Chapter 8Lloyd still remembered the day the mall opened. Clarkston never did have much going for it, and the mall had been a pretty big deal from the start. He’d been in seventh grade at the middle school—junior high, they called it then, though he wasn’t sure why that ever changed—and during the end of day announcements, the principal had said over the school’s loudspeaker that the mall was open but none of the school buses would stop there. Lloyd remembered his fellow classmates booing loudly, as if they all wanted to rush to the brand new mall and spend the evening roaming its walkways, popping in and out of cool stores they’d never seen before, hanging out at the arcade or the movies, eating boardwalk fries and slices of pizza in the food court.
They did those things eventually, of co
