BENNINGTON, Vt. (AP) – A high school junior who disappeared while on a school field trip to a Red Sox game has called two friends to tell them she is living safely in Boston.

Heidi Linendoll, 17, had not been heard from since April 15 when she didn’t meet up with the group from the Southwest Vermont Career Development Center when it was to return to Bennington after the game.

“All I can say is that Heidi is still in the Boston area and she is safe,” said Patti Kelley, whose daughter Kylene is a close friend of Linendoll.

Linendoll first called Kylene Kelley midday on Friday after reading in a Boston paper that people were looking for her.

Later, she called Maegan Trapani, 18, of Woodford.

“We talked for about a half-hour and she sounded fine. She said she was OK,” Trapani told the Bennington Banner.

Linendoll said she has been living with three male roommates in Boston and had found a part-time job at a video game store, Trapani said.

Linendoll had not contacted anyone about her whereabouts because she was afraid she might be in trouble at school and with her foster parents, Trapani said.

“She was unaware that there was this much turmoil going on,” Patti Kelley said.

Police and social workers in Vermont and Massachusetts had been looking for Linendoll since shortly after her disappearance. The school district is considering different rules for field trips to try to prevent similar disappearances in the future.

Linendoll had gone to the Burger King near Fenway Park to return with her classmates, but she could not find the bus, Trapani said Linendoll told her.

Then she received a ride around the neighborhood from a friend she met before the game, Kylene Kelley said. The two looked for her Bennington classmates.

“As each day passed, it escalated because she was afraid she would be in more and more trouble,” Kelley said.

Eventually, Linendoll got a job to buy food and clothes, Kylene Kelly said.

“They had been taking care of her,” Kylene Kelley said about the people Linendoll was staying with, after the pair talked on the phone for more than an hour.

“Once she called and I heard her voice, I just flipped out,” Trapani said. She offered to give Linendoll a ride back to Bennington, but Linendoll refused, she said.

Eventually, she plans to return to Bennington, Kylene Kelley said. “She’s just really, really scared,” she said.

Dan Bushee, Linendoll’s foster father, said at first he was happy with the latest news.

“If it’s true, great,” he said Friday evening after hearing from Trapani. “When she walks in my home, I’ll call it a done deal.”

AP-ES-05-03-03 1302EDT

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