Friday began as a special day for 7-year-old

. His school in Northwest Portland was having a science fair and he was keen to show off his project to his stepmother.

So, instead of taking the bus near his home off Cornelius Pass Road as usual, he hopped into the car with his stepmother,

, who drove him to Skyline Elementary School.

They arrived sometime after the school opened about 8 a.m., went to his classroom, dropped off his coat and backpack and he showed his stepmother his exhibit, "The Red-Eyed Tree Frog."

Horman, who has raised Kyron since he was an infant, snapped a picture of him standing in front of it that she later posted on her Facebook page. It shows a bespectacled and beaming short-haired boy wearing a blue "CSI" T-shirt in front of an exhibit with photos of bug-eyed frogs, an anatomical drawing of the creature and other artwork.

"He was so excited about his science project," said Carol Moulton, Horman's mother and Kyron's grandmother. "They had worked on it together. He was anxious to take it to school and show it off."

After that, the two looked at other projects set up on desks in classrooms. There are about 300 students at Skyline Elementary, and all of them were invited to contribute to the fair.

Although the school usually opens at 8:35 a.m. and the final bell rings 10 minutes later, the school opened as early as 8 Friday for the science fair, said Matt Shelby, spokesman for Portland Public Schools.

Other students and parents showed up early as well to check out the fair, and Terri and Kyron saw people they knew while looking at the exhibits, Carol Moulton said.

Terri often volunteers at the school, working closely with Kyron's teacher, Kristina Porter. Shelby said that Porter saw Kyron in her classroom with his stepmom before 8:45 a.m. and another instructor reported seeing him in another classroom at some point.

At 8:45 a.m. when the bell rang,

close to his class.

"He told her, 'I'm going back to the classroom, Mom,' and she waves to him and left," Carol Moulton said. "She thought he was safely at school just like he is everyday."

What happened to the boy who went missing is unclear.

Carol Moulton said the kids were supposed to report to their classes and be divided into small groups of a few students each. Each group was supposed to tour the science fair with a chaperone. Afterward, when they returned to their classes for roll call, Kyron wasn't there, she said.

After leaving the school, Terri went about her day, running errands and taking care of household chores. She is a former elementary school teacher and has worked as a substitute teacher at various schools, but Moulton said that in recent years she has mainly been a stay-at-home mom.

Kyron's father, Kaine Horman, works at Intel's main administrative facility in Oregon, the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro, the company said.

Kyron's biological mother, Desiree Horman, and his father were officially divorced in February 2003, according to Washington County Circuit Court records.

Carol Moulton said that Kaine, 36, and Terri, 40, have been together for seven or eight years and that they have been married for four or five years. The couple have an 18-month-old girl.

"Terri has raised Kyron," her mother said. "She's been with him since he was an infant. She's as much of a mom as the mom is because the parents had separated about the time that Kyron was born."

She said he visits his biological mother in Medford every couple of weeks and that Desiree, 38, came to Portland as soon as she heard about his disappearance.

Kyron was supposed to take the bus home Friday, so Terri went to the bus stop at 3:30 p.m. to pick him up.

But the bus driver told her he wasn't there.

Panicked, she ran home and called the school to discover that he had been marked absent for the day.

She called 9-1-1, setting off a search that's drawn in a swarm of officers and several law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

Officers, working with sniffer dogs, have combed the hilly, wooded area around Skyline Elementary.

Moulton doubts Kyron wandered off on his own. It's just not in his character, she said.

"He's a little bit dreamy. He's a sweet kid. He gets distracted. He's your typical second-grader," she said.

But he's no Huckleberry Finn.

"He's not real adventurous," she said. "He's a little timid. But if a friend wanted to go outside and look at something, he would follow the friend. He has a friend who he regularly gets in trouble with in the classroom because he talks too much."

Moulton said Kyron will not even venture far from his home in a wooded area.

"He won't get out of sight of the house," she said. "He's pretty insecure about that. So I can't see him wandering off."

His disappearance is devastating for the close-knit family, which plays board games together, goes bowling and enjoys visits to the Oregon Zoo. A few years ago, the family took a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

Terri also has a 16-year-old son from a former marriage who has lived with her mom and dad for the past few months in Roseburg. The teen's father also lives in the area and the two are on a Boy Scout camping trip this weekend.

It will be difficult to give him the news, Moulton said.

"It's a total mystery," she said. "He just vanished. I just can't believe it."

Staff writer Stephen Beaven of The Oregonian contributed to this report.



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