Grim indeed. Hey – isn’t this guy the dad in “Dennis the Menace”? An angrier, red-haired future version. Let's walk through this: A) This book takes place in the future. B) Margaret, that brainy little know-it-all down the street – she had red hair. Ergo C) this is Dennis’ great grandson, glimpsed in a wondrous future when tomatoes can be made to vanish, but we can't fix myopia, and people still have to poke pencils in their coat pockets. Anyway – they’re not grim because anything happened. They’re grim because the idea of the disseminator falling into the wrong hands is grim.

“However, I don’t worry too much about that,” said Professor Conroy. “The lab is protected by the best guard in the world.”

And that would be . . .