By Daniel Hartill,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Olive Burnham worries that people don’t believe her daughter, Sandi, disappeared.

The pretty, blond Lewiston High School freshman has run away before. Cops were called. And the girl reappeared after less than a day.

“It’s a never cry wolf’ thing,” Olive Burnham said Tuesday, tears running down her cheeks. “This time it’s different.”

Sandi was last seen on Friday. She was walking on Pierce Street and asked a friend for a ride, Olive said. Sandi was wearing jeans and a brown, hooded sweatshirt over a tank top. She had little money.

The possibilities of what’s happened, of so many bad things, are what keep the mom from sleeping. Since late Friday, when she first became worried, Olive has had a few short naps, but little else.

“At first, I figured she’d gone to Confetti’s,” she said, referring to a Lewiston teen club. At 2:30 a.m. Saturday, the mother made her first call to police.

Officers met with her, taking down a list of addresses of places the girl might have gone. They issued a “be on the lookout” message to police statewide and entered the girl’s name and description into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, a nationwide database. If she’s stopped by police anywhere in the country, they will be alerted.

However, Lewiston Police Sgt. Michael Whalen said Tuesday there is “nothing suspicious” about the girl’s absence.

It appears that she ran away, Whalen said. There was no proof of an abduction, he said.

“They don’t think she’s been abducted, but how do they know?” Olive said. “Every time she left before, she was gone not even a day. It’s been five.”

When Sandi failed to return on Saturday, her mom began calling the numbers in her daughter’s cell phone. Then she began calling the names in Sandi’s yearbook.

She also called Sandi’s dad, Jim Burnham, who lives in Livermore Falls. The couple split up last year, which Olive believes led to Sandi’s earlier runaways.

He was worried, too. The parents talked over the weekend and hoped their daughter might show up at school on Monday.

She didn’t.

“I freaked,” Olive said. She searched more and waited for her cell phone to ring.

Meanwhile, police kept a lookout.

Lewiston police have continued to distribute Sandi’s picture among themselves at the start of each shift, Whalen said. They have also double-checked the addresses Olive submitted.

Nothing has turned up so far.

Meanwhile, Olive printed 150 fliers with her daughter’s picture. She spent Tuesday hanging them on light poles and posting them in shop windows across Lewiston.

And she replayed their last conversation, about 6:30 a.m. on Friday.

Sandi gave her a hug and a kiss, Olive said.

“She told me, I’ll see you later.'”