Living in Florida is awesome. I live close to the beach so I get to swim in the ocean anytime I want. The weather is always beautiful and there are so many amazing creatures that call the beach home. One day I came across what looked like a giant egg so I picked it up.

When I took a closer look at the egg I noticed that there was something inside. I was expecting to find a baby bird but found something quite different. It was a baby alligator. He had hatched from his egg and seemed to be all alone. I looked around for his Mom but didn't see her. I couldn't just leave the baby gator to fend for himself so I decided to bring him home.

I snuck the gator under my shirt as I ran up to my room and closed the door. I put a big pillow in my cat's bed and laid the little alligator down for a nap. Jimbo was not too impressed by his new roommate. "It's just for a little while until I decide what to do with him" I told my cat. What was I going to do with him? I'd have to do some research tomorrow about how to care for an alligator.

The next morning I headed off to the library to find as many books as I could about alligators. I had no idea how to take care of a baby alligator. After doing some research I learned that, as they grew bigger, their diet consisted of fish, snakes, turtles, smaller alligators, birds, and other animals. The newly hatched babies ate small fish, insects and small frogs.

I fixed the alligator a bowl of insects and some fish that had washed ashore. It was the grossest thing I had every thing. The alligator chomped away at the meal that I had prepared as Jimbo and I looked at each grossed out by the gator's meal. As my little buddy began to grow, so to would his appetite.

When my parents were away I would let my alligator friend swim in our pool. He was a great pet, well-behaved, and easy to look after. But soon he began to grow bigger and stronger. At first he gave me playful little bites that kinda tickled but as time went on, his powerful jaws looked like they take my arm right off. I didn't know what to do with him but there was no way he'd survive in the wild.