When other children asked their parents for puppies, kittens, or rabbits, she filled her school notebooks with drawings of crocodiles, monitor lizards, and snakes.
Her bedroom walls were covered with photographs of exotic animals. She knew the names of species that most adults had never heard of, and she could spend hours explaining the differences between venomous snakes and constrictors.
Her father, Lorenzo, used to tease her about it.
“You know, Camilla, most girls your age want a pony.”
“Most girls my age don’t know how fascinating the world is,” she would reply.
When she turned sixteen, Lorenzo surprised her with a gift she had wanted for years: a young, pale python with golden markings along its body.
Camilla named him Dorato, the Italian word for golden.
She promised her father that she would learn everything necessary to care for the animal properly. She studied its feeding habits, temperature requirements, and behavior. As Dorato grew, she arranged for a larger enclosure and sought advice from specialists who understood exotic reptiles.
