Puff of Popularity

Chapter 1

Clint was not in a good mood. The day had gone very wrong. Very wrong indeed. In fact, it had gone so wrong, he was not going to be able to face Paul, his older brother, the reason for this problem.

It had all started off with Paul, the ever Mr Popular, noticing his brother at one of his parties, in the corner, away from the merry crowd of drinkers and dancers. He had never said a word then, and Clint would never have suspected anything. But then the next day Paul decided to set Clint up on a blind date. And that's when everything went wrong.

Pamella Dicksons was everything a guy could want in a girl. Beautiful, clever, a ray of sunshine with… very high expectations.

It had turned out that Paul had lied to her, telling her that he was her date, not his average, younger brother. The lie had not softened Pamella when she saw Clint sitting at the table, in the fancy, god-knows-what-name-resturant, that Paul had booked for them. And Clint had no idea what was happening. Afterall, he was just waiting for Paul and his friends because it was some, nameless, dude's party. Well, it wasn't. And Clint found out the hard way.

He wasn't too pleased when a girl came up to him and demanded to see Paul Freeman. She had been pretty, but lacked socialising manners. And her voice was definitely not attractive at all. It had a screech in it. A poor imitation of a harpie with a very sore throat.

Clint was not dumb. He had clicked on straight away. Paul had never been the brightest of the two. And he definitely did not know how to keep a secret. And for mighty Mr Popular, he was definitely not smooth.

While Pamella had taken to shouting at Clint, who had switched his hearing off as soon as she had spoken to him, he had caught a glimpse of his harebrained, older brother, outside, by the resturant window, with a big sign in his hand and a I'm-so-clever smirk on his face.

The sign had the words Good Luck Bro. It's a Surprise Date, printed on it, in bold black. Not the stealthiest way to support your attention hating brother. The sign was attracting strange looks from passerbys aswell as the customers and workers. And the people were not only staring at his brother. He was also in the spotlight.

Pamella did not have the world's quietest voice. It was loud with an echoing boom to it. Only god knew how the screech and the echo had managed to merge into one voice. Really a mystery.

Not too long after the shouting, Clint had shoved the menue in her face.

"Why don’t you sit down and enjoy a date with the ghost of tall, dark, and handsome." were his farewell words as he stormed away from her.

As he was busy barging out the resturant door, he caught sight of Paul, from the corner of his eye, jumping on the sign, which lay dirt on the floor, looking frustrated. Some people stopped to take pictures. Most likely amused tourists.

Not in the mood to alert his brother, Clint stormed up the street, his mood completely ruined. Never had a person spotlighted him. And never had anyone spoken to him like he was trash. Especially not a harpie merged with barbie gone wrong.

Fueled by fury, he had walked all over town, unaware of his surroundings and the time. When the clock in the town square struck the third hour of his rounds, he found himself walking up to the doors of a small shop, squeezed between a florist and a bakery. It had no name, or rather no board with a name on it. It had a big glass window, behind which were vials of coloured liquid.

Not sure why, Clint found the shop rather fascinating. He pushed open the glass door and stepped inside. A cloud of several, different smells greeted him, pulling him in. Following the tangle of scents, he found himself in front of a woman, bent over a crate of more vials.