as a premonition that she has: a darkness will strike before they can leave the elven kingdom. Suddenly Evil Diesel appears and confronts the two engines. Lady battles the oily engine but during the procedure, Diesel bashes some buffers into an old shed where a glass bottle is contained. The bottle is destroyed and a thick black fog emerges from the shed...

Meanwhile Armand starts feeling his human nature leaving him. Suddenly feeling uncomfortable he goes to the kids and remind them that they must return to their human world. They then wonder how to turn back to humans and turn to the elves. The elves explain that the kids have been under the influence of the Elven Orb, a powerful crystal that apparently turns any human into an elf. Once the kids leave the kingdom they would turn back into humans. The kids then say goodbye to the elves and leave for the forest.

Along they way though, a storm starts breaking out. Armand then discovers, to his horror, that the storm is actually the Black Cloud, a monstrous terror that he had encountered once in a nightmare, only this time it's real. What's more, Danielle realizes that the Black Cloud was the plague that killed her birth clan, the Stag Arelan, as she remembers the exact same appearance from before. The kids hide in a cave and cower as the most violent storm rages outside.

When all is quiet the kids emerge only to find the Elven kingdom laid to waste by the Black Cloud's destruction. The buildings have all crumbled, the Elven Orb is shattered and only a few surviving elves remain. The elves realize that there is not much left for them and despite the kids' offers of help, they send them off, but after they have given them each a piece of the Elven Orb as parting gifts.

When the kids return to the railway, they find Lady, Thomas and Diesel (who is in shock) waiting for them, coated in black vapor. Lady explains that Diesel has released the Black Cloud from the prison that she contained it in. She warns Armand that now that the Black Cloud is unleashed, he has to take the greatest care and be extra cautious until the Black Cloud is either recaptured or banished. She also warns everyone to be careful of an enemy within their friend circle, a traitor. Armand decides that everyone should return to America to be on the safe side and everyone says goodbye to Thomas.

Kids

 * Isabelle
 * Willa
 * Danielle
 * Olenka
 * Alisa
 * Rose Tui
 * Katherine
 * Jazmin
 * Hannah
 * Thea
 * Amelia
 * Sophia
 * Sabine
 * Grace
 * Kristina
 * Rachel
 * Armand
 * Gabriel
 * Taylor
 * Yaniv
 * Julian
 * Lukas
 * Evan
 * Max
 * Marko
 * Sophia Eve (Mentioned)

Trains

 * Thomas
 * Lady
 * Evil Diesel
 * Annie and Clarabel

Vehicles

 * Harold
 * Bertie
 * Tiger Moth

Created Characters

 * The Sudrian Elves

Demons

 * The Black Cloud