RAMONA -- A 16-year-old boy with a pellet gun seen walking toward a Ramona High School bus stop this morning returned home after showing it to friends, authorities said.

Sheriff's Lt. Jim Nolan said the boy never threatened anyone, and he never made it to the school.

Ramona Unified School District employees said at least four schools -- the high school; the school next to it, Olive Peirce Middle School; Ramona Community School, and Barnett Elementary School -- were locked down for about an hour while deputies searched for the boy, unaware that he was home.

The schools were told they could come off lockdown at 8:07 a.m., Lt. Jim Nolan said.

"We contacted the juvenile that was identified and located an Airsoft gun in his possession," said Nolan.

Ramona sheriff's Sgt. Rick Turvey said the boy was released to his parents, but a charge of having a replica weapon able to fire a metal object at a school or a school bus stop will be requested.

The person who called deputies at 6:46 a.m. said the boy was walking on a horse trail, going toward the bus stop about a block away in the 23000 block of Berryessa Court.

"We contacted the bus when it got to school and the individual wasn't on the bus," Nolan said.

Deputies searched the school, as well as the horse trail area.

It appears that the boy and his mother talked by phone after he showed the gun to friends at the bus stop, and he returned home, Turvey said.

The lockdown order came before classes started at the high school, a school secretary said.

"All students that were coming to school were huddled in the gymnasium or classrooms," she said.