Leah Simone McDonald called her mom in Atlanta on Mother’s Day to let her know she’d posted a video on social media in her honor.

The 14-year-old went to church and out to eat with her grandparents in Jackson in Alabama’s Clarke County. Leah had been living with her maternal grandparents for the past several months.

Later in the day, Leah went down the street to shoot some hoops, and her family hasn’t seen or heard from her since then.

It’s now been nine days since Leah disappeared. She was last seen about 3:30 p.m. on May 14 in the area of High Street.

“My heart feels like she’s alive,’’ said her worried mother, Jennifer Robinson. “But I don’t know if she’s OK.”

According to Central Alabama Crime Stoppers, Leah could be in Birmingham, where she has an older sister.

She could also be in the Alabama cities of Marion, Selma, or Mobile, or in Pensacloa. Investigators believe McDonald may be traveling in an unknown type of white car with a Florida license plate.

Leah’s mom lives in Atlanta and her father in Montgomery, where Leah was born. They made the decision that Leah would come to Alabama to live with her grandparents and hopefully experience a slower-paced life.

She’d been living in Georgia since the first grade and is now in the ninth grade.

“We wanted a little bit slower environment than Atlanta. We figured she’d thrive a little bit more there,’’ Robinson said.

“Atlanta is a lot faster. You’ve got Uber, Lyft the mall. Pretty much everything,’’ Robinson said. “We felt like she needed more of a calm structure, and she led a very privileged life here and I really wanted her to see what it felt like to just be normal.”

“I don’t think she was getting the grasp of what life looked like outside of my home,’’ she said. “We thought she needed to be in a smaller, more relaxed environment.”

“The biggest store there is a Walmart. There’s no mall. She could just be a 14-year-old,’’ Robinson said. “These younger kids are so mature, and I just didn’t want her to grow up too fast.”

“I do feel like it was a big change for her,’’ she said. “But she was adapting so well that my dad decided to give her her cell phone back.”

Mom and daughter had a good conversation when they last spoke on Mother’s Day.

“We told each other we loved each other,’’ Robinson said. “She was in a really good mood. Then she was just gone.”

Leah’s grandparents went to where she was supposed to be playing basketball, about a half mile from their home. Leah’s bicycle was there, but Leah wasn’t.

Robinson believes her daughter left willingly, but likely ran into a situation she wasn’t expecting.

“I think she’d been saying to friends that she was going to try to find her way back to Georgia,’’ Robinson said. “I think Georgia was a big deal for her, her identity is here.”

“Trying to get used to a new school, new friends, it was a culture shock for her,’’ she said.

Robinson feels Leah may have been picked up by either a friend, or someone she friended online.

“My thoughts are this person may have picked her up and this person was not who they said they were, and it was a bait and switch,’’ Robinson said. “We don’t have any evidence of that, it’s just what I think.”

One person has told them that Leah was trying to get to her sister in Birmingham.

“We’re even getting extortion letters,’’ she said. “You don’t know what’s real.”

Leah previously left home once in Atlanta and went to a friend’s house for a week.

“I knew where she was. Her friends knew where she was and she reached out and said she was OK,’’ Robinson said. “This time I’m not hearing anything. And she’s so addicted to social media that the fact that she’s not doing anything is very strange.”

“I think if she was safe, she would have sent something,’’ she said.

Robinson described Leah as “tough as nails,” and said she has talked about becoming a U.S. Marine when she gets older. She’s an avid basketball player, plays percussion in the school band and was in the ROTC program when she was in school in Atlanta.

“She’s an active child,’’ she said. “But she’s a typical teenager testing the waters.”

Her grandparents had recently gotten her two pet ducks, and she and her grandfather would go fishing together.

“It seemed like everything was working out,’’ Robinson said.

Leah is 5-feet, four-inches tall and weighs 140 pounds. She has brown eyes and black hair with dreadlocks.

She was last known to be wearing a black shirt, brown shorts, and blue Air Jordans. She has three beads and a seashell on one of her locks.

“That used to irritate me so bad,” her mother said, “but now I’m glad because that may be the one thing that helps people identify her.”

“It’s been really tough on the family,’’ Robinson said. “I don’t really know what’s going, which makes it even tougher.”

Anyone with information on Leah’s whereabouts is asked to call Jacksonville police at 251-246-4484 or Central Alabama Crime Stoppers at 334-215-STOP (7867) or 1-833-AL1-STOP. Tips can also be submitted through the P3-tips app.