Our parents spent the morning shooting scenes with an overhead drone. Mr. Savage wanted to get a lot of shots of them looking dramatically over the side of the boat as they zipped around the mangroves. According to him, this scene would be the opening of the show and would introduce our parents as superhero wildlife defenders.

I had seen Dad practicing his best “dramatic serious hero” look in the mirror earlier, and I had burst out laughing so loudly he chased me from the room.

While they were out filming, Feye and I decided to stay behind with part of the crew to film some of the ecosystems around the floating boat hotel. Mark and Alice from the camera crew followed us around as we described the different animals we saw both under and above the water.

Nearby, deeper in the mangroves, was a small sandy spit where Cuban rock iguanas crawled around under the hot Caribbean sun. Mark and Alice suggested we stop to film them since we might not get another chance to have just us kids narrating. “All right, Feye, tell us a little bit about Cuba’s reptiles and lead into talking about these iguanas. Adrianna, then we’ll pan over to you and you can tell us more about them, okay?” Mark said once he had set up his camera to record us.

He hadn’t noticed Feye leaning on a mangrove taking selfies. Mark frowned.

“Feye! Come on!” he said.

Feye held his hands up in defeat and stuffed his phone in his pocket.

“Hey, I need to remember my time here with pictures!” Feye said. “I go everywhere with this phone, so I don’t forget a single moment.”

He straightened his shirt and looked into the camera. “Cuba has over one hundred and thirty species of reptiles, and about eighty percent of them are endemic, meaning you can only find them here. Over half the reptiles are actually lizards, like the Cuban rock iguana!”

He continued, “The Cuban iguana can get up to five feet long and can weigh around fifteen pounds. These iguanas can be dark gray or brown, and they all have this beautiful banding around their bodies.”

“Perfect! All right, let me watch this to make sure we’ve got a good shot,” Mark said as his eyes focused on the camera screen, with Alice looking alongside him.

I pouted, feeling left out and thinking that my brother was hogging all the camera time. I needed to prove I knew a lot, too! For instance, I knew that there were over eighty species of mangrove. Cuba was home to four of those: the red mangrove, the black mangrove, the white mangrove, and the button mangrove. I had seen their photos in books before, so I thought I would be pretty good at identifying them. I hadn’t tried earlier, but since we were up close and personal now, I thought I could give it a shot. I stared at the mangrove in front of me and realized I had no idea which one it was!

With a shrug, I gave up and instead joined Feye in watching the yellow-brown, scaly iguanas up above in the mangrove branches. Most were sleeping, their beady red eyes hidden. One stirred, and I pointed it out to Feye so he could see the large lizard begin to climb up a branch. The thick tail of the iguana swung from side to side and its claws made a scratch noise against the mangrove wood.

“If we’re lucky, we might see—” Feye stopped short as the climbing iguana launched itself from the branch above into the water below.

“Whoa!” I cried. We both scrambled closer to watch the iguana swim easily in the murky green-gray water.

Mark and Alice were still hunched over the camera screen, talking about something in hushed tones. They had completely missed the amazing iguana action!

“What a spot!” Mark said, finally looking up. “We already have a lot of great footage, and we’re just getting started. Now we just need to find this Mega Croc Savage keeps going on about.”

“I thought Mr. Savage just wanted ‘Mega Croc’ in the title of the show to attract viewers,” I said.

“The injured croc is big, but I don’t know if I’d call it ‘mega,’” Feye added.

Alice shook her head. “There’s a legend around here that there’s a monster croc. It’s supposed to be like twenty-five feet long, weigh a few tons, and be an absolute terror.”

“But … it’s legendary. So, it couldn’t really exist, surely,” Feye said slowly.

Feye and I were about to ask more questions, but we heard the roar of a boat engine and turned to see our parents and Mr. Savage heading our way.

“Time for lunch!” my mom called. “I can’t wait to hear about what you saw this morning!”

*  *  *

As we sat down for lunch, I shot a glance over at my brother, and then to Mr. Savage. I wiggled my eyebrows in the universal signal for “Should I ask him about the Mega Croc?” Feye nodded slightly.

“Hey, Mr. Savage?” I started.

He looked up at me, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, Adrianna?” he asked.

“Can you tell us more about this Mega Croc?”

I could tell my dad wanted to interject because his mouth opened up, but it quickly shut when Mr. Savage waved at him and chuckled. “Of course I can!” He began to tell us how the locals have been talking about a massive crocodile that could be a hybrid between the American crocodile, like the injured one we were looking for, and the Cuban crocodile.

“It isn’t totally out of the question,” our dad hesitantly told Mr. Savage when he was done with his tale. “The Cuban crocodiles are losing their genetic identity because they’re interbreeding with the more abundant cousin, the American crocodile.”

We had heard about Cuban crocodiles before. Some family friends had seen them in the wild before and were terrified—one said it was like looking at a devil because of their raised eyebrow ridges and dark eyes.

“The Cuban crocodiles could once be found roaming all throughout Cuba but are now only found in large numbers in the Zapata Swamp,” my mom added.

“The cameras aren’t rolling, you know,” Feye joked. Mom stuck her tongue out and we all laughed.

“Now you’ve said it yourself! The genes of two dangerous predators mixed into one super-aggressive crocodile,” Mr. Savage exclaimed, his drink slamming down onto the table for emphasis as he talked. “Maybe the injured crocodile got into a tussle with the Mega Croc!”

I could see my mom frowning.

“Do you think the injured croc has died?” asked Feye.

“No, I don’t think it did. It may be hiding, though. Lying low,” said our dad.

Suddenly, all our radios crackled to life as someone said, “¿Están ustedes allí? Are you guys there? We have a crocodile sighting! ¡Vemos un cocodrilo!”

Our mother grabbed the nearest radio. “We’re here. Where is it?”

“It’s near your boat hotel! And it is HUGE!!” the voice said.

I gasped. Could this be one of the crocodiles we were looking for?