Two Brooklyn sisters took an epic trip to NYC that still has New Yorkers talking.
Zahara, 5, and Zamiyah, 7, woke up hungry and adventurous on Thursday morning. The girls, who are enjoying summer vacation from school, didn’t want to awaken their foster parents.
So they donned Cinderella and Rapunzel costumes, accessorized with polka dot shower caps (in case of rain), and slipped out of their house.
The girls managed to travel from their home on a quiet, leafy street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Park Slope all the way to Manhattan via subway.
But before they began their excellent adventure, they stopped at a McDonald’s about three blocks from their home.
“They were ordering food and when we brought it, they said they didn’t have any money,” cashier Juan Lucero, 18, told the NY Post.
Instead of asking where their parents were, or calling the police, the low wage McDonald’s worker sent the girls on their way.
The hungry sisters decided to try their luck at the Bagel Pub next door, where they ordered bagels with strawberry and regular cream cheese.
Upon learning the girls didn’t have any money, a kindly gentleman who was waiting in line paid for the bagels.
“You couldn’t even see them over the counter. I just heard them first,” said Bagel Pub employee Lindy Majeia, 28. “They were so cute in the dresses. They said they were by themselves.”
After satisfying their hunger pangs, the sisters then hopped a train to the West Fourth Street subway station across the East River in Manhattan.
There, someone with common sense called the police.
It just so happened that Park Slope police were investigating a report of 2 missing children.
NYPD cops took the children to McDonald’s for hash browns. The girls were overwhelmed by the presence of strange faces in blue uniforms. The smallest one cried for her birth mother.
Then they were taken to the 78th Precinct in Park Slope for a reunion with their foster parents, Alex Cone, 32, and Krista Cone, 31.
The Cones were defensive when a reporter asked them how the girls slipped out of the house without them hearing anything.
“Thank god the kids are OK. It’s been a heck of a morning for them. They’re all safe and sound now,” an officer told the NY Post.
But are they really “safe and sound”?
The Cones received a visit from a social worker at the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) — the agency that originally placed the girls in their home.
“ACS received a report on this case and is currently investigating the circumstances that led to this incident,” said spokeswoman Carol Cáceres in a statement.
Hopefully the agency will remove the children from the home and place them with black parents who know that children are hungry when they wake up in the morning.
The foster mother should have been up at the crack of dawn fixing breakfast for the children.
It’s worrisome when foster agencies take black children out of troubled homes and place them with Caucasians who treat them like accessories.
Here’s an idea: if foster parents want to sleep in until 12 noon, don’t adopt foster children.
