The Day the Earth Shool 地震的那天

Every night， Caroline ate dinnerwith her mom， dad， and older brotherGraham. When they sat at the table，they each told a story about their dayat work or school. Then they eachtold about something new they hadlearned that day. Sometimes thestories were serious2， and other timesthey were fun.

One night， Caroline was aboutto tell a joke she had learned fromher teacher. She put her fork downon her plate， so she could use herhands to make the same silly3motions4 her teacher did when hegot to the best part. When Carolineset her fork down on the plate， itmade a rattling5 sound.

But then something strangehappened. The fork didn’t stop rattling.It shook and clinked6 against theplate， all by itself.

Caroline looked up. All theglasses on the table were shaking， too.The milk inside was rippling7， justlike it did at the lake when Grahamthrewpebbles8 into thewater.

Then Caroline felt like herchair was rattling， too. “Mom？”she asked. She felt scared.

But as quickly as it began， allthe strange sounds and feelingended. It was suddenly very quiet inthe house.

Graham started to cry.“Whatwas that？”he cried. He ran over tosit in Dad’s lap9.

Mom looked at Dad.“I think itwas an earthquake10，”she said.

Caroline had read aboutearthquakes at school. Once therewas a very big earthquake in SanFrancisco， and many houses felldown. Would their house falldown， too？

Dad took his phone out of hispocket11 and began scrolling12.“Looks like everyone in town feltthe same thing，”he said. “It reallywas an earthquake.”

“Is our house going to beokay？”Caroline asked. She didn’ttell her joke， but told everyone about the book she read aboutearthquakes. They sounded very scary.

“Everything is fine，” said Mom.“Earthquakes happen all the time， andmost are so small you don’t evennotice. Nothing even fell off a shelf13，so the house is stronger than that littleearthquake.”

Once Caroline heard that， shebegan to relax. She wouldn’t like tohave an earthquake every day， but itwas exciting to feel one in real life. Shewas glad that everyone in her houseand her town were safe. And she wasexcited to talk about it with her friendsat school the next day. Who knewdinner would be such an adventure14？

每天晚上，卡羅琳都和媽媽、爸爸以及哥哥格雷厄姆一起吃晚飯。（剩余1023字）