“June, where is your science project?” asked Ms Shelley, gesturing to June’s bare desk.

“It hopped away,” said June.

“Off your desk?” Ms Shelley asked, and the classroom laughed.

“No!” said June helplessly. “The stupid project flew away when I was trying to catch it down by the river! And I got wet with disgusting river water.”

“Tragic (悲剧的) though that may be,” said Ms Shelley, “it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t have a science project like everyone else, so you still get an F.”

June buried her face in her hands. She was having a really bad day. The worst of it was that this day was also her twelfth birthday. Her birthday was on June first, which was how she had gotten her name.

The day’s awfulness began at breakfast. Carl threw up while eating his baby food, causing her parents to spend the whole time cleaning up the mess and worrying over Carl possibly being sick. Like a good mature twelve-year-old, June kept quiet and pretended she wasn’t angry that her birthday was becoming all about Carl, just like every other day was. She understood reasonably that it wasn’t Carl’s fault if he was sick, but it was just so unfair that the birthday girl wasn’t the centre of attention in her own home.

Another thing which made her very angry was the fact that she still didn’t have a cell phone. It was worse now that she was officially one year away from being a teenager. Would she have a cell phone by then? What kind of twenty-first-century teenager didn’t have a cell phone?

As she walked home from the bus stop, June wondered what further unpleasantness would be waiting for her when she got home. Did her parents even remember that today was her birthday? They had given NO such signs at breakfast. What did she want anyway? Did she want another one of those corny(老掉牙的）birthday parties that were thrown for her when she was little? She’d enjoyed them at the time, but now she was older and that sort of thing would only embarrass her.

No, it was probably for the best that they didn’t remember.

“SURPRISE!”Not only her parents, but also Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle Larry jumped out, wearing party hats and carrying balloons, cake, and presents, with Carl crawling（爬行） behind.

An old saying goes, “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back. “But I don’t think curiosity is limited to a cat. And who would ever imagine that, in my lifetime. I would have two dogs who wanted to know, “What’s in the bag?

Every year, my parents went on vacation to Longview, Washington, where my mother’s uncle lived.

Their purpose was to go fishing, but one time. they returned with another animal -a live one.

My father had fallen in love with a Cocker Spaniel puppy that we named Tammy.

This was our first dog, and Tammy and I became great friends. She also spent a lot of time with my mother, who would take her along when she went shopping.

One day, my mother returned to the car after grocery shopping. She put her grocery bags in the back seat of the car and entered another store, leaving the dog in the car. Finally, when they arrived home, Mom opened the back door of the car, and found all the bags torn to pieces.

Mom came into the house, shouting. “Your stupid dog tore all the grocery bags,” she told Dad. “I’m sure he ruined all the meat packages.”

I helped Mom bring her purchases into the house a few pieces at a time. With each trip out to the car, Mom scolded Tammy, who hung her head in shame. However, as we brought the things into the house, we noticed there wasn’t even a tooth mark on a single item. Even the meat was untouched.

Tammy was not allowed to go shopping with Mom for a long time after that. After another break, Mom decided to give Tammy one more chance. But this time Mom handled it differently. Yet nothing was damaged.

When she returned to the car, Mom took each item out of the bag and showed it to Tammy.

Then she put everything back in the bags and went to another store.

When Mom returned to the car, everything was just as she had left it.

I was wrong when I thought Tammy was the only dog to have such a strange curiosity.